Disclaimer: Quote overheard in a conversation yelled across space and time. In college, really.
***
"Some ****ing Cinderella left a shoe on the dance floor. I tripped over it and fell. Damnation."
That poor Prince Charming!
If only he had not been drunk, and noticed that single shoe (not just to curse its presence on the dance floor), he might have found his Cinderella. Not a complete certainty, no, but it could still have happened.
Wait, though. Aren't we making an assumption here that Charming would actually have wanted to meet his Cinderella? Maybe he'd already found his Cinderella, and this shoe was one of those freak accidents along the way that make your nose bleed and gross out your Cinderella. Or maybe Charming's Cinderella was the wrong Cinderella and this was the universe's way of telling him he had the wrong one and should keep looking. It's also possible that it was this owner-of-the-shoe-Cinderella's way of sending out a signal to her Prince Charming (a different one), and this one just got in the way.
Maybe this was Bachelor Prince Charming, a charming cynic who didn't believe in fairy tales and had no time to spend on Cinderellas and glass shoes (four inch heels notwithstanding) except to cuss its audacity to lie so brazenly and inconsiderately on the dance floor. Or maybe he was the Henpecked Prince Charming, who had grown up and long since forgone his belief in fairy tales and true love.
Or it may not have been Cinderella at all. It could have been Snow White, deciding she didn't particularly like the way she had to bite into insidiously poisoned apples and wait around for her guy to show up. Or Rapunzel, who liked bobbed hair, high heels and partying better than imprisonment in tall towers. Or that daughter of a weaver who didn't want to meet Rumplestiltskin. Perhaps we're just attributing personalities to her; it could be that she was just another cynic, and her shoe recalcitrant.
It may just have had a devious plan to trip someone over; after all, it can't be fun being staccatoed in tune with Punjabi songs for hours on end. It could have been miserably lost, and just in Charming's way. Or maybe, just maybe, the shoe realised that this Cinderella and this Prince Charming (cynicism and indifference notwithstanding) were meant to meet and be, and decided now was better than later or never.
Come to think of it, it's just one shoe, and a million possible reasons surrounding the mystery of its lone presence on the dance floor.
12 comments:
wow... i can see that this is the effect of e h carr's chapter on causation on u... it has affected u pretty well, i can see.. ;)
it's a well-analysed piece, for sure. but i think if i were that girl (whoever she may have been) and assuming she even existed... i would have preferred a story without that shoe! there is no need for analysing the cause for it being there, just as there is absolutely no rationality involved in love..... :)
Interesting. You have a pretty comprehensive list of possibilities!
But I have another one -
What if prince charming was gay? One big reason why he would have no interest in meeting Cinderella. But perhaps then he would be called princess charming. :D
And yes, as ashwini said, your shoe also appears to have a mind of its own - unless it signifies society perhaps?
Could we not be post-modernist please? :p
All the Prince was required to do was kiss the shoe a la The Frog Prince, and voila! :)
@ashwini:
Heh. I'm sure certain other ppl will not agree I understand Carr. :)
See, think about it, should there not be rationality in love? Or is this a la Vaaranam Aayiram?! :P
@verun:
Oh, true! I missed out that one. Forgive me, Prince(ss)! :) Let's not genderize this issue.
@the piper:
Let's not give names to this, hm? :D
@the lad:
The Shoe Prince?!
people say 'Damnation' in conversation yelled across space and time?
ooh.
Ah, so now you're being a post-structuralist as well.
@woenvu:
Well, fine! Whoever said it didn't say damnation; it was more colourful.
@the piper:
Pooh. *sticks tongue out*
sigh, campus is less... cool than i thought.
Damnation!
word veri - cople: what's a couple without u?
hey traveller, how about applying some dialectics to the situation at hand. The shoe - tracing it back to the effect of what it is...
thesis: Charming (if I may borrow your terminology)
antithesis: cinderella.
synthesis: attraction; binge on the dance floor.
parallel thesis: (as you have already stated) drunk Mr.Charming
antithesis: revulsed Cinderella
synthesis: slaps and shoes thrown
So maybe he never tripped.
And for Marx this little glass shoe has become that omnipotent symbol of the generations long class struggle and a straw in the wind suggesting a "sexual revolution". :P
By the way: congrats on the Ph.D in "fairytaling" ; I still mix my Rapunzels and Thumbelinas
@woenvu:
Single!
Ha! That's a joke, and a good one, I say! :D
@rhapsodise-r:
Wow. You've really taken it to a new level!
And I will help correct your fairytale lexicon once I'm home. :)
*insert irrelevant bit of info* I used to think Tom Thumb and Thumbelina were going out until I found out they were completely different stories. Sigh.
:P
*continuing the irrelevance* I am sure Tom Thumb and Thumbelina are happy that you have finally stopped spreading rumours about them...Mrs. Thumb was deeply hurt you see, not to mention the fairy prince who was planning to strip Thumbelina of her wings...
By the way, i noticed a corruption of my virtual name there :P
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