I think the scene in which Drizella and Anastasia tear up Cinderellaâs dress is one of the most, if not the most, dramatic, and even one of the most psychologically frightening, scenes in the entire film. I can understand so much of what is going on, far more than just what is seen and heard on the screen, that it provides a lot for me to interpret and describe. This even includes the moments that happen before and after the dress is destroyed.
For starters, just before the Tremaines leave, Cinderella runs downstairs in her motherâs dress, which was altered for her by the birds and mice. Having initially believed they have succeeded in making sure Cinderella wonât go to the ball, all of the Tremaines are completely stunned and shocked at this sudden change of events. This proves how much the three, particularly Lady Tremaine, hate it when they are defeated by Cinderella. But just why are they so upset about Cinderella now having a chance to attend the ball? Well, for starters, the Tremaines donât see her as a member of the upper class anymore. They see Cinderella as nothing more than a mere servant girl who shouldnât be allowed to go to balls or have a good time at any kind of social event. But the real reason is because Drizella and Anastasia, who are ugly and very unladylike, are already jealous of Cinderellaâs beauty and kindness. They want, while their mother wants to use them, to snag the prince (one between the two of them) for his hand in marriage, which is the only reason they are going in the first place. But if Cinderella is there, they wouldnât stand a chance since she has just what they do not. The girls already feel that Cinderella is a threat to them, so they do not want her at the ball because her presence could ruin their chances of wooing the prince.
So then after their initial shock wears off, Drizella and Anastasia begin to loudly whine and complain to their mother that she shouldnât let Cinderella go with them. Anastasia even grabs her motherâs dress and flaps it (and her body) up and down, like a misbehaving child having a tantrum, which shows just how childish and spoiled she is and is acting. The girls complaining tells me that, even if they or their mother make a bargain with someone, they donât believe in them keeping their side of it; in other words, they donât want to be fair to the other person. The only personsâ happiness and fairness they consider is their own; the Tremaines do not want to be fair unless it benefits themselves only. And when it comes to Cinderella, they certainly donât want to be fair with her at all. What this also proves is that, despite Cinderella defeating them for now, Anastasia and Drizella canât stand seeing Cinderella happy because that only makes them unhappy. Like their mother, they get the most delight when Cinderella is unhappy. And since Cinderellaâs dress further adds to her outward beauty, it increases her stepsistersâ fear that that they wonât have a chance in winning the heart of the prince if Cinderella is also there.
Like her daughters, Lady Tremaine is also shocked that Cinderella managed to get a dress. This, along with the fact that she has taken everything away from Cinderella, indicates that she gravely underestimates her stepdaughterâs ability to remain resourceful and happy, despite years of abuse. Unlike her daughters, Lady Tremaine remains cool and calm, then reminds the girls that she made a bargain with Cinderella, so she has to keep her side of it. But then when she says, âAnd I never go back on my word,â Lady Tremaineâs facial expression, along with her voice tone, subtly shows that she is getting a very clever, but also sinister, idea. Not to mention that, when she says this line, she also approaches Cinderella in a very menacing manner. And look at Cinderellaâs face as this happens: she moves her head back and her eyes widen, which clearly shows that she is afraid. This is an excellent moment of displaying how Cinderella is in no way naĂŻve or stupid. Even though she is kind to Lady Tremaine, she is also very aware of just how cruel and sinister her stepmother really is. While she bravely attempts to stand up for herself now and then, Cinderella still has moments of being scared of her stepmother. So when Lady Tremaine walks towards her, Cinderella is afraid because she develops a gut feeling that the reason her stepmother is approaching her isnât a good one. Maybe she thinks that Lady Tremaine is finally going to hit her, since she never has before.
