Myth and Fairy Tale in Contemporary Women's Fiction

Myth and Fairy Tale in Contemporary Women's Fiction PDF Author: Susan Sellers
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1403919208
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 198

Get Book Here

Book Description
Woman as gorgon, woman as temptress: the classical and biblical mythology which has dominated Western thinking defines women in a variety of patriarchally encoded roles. This study addresses the surprising persistence of mythical influence in contemporary fiction. Opening with the question 'what is myth?', the first section provides a wide-ranging review of mythography. It traces how myths have been perceived and interpreted by such commentators as Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Bruno Bettelheim, Roland Barthes, Jack Zipes and Marina Warner. This leads to an examination of the role that mythic narrative plays in social and self formation, drawing on the literary, feminist and psychoanalytic theories of Julia Kristeva, Luce Irigaray, Helene Cixous and Judith Butler to delineate the ways in which women's mythos can transcend the limitations of logos and give rise to potent new models for individual and cultural regeneration. In this light, Susan Sellers offers challenging new readings of a wide range of contemporary women's fiction, including works by A. S. Byatt, Angela Carter, Anne Rice, Michele Roberts, Emma Tennant and Fay Weldon. Topics explored include fairy tale as erotic fiction, new religious writing, vampires and gender-bending, mythic mothers, genre fiction, the still-persuasive paradigm of feminine beauty, and the radical potential of comedy.

Myth and Fairy Tale in Contemporary Women's Fiction

Myth and Fairy Tale in Contemporary Women's Fiction PDF Author: Susan Sellers
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1403919208
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 198

Get Book Here

Book Description
Woman as gorgon, woman as temptress: the classical and biblical mythology which has dominated Western thinking defines women in a variety of patriarchally encoded roles. This study addresses the surprising persistence of mythical influence in contemporary fiction. Opening with the question 'what is myth?', the first section provides a wide-ranging review of mythography. It traces how myths have been perceived and interpreted by such commentators as Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Bruno Bettelheim, Roland Barthes, Jack Zipes and Marina Warner. This leads to an examination of the role that mythic narrative plays in social and self formation, drawing on the literary, feminist and psychoanalytic theories of Julia Kristeva, Luce Irigaray, Helene Cixous and Judith Butler to delineate the ways in which women's mythos can transcend the limitations of logos and give rise to potent new models for individual and cultural regeneration. In this light, Susan Sellers offers challenging new readings of a wide range of contemporary women's fiction, including works by A. S. Byatt, Angela Carter, Anne Rice, Michele Roberts, Emma Tennant and Fay Weldon. Topics explored include fairy tale as erotic fiction, new religious writing, vampires and gender-bending, mythic mothers, genre fiction, the still-persuasive paradigm of feminine beauty, and the radical potential of comedy.

Myths and Fairy Tales in Contemporary Women's Fiction

Myths and Fairy Tales in Contemporary Women's Fiction PDF Author: S. Wilson
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN: 9781137289865
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description
Myths and Fairy Tales in Contemporary Women's Fiction explores contemporary feminist, postmodernist, and postcolonial women writers' use and revisions of fairy tales and myths. With close readings of works ranging from Margaret Atwood to Doris Lessing to Toni Morrison, Wilson examines meanings of myths and fairy tales as well as their varying techniques, images, intertexts, and genres. Although the writers represent several different nationalities and racial, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds, they employ a type of postcolonial literature that urges readers and societies beyond colonization. Wilson argues that the use of myths and fairy tales generally convey characters' transformation from alienation and symbolic amputation to greater consciousness, community, and wholeness, and it is in and through story that characters construct a hybrid way of establishing themselves in the larger world.

Kissing the Witch

Kissing the Witch PDF Author: Emma Donoghue
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0064407721
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 243

Get Book Here

Book Description
Thirteen tales are unspun from the deeply familiar, and woven anew into a collection of fairy tales that wind back through time. Acclaimed Irish author Emma Donoghue reveals heroines young and old in unexpected alliances--sometimes treacherous, sometimes erotic, but always courageous. Told with luminous voices that shimmer with sensuality and truth, these age-old characters shed their antiquated cloaks to travel a seductive new landscape, radiantly transformed.Cinderella forsakes the handsome prince and runs off with the fairy godmother; Beauty discovers the Beast behind the mask is not so very different from the face she sees in the mirror; Snow White is awakened from slumber by the bittersweet fruit of an unnamed desire. Acclaimed writer Emma Donoghue spins new tales out of old in a magical web of thirteen interconnected stories about power and transformation and choosing one's own path in the world. In these fairy tales, women young and old tell their own stories of love and hate, honor and revenge, passion and deception. Using the intricate patterns and oral rhythms of traditional fairy tales, Emma Donoghue wraps age-old characters in a dazzling new skin. 2000 List of Popular Paperbacks for YA

Contemporary Fiction and the Fairy Tale

Contemporary Fiction and the Fairy Tale PDF Author: Stephen Benson
Publisher: Wayne State University Press
ISBN: 9780814332542
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 220

