Ella Enchanted

Ella Enchanted
Written by: Gail Carson Levine
Central Theme:
Synopsis:
Genre(s): Fantasy
First published: 1997

Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine is a Twice-Told Tale based on the Fairy Tale "Cinderella".

At birth, Ella, the protagonist, is given the "gift" of obedience by Lucinda, a fairy. Thus is Ella Blessed with Suck. She is forced to obey every direct order given to her, no matter what. Eventually Ella learns to fight the curse, delaying her obedience, but she becomes sick when she tries. She also fights the curse by not doing exactly what is wanted when the wording of an order is not clear enough.

The basics of "Cinderella" are in Ella Enchanted: There is a Missing Mom, then later a Wicked Stepmother. There is a Disappeared Dad, as Ella's father is often away on business. (The closer the book gets to the climax, the more Cinderella plot elements are included.)

A film adaptation based (loosely) on the book was released in 2004. It took a few liberties with the plot.

Fairest is a loose, meta sequel. According to some it is actually a companion, due to the timing. Ogre Enchanted is a prequel showing how Peter of Frell, Ella's father, nearly became king of Kyria.

Tropes used in Ella Enchanted include:
  • Abusive Parents: Ella's father Sir Peter, of the neglectful variety. Dame Olga also counts; she treats Olive as a nuisance and only appreciates Hattie for her gold-digging qualities.
  • Adaptational Personality Adjustment: Ella is no typical Cinderella. She's not someone that will demurely do all the chores just because she's asked to; oh, she has to obey orders from anyone who gives them, as long as she understands the language, but she hates every bit of it and will sometimes go for malicious compliance.
  • Arranged Marriage: Ella's father tries to set her up for one with an old duke. It doesn't push through once her father finds out the duke isn't as rich as he thinks.
  • Ayorthaian Best Friend: Areida
  • Beware the Nice Ones: Charmont. In one of his letters to Ella, he admits to ruining his tutor's career when he was younger just because the man made his sister cry. And years later, he still resents the tutor.
  • Break His Heart to Save Him: Ella tries this with Charmont, knowing that if they do get married she'll only put both him and the kingdom in danger because of her curse.
  • Big Eater: Dame Olga and her daughters.
  • Big Damn Heroes: Charmont and his knights saving Ella from the ogres. Subverted slightly by Ella aiding the attempt.
  • Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Dame Olga. When we first meet her, she seems nice enough, at least compared to her daughters (especially Hattie). But once she marries Ella's father and discovers that he had no money, she quickly turns into the cruel, abusive, petty stepmother we know from the Cinderella tale, making Ella a slave in her own home and tormenting the girl after her father leaves for business.
  • Blessed with Suck:
    • Ella. Almost literal example!
    • Several, in fact. Lucinda's "blessings" tend to focus on making their recipients better children, where "better" is dictated by the sort of book which declares that the proper behavior for a child is to sit quietly and behave like a miniature adult. She's always baffled when the recipient is unhappy with their Stepford Life.
    • Don't forget, she's even turned people into squirrels too! Because squirrels are obviously always happy.
  • Brought Down to Normal: Briefly done to Lucinda herself so she realizes the complete horror of what she's done to everyone. Unfortunately, she can't break Ella's curse, or anyone's for that matter, because it's a matter of willpower.
  • Con Man: Ella's father tries selling land that doesn't belong to him; getting found out and having to pay off the massive debt leaves him and his daughter nearly penniless.
  • Costume Porn: Lampshaded, when Ella sees Dame Olga's letter to her daughters, which mostly describes her clothing and her social calendar. She only remembers she was writing to them by the last paragraph.
  • Cunning Linguist: Ella and her natural proficiency with languages.
  • Curse Escape Clause: Not until the very end. The curse is broken once Ella disobeys an order, which she is only able to do, with great difficulty, when the stakes are high enough. Merely saving her own life isn't sufficient, but when it comes to the future of the man she loves and the entire kingdom...