But even with the amount of physical proximity between them, Lady Tremaine never literally nor physically lays a hand on Cinderella. Instead, she cunningly notices Drizellaâs discarded beads around Cinderellaâs neck, then touches them, and this is the closest she ever gets to actually touching Cinderellaâs body. At the same time, Lady Tremaine compliments the beads, saying, âThey give it just the right touch,â then she asks Drizella if she thinks so. When she asks her daughter, what follows afterwards is exactly what she wants to happen: Drizella begins to answer no, then realizes that Cinderella is wearing the very same beads that she discarded. She accuses Cinderella of stealing said beads and rips them off from around her neck. After that, Anastasia notices that Cinderella is also wearing her discarded sash, and like her sister, she tears it off of Cinderellaâs dress. Out of jealousy and spite for their stepsister, and having already started to ruin it, like a chain reaction, the girls continue to tear up Cinderellaâs dress. In their blind rage of performing this horrible act, Drizella and Anastasia note what other items are theirs, and they verbally abuse Cinderella with words like âthiefâ and âkitchen wench.â Cinderella becomes afraid when they start and grows more terrified as they continue. In her fright, she protests and tells her stepsisters to stop, but her cries are completely ignored.
Now you may wonder, if Drizella and Anastasia donât want these items anymore, why are they so furious that Cinderella is wearing them and then they take them back? Because it still ties in with the fact that Drizella and Anastasia are already extremely jealous and feel threatened that Cinderella outshines them with her natural beauty. They donât want Cinderella to have material possessions, especially more or nicer things than what they have, or be better at them at anything. The girls are already annoyed that Cinderella managed to produce a dress after all, and since these items help enhance Cinderellaâs beauty, including within the dress, well, they just canât stand it if something, especially something they owned, helps Cinderella look more beautiful. They already face this beauty competition with their stepsister everyday, and so they wonât allow it to happen in this way. But Drizella and Anastasia donât take the beads and sash back because they truly want them back; they just donât want Cinderella to have them, period. They would rather throw them in the trash than give them to someone else who could use them, especially Cinderella. Like I said earlier, their actions are very petty and done purely out of spite and the burning envy they have for their stepsister. With that in mind, one could even say that tearing the dress, something beautiful owned by Cinderella and not them, apart was a cruel act Anastasia and Drizella have wanted to do to her for a long time.
And while the girls are tearing Cinderellaâs dress apart, what is their mother doing? Nothing! Lady Tremaine just merely watches, with delight, no doubt, as Anastasia and Drizella tear the dress to shreds. This is exactly what she wanted to happen because she wants to still appear fair from her side of the deal, but also to keep Cinderella from attending the ball all together. Lady Tremaine acts as a hypocrite in this moment because earlier, when the girls fight during their music lesson, she tells them to maintain self-control. But now, while she restrains and doesnât lay a hand or finger on her stepdaughter, she lets her daughters savagely attack Cinderella and tear up her dress. Heck, during this entire moment, Lady Tremaine indirectly sics them on Cinderella like vicious attack dogs! When she finally tells them to stop, she says, âI wonât have you upsetting yourselves.â This seems to be ironic and make little to no sense because Anastasia and Drizella were attacking Cinderella in a jealous rage, but I guess Lady Tremaine wanted to sound ironic and hypocritical in front of Cinderella. It could also mean that she wants the girls to calm down so they will have self-control when they meet the prince. Not to mention, since they have succeeded in making sure Cinderella does not go to the ball, they can calm down now.
When Cinderella is shown again, after her stepsisters walk out of the house, her dress is in tatters, with all of the major layers having been completely stripped off. One of her shoulders is totally bare, and Iâm willing to bet that if Drizella and Anastasia tore off anymore of the dress, Cinderella would be almost completely unclothed. In fact, that is probably the only reason why Lady Tremaine told them to stop. They had torn off more than they needed to ensure that Cinderella couldnât go, but their mother probably did not want them to see Cinderella unclothed. Cinderella does not say anything, likely because she is so in shock and upset over what happened that she doesnât know what to say. She wears a look that clearly shows shock along with distress, and all she does is stand there and look at a torn part of the dress. But Cinderella is not only upset that her dream and chance at going to the ball has been brutally ruined; another factor that ties into this is that the dress she was wearing once belonged to her mother, who is deceased, along with her (Cinderellaâs) father.
