The literary fairy tale, from its birth in the French salonnes of the seventeenth century, became a privileged
space for critical reflection on the performance and constructedness of the cultural categories of gender and
identity. From the perspective of Judith Butler’s theory of gender performativity, the essay investigates the
narrative strategies through which women fairy-tale writers Mme d’Aulnoy and Mlle Lhérititer contested the
patriarchal constructions of gender identities. More specifically, the analysis of the motifs of vengeance and
rivalry in their versions of the Cinderella theme (Finette Cendron and L’Adroite Princesse, ou Les Aventures
de Finette) reveals how the early modern French women authors created a new type of heroine who
redefined the notions of feminine and brought under scrutiny the masculine conceptions of gender difference
and social roles.
