Cupid & Psyche vs. the Frog King

 
          The tale of “Cupid and Psyche” is similar in ways to the story of “The Frog King.”   
          First of all, the stories share the two facts that the girls are the youngest and most beautiful in the family, and they are forced to marry a beastly creature.  
          Second, both stories start with the girls showing their beautiful side, then at the climax of the story they show a bit of an ugly side through their personalities(Psyche-when she goes to kill her husband, and the young princess-when she refuses to be companions with the Frog), and then finally showing their beautiful side again.  Both stories emphasize that everyone has an ugly side and beautiful side.
          There are more differences however between the two stories.
          The princess' father in the Frog King forced her to marry and be a companion to the frog.  She was not pleased with this at all.  When the frog asked her to lift her into his bed, she became angry and threw him against the wall.  At that point he transformed into a prince, she fell in love with them and they lived happily ever after.

           In Cupid and Psyche, however, Psyche may have been forced to marry the beast, but she loved him dearly before she actually found out what he was.  She only discovered what he was because her two sisters convinced her to kill him in the middle of the night.  He turned out to be Cupid, and she later became immortal in order to be with him forever.
          Finally, in the Frog Prince, the girl only meets the frog because she looses her golden ball in the well and the frog offers to get it for her for a price.  In Cupid and Psyche the goddess Venus, Cupids mother, is angered by the fact that Psyche is more beautiful and so she sends Cupid to punish her, which is when he falls in love with her.
          There are few similarities and many differences, however both stories exercise the theme of a beauty and a beast falling in love with each other, and that, I must say, is the most important similarity.