This story, going from Maisie’s home situation and her relationship with her step parents verses her biological parents is the opposite of a Cinderella story. The biological parents, who in fairytale stories are saint-like, deceased, or controlled by an outside force are, Maisies story, narcissistic and manipulative. In fairy tale stories, like Cinderella and snow white, it is the step parents who are the narcissistic and manipulative ones. In this reversal a form of modernity is achieved, the idea of an inherent biological love and protective instinct for children is challenged. The sad fact is that bad parents who manipulate their children to get back at their ex-spouses do exist. This theme is modern in itself, the myth that ‘when a child is born inherent parental instinct kicks in’ is still present in our society but there is a growing awareness that not all parents are good parents. This, I think, is also reflected in the fact that there was a film adaptation of What Maisie Knew released in 2012. Unlike most film adaptations of novels written in the 19th century this was not a period piece but a modern adaptation. I have not seen the film however it has received good reviews. Undoubtedly one of the reasons the production was based in present times was because of the novel’s treatment of the biological parental figures not as saint-like but beset by unfortunate circumstances and instead as flawed and selfish. Previous stories and novels did not have this candor towards biological parents. Instead, both Mrs. Beale and Sir Claude show, at least initially, more parental protective instinct towards Maisie. Whether this is performative or not is yet to be discovered. Mrs. Wix, meanwhile, though she has no biological or legal connection to Maisie is the most parental towards her. She is also the only of the non-biological parents that is a biological parent herself. Her daughter, Clara, was loved and died tragically. Mrs. Wix herself is a morally upright yet poor woman. She is the closest to the myth of saint-like and beset parent that features so heavily in fairytales. Yet she has no biological ties to Maisie. An argument could be made that Mrs. Wix sees Maisie as a replacement for Clara however that would require intense close reading and heavy speculation. It is a far more obvious conclusion that Mrs. Wix has the most paternal instincts of all 5 parties and cares for Maisie the most because she has those inherent parental instincts that are not guaranteed in all parents.