Feminist Fractured Fairy Tales: Angela Carter, Emma Donoghue, and Heroines Who Embrace Their Desires
Date
2021-07-27
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Southern New Hampshire University
Abstract
Among the earliest tales told to children are fairy tales; these stories stick with us into adulthood, and we pass them on to the next generation because they speak to the human experience as well as provide guidance for moving through the world. However, while the themes of fairy tales comprise so-called universal truths of the human experience, further examination of these tales reveals antiquated social views whose dissemination may be harmful. Many fairy tales, for instance, silence their female characters while promoting patriarchal, heterosexual family structures as being necessary to a happy ending. To challenge such outdated perspectives, feminist writers have taken to rewriting fairy tales through a woman-centric lens. Such retellings are known as fractured fairy tales. Two such collections are The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter and Kissing the Witch: Old Tales in New Skins by Emma Donoghue. Carter’s retellings of “Beauty and the Beast” and “Little Red Riding Hood,” “The Courtship of Mr Lyon” and “The Company of Wolves” respectively, give voice to the heroines, allowing them to narrate their own stories as well as throw off traditional gender roles to embrace their sexuality and desires, thus becoming three-dimensional people. Meanwhile, Donoghue’s retellings of “Beauty and the Beast” and “The Little Mermaid,” “The Tale of the Rose and “The Tale of the Voice respectively, play with the very structure of the tales by providing new endings, often with a queer twist, as well as providing an outlet for all these women to express their own desires and exercise their agency, something they are unable to do when they are silenced and forced into heterosexual boxes. However, though fractured tales like those of Carter and Donoghue have power, they cannot be the only way to challenge the shortcomings of traditional tales; they should not be the end of the process—but rather the beginning.
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