  • Exact Words: Ella learns to do this to work around her curse.
  • Fairy Godmother: Deconstructed with Lucinda, who goes around giving Blessed with Suck "help" to people who don't want it, and Mandy, Ella's actual godmother, who it turns out is also a fairy but is much more inconspicuous (and thoughtful) about the help she gives.
  • Getting Smilies Painted on Your Soul: Ella, at her father's unknowing command. Not helped by the elven mushrooms she eats later, making her shamelessly flirtatious towards the old duke her father wants her to marry. When Mandy snaps her out of it later, she's horrified.
  • Gold Digger: A mutual attempt with Ella's father and Dame Olga--except that Dame Olga doesn't know that Sir Peter doesn't have any money until it's too late.
  • Green-Eyed Monster: Hattie is jealous of Ella because she's brave, smart, and pretty. It's mainly the reason why she treats Ella so miserably.
  • Grew a Spine: A concrete-metaphor version, with Ella's compulsion to obey orders that she has to overcome.
  • Hates Small Talk: Not exactly hate, but all the Ayorthaians that Charmont stayed with for a year were like this. Not through snobbiness, either; it's just they're more contemplative, more appreciative of silence, and far too polite. Much to Charmont's displeasure.
  • Irony: Being blessed with "obedience" let to Ella being more stubborn.
  • Karma Houdini:
  • Laser-Guided Karma: Ella's stepfamily and her father. Hattie never marries the prince (or at all), and Ella gets her mother's necklace back. While neither she nor her the rest of her family are punished for abusing Ella, they are excluded from the royal court.
  • Kick the Dog: Done to Ella a lot by Dame Olga, Hattie, and Olive, as well as the extremely snooty governesses at the girl's academy.
  • Masquerade Ball
  • Missing Mom: Ella's mom dies of illness early in the book.
  • More Than Mind Control: Ella's spell.
  • Motor Mouth: Charmont's knight who takes Ella to the giant's wedding.
  • Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Ella is never shown reclaiming her mother's necklace from Hattie. She does recover it, but it's only a quick throwaway line in the epilogue.
    • Oddly enough, this is fixed in the film version.
  • Omniglot: Ella is fluent in Kyrrhian, and knows more than enough Ayorthaian, Gnomish, Elvish, and Ogrish to get by.
  • Our Elves Are Different: Our elves strongly resemble plants and place extreme value on beautifully crafted objects.
  • Plucky Girl: Ella. She gets captured by ogres, doesn't panic, and manages to practice enough Ogrese to stall them from eating her until Char and his knights rescue her.
  • Prince Charming: Levine plays on this: the prince's name is Charmont, which is a letter away from 'Charmant,' the French word for 'Charming.' Playing it further, he actually hates his full name and only likes to be called "Char".
  • Reality Ensues: Lucinda has spent her life flitting around and giving "gifts" to people at weddings and christenings; those that complain get turned into squirrels because they are cute. Mandy schemes with Ella to bet with Lucinda about trying out her gifts; become a squirrel for three months, and an obedient person. Six months past, and Lucinda arrives to Mandy's kitchen broken and sobbing; she fulfilled the bet and is horrified. Turns out being a squirrel means being a tiny mammal without a regular place to sleep, shelter from the elements, or protection from predators. She was often cold, wet, and hungry. Then she posed as the obedient child of a baker, and found out having to obey every order without question is not fun or a blessing; she was told what to think so didn't even have freedom of mind.
  • Rich Bitch: Dame Olga and her daughters Hattie and Olive.
  • Royal Brat: Hattie and Olive.
  • Royals Who Actually Do Something: Prince Charmont readily goes out to hunt ogres with his knights to protect the citizens of his kingdom.
  • This Is My Name on Foreign
  • Tongue-Tied: Ella's mother orders her not to tell anyone about her curse.
  • Two-Person Love Triangle: When Charmont falls for Ella's masked alter ego at the balls.
  • What Does She See in Him?: Specifically, "what did she see in him?" Ella asks Mandy this about her parents, since they seemed like such complete opposites.
  • Wicked Stepmother: Kicks in with Dame Olga almost immediately after the marriage.
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