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Some themes, some quotations:

Is what you wish for what you want?

innocence and experience

“He’s a very nice prince” follows close on the heels of another statement about “nice,” but you might not think of that the first time you hear it.

“Wanting a ball isn’t wanting a prince.”

“You may know what you need, but to get what you want, better see that you keep what you have!”

People change in the woods; the changes might not always be good.

“You will never love someone else’s child the way you love your own,” says Cinderella’s stepmother, who will later take a knife to her own daughters.

“How do you know who you are if you don’t know what you want?”

“Children can only grow from something you love to something you lose.”

“No one is alone”—but in reality, to have others on your side takes a choice, from them.

Be careful the tale you tell: the effects of your parenting can last longer than you realize, whether you’ve told your daughter to be nice and good, abandoned your son, cursed your daughter if she breaks a rule, or made your son feel he’s not good enough.

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At the start of Into the Woods we’re introduced to a group of wishes: Jack wishes Milky White would give milk, Jack’s mother wishes her son were not a fool and for food and money to live, the baker and his wife wish to have a child, the witch wants to be young and beautiful again, and Cinderella wishes . . . to go to the festival.

Cinderella’s wish is trivial in the context of her life: she’s trapped in misery, an object of exploitation and of physical, mental, and emotional abuse (as a result of her father’s bad decisions, as it happens). She visits the grave of her mother, who sings, “Do you know what you wish? Are you certain what you wish is what you want?”

Despite that question, when given the choice for a wish, still Cinderella chooses to go to the festival.

There’s no sign she has thought of the festival as anything more than a brief diversion from her misery (and either way, she could’ve just asked for the new life directly). Why isn’t she asking to be taken away from her awful environment or wishing for some sort of lasting relief? Can she not imagine herself as anything more than other people’s tool? Has she been made to believe this is all she’s worth? Tragically, she seems to have no dream beyond looking in on someone else’s privileged life.

Later she asks how you know who you are if you don’t know what you want.

She doesn’t know what she wants, or can’t articulate it, and so she makes a stupid, small wish when she could’ve had much more.

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In Into the Woods, Jack is a central character, and we’re likely to think about his wishes, his desires, but in the prologue song his mother also voices wishes, and the first one is “I wish my son were not a fool.” This is the wish that gets granted, but at a very high price.

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The consequences of one person’s actions ripple out and out—and combine with ripples from other people’s actions in ways no one expected.

How are you to know what will come of what you do? How much responsibility do you bear for what you didn’t foresee, and will you accept it?

“You move just a finger / Say the slightest word / Something’s bound to linger / Be heard. / No one acts alone. / Careful! / No one is alone.”

No matter what you do, children won’t listen; be careful what you do, children will listen; be careful what you wish, wishes are children.