Ella Enchanted

Infobox Book |
name = Ella Enchanted
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author = Gail Carson Levine
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country = United States
language = English
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genre = Fantasy
publisher = HarperTrophy
release_date = 1997
media_type = Print (Hardcover, Paperback) and Audiobook
pages = 240 pp
isbn = ISBN 0-06-440705-5
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"Ella Enchanted" is a Newbery Honor book written by Gail Carson Levine and published in 1997. It is also the title of the American movie based on the novel and released April 9, 2004 directed by Tommy O'Haver and starring Anne Hathaway and Hugh Dancy. The story is a retelling of "Cinderella" featuring various mythical creatures including fairies, elves, ogres, gnomes, and giants.

Plot outline

At birth, Eleanor (Ella) of Frell was given the "gift" of obedience by a fairy named Lucinda. This forces her to obey any order given to her.

When she is fifteen, her mother dies. At the funeral, she befriends Prince Charmont (Char). Soon afterwards, her father sends her to finishing school with the snotty daughters of the wealthy Dame Olga: Hattie and Olive. Hattie realizes Ella always does what she is told, but she does not exactly know why.She starts to take advantage of it, but Ella takes comfort from her new friend Areida.

When Ella learns that her father is attending a wedding where fairies may be present, she runs away in the hope of finding Lucinda at the wedding and asking to have the curse lifted. On the way to the wedding, she is almost kidnapped by ogres who eat her horse and order her not to run away. However, when they are about to eat her, she uses her knowledge of their hypnotic language to charm them to sleep, and is soon saved by Char and his knights.

She finds Lucinda and tries to persuade her to lift the curse, but Lucinda refuses. Instead, Lucinda orders Ella to be happy about her "gift", but luckily, Mandy, her fairy god-mother, realizes it's just another order, and reverses it. Ella returns to the manor with her father, who, after failing to find a rich husband for Ella, decides to marry Dame Olga in order to pay off his debts. She meets Prince Char again at the wedding. They find glass slippers hidden in a garden and Char gives them to Ella. A few days later he leaves the country for a year, but they write to each other frequently.

After Ella's father leaves to continue his trading business, Dame Olga makes Ella a slave in her own house. Meanwhile, Ella and Char fall in love. Char proposes in a letter, but she realizes that while she is under the curse, marrying him would put him and the country in danger: she could be ordered to kill him. To prevent this, she tricks him into believing she's eloped with another man.

Char, heartbroken returns and holds a royal ball each night for three nights. Ella, who still loves him, is overcome with the desire to see him again, and decides to go in disguise. With the help of Mandy and Lucinda (who has reformed), and wearing the glass slippers, she goes to the balls under the name "Lela". On the third night of the ball, when she's dancing with Char, the jealous Hattie snatches off her mask and Ella flees, losing a slipper on the way. She runs to the manor, where she and Mandy plan to run away and make their living as cooks, but Char and his knights arrive before they can leave.

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Characters (story relationships)

Main characters

Ella

Ella is the protagonist of the story. She is a charming and witty girl with black hair and green eyes. Despite her curse of obedience, she has a headstrong and rebellious spirit. She easily captivates Prince Charmont with her sense of humor. She also acts naturally around him, and doesn’t always appear to be trying to impress him like most young girls would. Ella is naturally clumsy, forever tripping and dropping things. This makes it especially hard for Ella to obey the commands at finishing school. Ella has a knack for languages and uses them throughout the novel to her advantage. Ella is also very selfless, as shown when she refuses the prince’s proposal because of the danger she could possibly put him in. Ella shows the ultimate strength and devotion to Char when he commands her to marry him and she refuses and breaks the curse because of her true and unselfish love for him. After their marriage she takes the position of Court Linguist and Cook's Helper (refusing the title of princess) of Kyrria.

Prince Charmont (Char)

Prince Char is the prince of Kyrria, with whom Ella falls in love. He is young and quite handsome, and has many good attributes, such as his genuine kindness and his gentle and easygoing nature. In a letter to Ella, Char says that, though she doubtless finds all the good in him, she must not overlook the bad. He goes on to admit that, though he is slow to anger, he is also slow to forgive, as shown with his lifetime-long grudge against a language tutor. Pride is another of his faults, though it is a weaker trait in him. He falls unconditionally in love with Ella and never gives up on her, despite the fact that she hurt him in her quest to save him. When he says he will never marry after he believes Ella no longer loves him, his devotion and unwavering love for Ella is shown. He is not aware of Ella's curse until the end of the novel, so the commands he issues are not intentional and in no way meant to harm Ella.

