For centuries, the fairy tale Cinderella, that everyone has come to know and love has been told in many different countries and in a variety of ways. Although each story is different, they all have similar meaning and each one "demonstrates how universal the Cinderella story is, as well as how unique each version is to the particular culture out which it grew" (Tam and Cam, 2012 Pg 194). Little girls all over the world are told some type of Cinderella story and they grow up dreaming that one day they'll be a princess just like the characters in the stories. They will find their prince charming to sweep them off their feet. However, these manipulative stories tend to teach girls that they do not need to be dependent on a man to take care of them. Girls should not grow up with that idea in their head, they should be told from the beginning that through patience and determination anything they set their mind to can happen without the reliance of anyone but themselves. The Cinderella characters are presented as civil and obedient young women. In "The Twelve Months," Maroula, who was the "Cinderella like character" lost her father and was stuck living with her stepmother and stepsister. She had to do all of the chores and wait on them hand and foot. They both treated Marouckla as a nuisance and whatever her stepmother asked, she did. "The stepmother also added her threats to those of Helen, and with vigorous blows they pushed Maroula outside and shut the door upon her. The weeping girl made her way to the mountain" (Chodzko, 2012 Pg 189). Maroula was threatened so much by her stepmother and stepsister that she wasted her younger years worrying about them more than herself. Each Cinderella character in these stories are not their own person and they usually live for the wicked stepmother and dreadful stepsisters who "elicits them to be passive by humbly suffering through her diurnal drudgery at the hands of her stepmother and stepsisters..