The beginning of the film reveals that her mother is dead, since her father is said to be a âwidowed gentleman.â Once her mother passed, Cinderellaâs only family left was her father. After he died, the Tremaines revealed their true colors and took nearly all of Cinderellaâs material possessions away from her. All she has left of her parents are memories, but the dress was probably one of the few, if only, keepsakes of one of them that was still in her possession. Not only does it remind Cinderella of how happy her life once was, it symbolizes a fresh start and a chance at a better life for her. So when Anastasia and Drizella, two of the three people who hate her the most, insult her and tear the dress apart, Cinderella literally has her memories of her late mother, one of only two people who ever truly loved her, as well as her dreams of a better future, savagely destroyed and torn to shreds. When the girls and Lady Tremaine took things away from Cinderella, I bet they also discarded everything that belonged to both of Cinderellaâs parents. So back to when after her dress is destroyed, Cinderellaâs look clearly says that she is finally giving up. For someone who said earlier that her stepfamily couldnât take her dreams away, what just happened makes Cinderella realize that they just did; therefore, she feels can no longer rely on her faith and dreams.
The final part of this scene that is worth analyzing is right before Lady Tremaine leaves. When Cinderella looks at the torn remains of her dress, in her distressed state, she looks back in Lady Tremaineâs direction. Right before she closes the door, Lady Tremaine merely looks back at Cinderella and says, âGood night.â Being who she is, she does not truly mean what she says. She has an arrogant, self-satisfied smile on her face, which clearly shows how cold, cruel, uncaring, and insincere she is feeling about what just happened. Her tone of voice when she speaks these words also reflects Lady Tremaineâs insincerity. Given what she says, along with seeing Cinderellaâs distressed state before she leaves, I think she realized that Cinderella had finally come to her breaking point (towards which she was attempting to push Cinderella for a long time). But because she and her daughters had to leave, I can bet that Lady Tremaine was only sorry that they couldnât stick around to see Cinderella cry. Perhaps she was just more relieved that Cinderella was now out of her and her daughtersâ way. Maybe she is even thinking about later, because she and her daughters can brag and tease Cinderella about missing the good time they had (or so they think they will have) at the ball. If they rub this in her face, maybe the Tremaines can make Cinderella cry again, and in front of them this time.
So there you have it with all of my analytical thoughts and interpretations about every major and minor thing that takes place in this entire scene. Out of everything I have discussed, the moment that I think best shows Lady Tremaineâs villainy is her lines when she walks towards Cinderella, and how they lead to the entire moment of the girls tearing the dress apart. Think about it: Lady Tremaine is being literal when she says, âAnd I never go back on my word.â But while she says that, what she DOESNâT literally say is anything along the lines of keeping her promise. See, she agreed that Cinderella could go to the ball, as long as she finished her work, and âif she found something suitable to wear.â Her stepmother is not happy that Cinderella manages to produce a dress at the last minute because she never actually wanted to her go in the first place. But when she sees the dress, Lady Tremaine comes up with another idea to keep her scheme intact. When she notices that Cinderella is wearing Drizellaâs beads, she mentions them because she knew Drizella would get angry and steal them back, and then Anastasia would do the same with the sash. In their resulted anger, the girls destroy the dress, not only because they had started to do so, but because they are indirectly manipulated to do it by their mother, who still wants to remain the authority figure and appear fair (when she clearly wouldnât be) from her side of the bargain with Cinderella. So then ultimately Cinderellaâs dress is destroyed and in tatters, and Lady Tremaine thinks she has won this round because Cinderella literally no longer has something âsuitableâ to wear in order to go. To describe it in another way, because of her state, she literally cannot go to the ball now, although not in the way that would truly be fair. Lady Tremaine just used her manipulative ways to make sure she would still be keeping her end of the bargain and not going back on her word (because she literally, directly, and physically did not do anything to make it look like she wasnât being fair), but especially to make sure that her goal of keeping Cinderella from going to the ball entirely was fulfilled. This, along with when she locks Cinderella in her room and trips the herald to break the slipper, are what I consider to be Lady Tremaineâs most evil moments.
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