Mandy

Mandy is the household cook, and Ella's fairy godmother. Mandy told Ella that she was her fairy godmother after Ella's mother died, but ordered Ella to tell no one. Her recipes are adored by all, and it is her talent for cooking that places her in a high position among the others. She looks after Ella by teaching and caring for her as one of her own.

Areida

Areida is Ella's only friend at finishing school, and teaches Ella her language, Ayorthaian. Their friendship is often their sole source of comfort. Areida's family operates an inn in Ayortha. She is the sister of Aza, the protagonist of "Fairest". Areida's lack of wealth and her foreign accent make her unpopular with her classmates. Yet from the beginning, Areida is described as kind-hearted and unselfish. She has an elegant voice and shows compassion for the girls that have ridiculed her, even nursing one such pupil back to health after she falls ill with food poisoning. She grows up to be a good physician.

Lucinda

Lucinda is the fairy that "blessed" Ella with the "gift" of obedience at her birth and would not let her take it off. She stubbornly considers her various gifts to be wonderful. Unlike other fairies, who keep their identities hidden from ordinary non-magic folk, Lucinda performs "big" magic carelessly and openly. Anyone who threatens or pleads with her, unsatisfied with her interference, she transforms into a squirrel. Her other "gifts" include eternally binding two giant newly-weds (neither of them can ever be without the other) and causing Dame Olga and Sir Peter to love one another eternally. She likes people to know that she's a fairy, as when she appears the scent of lilacs greet the room. Later in the novel, she finally experiences first-hand the suffering that she has caused with her gifts, and her perspective transforms completely. Although she refrains from using "big" magic to break Ella's curse, she helps her in smaller ways...

Hattie

Hattie is Ella's stepsister in the story. Although she is somewhat simple-minded and unimaginative, she is relatively quick-witted and clever. She quickly realizes that Ella will do whatever she wants (the reason remains unknown to her), and uses it to her advantage. She enjoys ordering Ella around and using her to complete unpleasant tasks, including cleaning Hattie's feet and plucking out the hair above her lip. She and Ella torture each other throughout the story (for example, when Ella is ordered to take off Hattie's shoes, she does so but then throws them out the window into a bucket of slops). Her greatest ambition is to marry Prince Charmont and become queen. Hattie inherited Dame Olga's desire for riches and pleasure in displaying them in their finest splendor.

Olive

Olive is the simpleton of the family. She is Ella's younger stepsister. She is largely oblivious to the guile of her sister (she has only worked out that when Hattie orders Ella to do something, Ella does it, and that when she, Olive, orders the same thing, Ella will do it too) and longs to have the same amount of things as Hattie. She is barely literate and has a strange fascination for obtaining money from other people. She has a large appetite, and unlike her mother and sister, she enjoys Ella's company, though Ella says that it is no advantage to her. At the end of the story, Olive marries a widower who falls in love with her unwavering attention; in exchange for her hand in marriage, she demands that her husband give her 20 KJs every day and serve a white cake at every meal.

Minor characters

ir Peter

Sir Peter is Ella's father. He's a greedy and selfish merchant. Bertha, a maid, describes his character as "ashes mixed with coins and a brain." He tries to use his clever ways to gain riches. He gained his wealth through trickery and deceit and loses it the same way. Sir Peter takes pride in Ella for being a brave, sassy child. Once he gets to know his daughter, he notes their resemblance, laughs at her attitude, and seems to grow somewhat fond of her. Yet he deals little with his child and is more concerned for his business than her well-being. They have a distant relationship, as Ella acknowledges his corrupt, greedy nature and finds it unpleasant - especially during his attempts to force her to marry.

Lady Eleanor

Lady Eleanor is Ella's mother, and dies early in the story. She had a playful spirit and a close relationship with her daughter Ella. They slid down the stair banisters together, yelling and screaming during the rides. They were also notorious for climbing to the top of trees and knocking acorns down at those who passed beneath them. Despite her playful and trouble-making spirit, Lady Eleanor taught virtuous values to Ella — such as the wrongs of using her fists for fighting. Her death was triggered when, already ill, she did not consume the vital unicorn hair in Mandy's "Curing Soup."

Dame Olga

Ella's stepmother in the story. In the beginning, she is portrayed as an overbearing (in her coy and melodramatic nature) and odious woman when they meet in the aftermath of the funeral of Ella's mother. In her letters to her daughters at finishing school, she talks mostly of her social events and her attire while attending. Infatuated, she marries "Sir P." when he proposes to her (he does so for her wealth, as he is bankrupt), and once she learns of this, she makes Ella suffer through housework. Although a fairy cast a spell of "eternal love" on her and Sir Peter, Ella's father refers to her as "odious" and prefers to love her from afar.

See also

*Fairest
*Cinderella