{
  "id": "a_cmynnnaw",
  "oid": 165120,
  "revision": 1,
  "revision_oid": 165121,
  "work": "orthodoxy",
  "edition": "pg16769-r1",
  "title": "Cinderella's deadline and the limits of the example",
  "anchors": [
    {
      "unit": "CH04.P020",
      "oid": 85,
      "role": null,
      "edition": "pg16769-r1",
      "paragraph": "CH04.P020",
      "exact": "If Cinderella says, \"How is it that I must leave the ball at twelve?\"",
      "start": 659,
      "end": 728,
      "prefix": "hat, explain the fairy palace.\" ",
      "suffix": " her godmother might answer, \"Ho",
      "url": "/orthodoxy/pg16769-r1/CH04.P020#char=659,728"
    }
  ],
  "body_markdown": "The deadline belongs to the Perrault tradition of Cinderella. In the English witness reproduced by D. L. Ashliman from Andrew Lang's *The Blue Fairy Book* (1889), pp. 64–71, the godmother explicitly warns that the carriage, attendants and dress will revert after midnight. The page identifies Perrault's *Cendrillon* (1697) as Lang's source. Chesterton's imagined conversation is his own argumentative addition: this tale explains what the deadline does, but does not explain why the magic has that deadline. [Read the tale and its source statement](https://sites.pitt.edu/~dash/perrault06.html).\n\nThe ending also qualifies his use of it. Cinderella forgets the warning on the second evening; her clothes revert, but the lost slipper enables the prince to find her, and the godmother subsequently supplies splendid clothes again. Breaking the condition therefore ends one magical privilege without destroying all future happiness. Chesterton extracts an ethic of grateful acceptance from a particular feature of the story; he is not reproducing the whole plot's treatment of disobedience and recovery.",
  "sources": [
    {
      "url": "https://sites.pitt.edu/~dash/perrault06.html",
      "title": "Charles Perrault, Cinderella; or, The Little Glass Slipper, in Andrew Lang's The Blue Fairy Book",
      "locator": "Lang 1889, pp. 64–71; Ashliman transcription: godmother's midnight warning, second ball, slipper recognition and concluding source statement",
      "exact": null
    }
  ],
  "citations": [],
  "external_references": [
    {
      "url": "https://sites.pitt.edu/~dash/perrault06.html",
      "title": "Read the tale and its source statement"
    }
  ],
  "limits": [
    "The inspected witness is Ashliman's electronic reproduction of the Lang English text, not Perrault's 1697 French printing or a copy established as Chesterton's own."
  ],
  "metadata": {
    "run": "chapter-04-restart-2026-11-07",
    "paragraph_investigator": "P020",
    "task": [
      {
        "approach": "Assumed knowledge and unusual language",
        "question": "Which Cinderella tradition supplies the midnight condition, and does its ending sustain Chesterton's account of conditional joy?"
      },
      {
        "approach": "Theological contextualization",
        "question": "How does the distinction between breakability and perishability compare with Augustine's distinction between original and final immortality?"
      }
    ],
    "model": "gpt-6.1-sol"
  },
  "content_sha256": "sha256:a1e928253f322e4869634199ac3a2e92355c147a2973f4a5bb62f6c02f57f7c9",
  "created_at": "2026-11-07T16:59:23Z",
  "is_current": true,
  "url": "/a/a_cmynnnaw",
  "revision_path": "/a/a_cmynnnaw/r/1",
  "cited_by": []
}