Get Book Here

Book Description
Considers the profound influence of fairy tales on contemporary fiction, including the work of Margaret Atwood, A.S. Byatt, Angela Carter, Robert Coover, Salman Rushdie, and Jeanette Winterson. Recent decades have witnessed a renaissance of interest in the fairy tale, not least among writers of fiction. In Contemporary Fiction and the Fairy Tale, editor Stephen Benson argues that fairy tales are one of the key influences on fiction of the past thirty years and also continue to shape literary trends in the present. Contributors detail the use of fairy tales both as inspiration and blueprint and explore the results of juxtaposing fairy tales and contemporary fiction. At the heart of this collection, seven leading scholars focus on authors whose work is heavily informed and transformed by fairy tales: Robert Coover, A. S. Byatt, Margaret Atwood, Angela Carter, and Salman Rushdie. In addition to investigating the work of this so-called fairy-tale generation, Contemporary Fiction and the Fairy Tale provides a survey of the body of theoretical writing surrounding these authors, both from within literary studies and from fairy-tale studies itself. Contributors present an overview of critical positions, considered here in relation to the work of Jeanette Winterson and of Nalo Hopkinson, suggesting further avenues for research. Contemporary Fiction and the Fairy Tale offers the first detailed and comprehensive account of the key authors working in this emerging genre. Students and teachers of fiction, folklore, and fairy-tale studies will appreciate this insightful volume.

How to Be Eaten

How to Be Eaten PDF Author: Maria Adelmann
Publisher: Little, Brown
ISBN: 0316450820
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 297

Get Book Here

Book Description
One of NPR's Best Books of the Year: This darkly funny and provocative novel reimagines classic fairy tale characters as modern women in a support group for trauma. In present-day New York City, five women meet in a basement support group to process their traumas. Bernice grapples with the fallout of dating a psychopathic, blue-bearded billionaire. Ruby, once devoured by a wolf, now wears him as a coat. Gretel questions her memory of being held captive in a house made of candy. Ashlee, the winner of a Bachelor-esque dating show, wonders if she really got her promised fairy tale ending. And Raina's love story will shock them all. Though the women start out wary of one another, judging each other’s stories, gradually they begin to realize that they may have more in common than they supposed . . . What really brought them here? What secrets will they reveal? And is it too late for them to rescue each other? ​Dark, edgy, and wickedly funny, this debut for readers of Carmen Maria Machado, Kristen Arnett, and Kelly Link takes our coziest, most beloved childhood stories, exposes them as anti-feminist nightmares, and transforms them into a new kind of myth for grown-up women. *Belletrist June Book Club Pick* Named a Best Book of May by TIME Magazine & Glamour One of NPR’s Best Books of the Year

Myths and Fairy Tales in Contemporary Women's Fiction

Myths and Fairy Tales in Contemporary Women's Fiction PDF Author: Sharon Rose Wilson
Publisher: Palgrave MacMillan
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 232

Get Book Here

Book Description
Myths and Fairy Tales in Contemporary Women's Fiction explores contemporary feminist, postmodernist, and postcolonial women writers’ use and revisions of fairy tales and myths. With close readings of works ranging from Margaret Atwood to Doris Lessing to Toni Morrison, Wilson examines meanings of myths and fairy tales as well as their varying techniques, images, intertexts, and genres. Although the writers represent several different nationalities and racial, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds, they employ a type of postcolonial literature that urges readers and societies beyond colonization. Wilson argues that the use of myths and fairy tales generally convey characters’ transformation from alienation and symbolic amputation to greater consciousness, community, and wholeness, and it is in and through story that characters construct a hybrid way of establishing themselves in the larger world.

The Wood Wife

The Wood Wife PDF Author: Terri Windling
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 9780812549294
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 308

Get Book Here

Book Description
A woman writer moves into a house she inherited from a poet in the hills of Arizona. The man died in mysterious circumstances and Maggie Black wants to find out why. So begins a terrifying introduction to the Indian spirits which roam the hills and feed on people's creative juices.

The Book of Lost Things

The Book of Lost Things PDF Author: John Connolly
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0743298853
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 353

Get Book Here

Book Description
A 12-year-old boy, mourning the death of his mother, takes refuge in the myths and fairytales she always loved--and finds that his reality and a fantasy world start to meld.

Dramatic Revisions of Myths, Fairy Tales and Legends

Dramatic Revisions of Myths, Fairy Tales and Legends PDF Author: Verna A. Foster
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786465123
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 259

Get Book Here

Book Description
These new essays explore the ways in which contemporary dramatists have retold or otherwise made use of myths, fairy tales and legends from a variety of cultures, including Greek, West African, North American, Japanese, and various parts of Europe. The dramatists discussed range from well-established playwrights such as Tony Kushner, Caryl Churchill, and Timberlake Wertenbaker to new theatrical stars such as Sarah Ruhl and Tarell Alvin McCraney. The book contributes to the current discussion of adaptation theory by examining the different ways, and for what purposes, plays revise mythic stories and characters. The essays contribute to studies of literary uses of myth by focusing on how recent dramatists have used myths, fairy tales and legends to address contemporary concerns, especially changing representations of women and the politics of gender relations but also topics such as damage to the environment and political violence.

Myth and Fairy Tale in Contemporary Women's Fiction

Myth and Fairy Tale in Contemporary Women's Fiction PDF Author: Susan Sellers
Publisher: Palgrave MacMillan
ISBN: 9780333720141
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 198

Get Book Here

Book Description
Myth and Fairy Tale in Contemporary Women's Fiction explores contemporary women's rewritings of myths and fairy tales. It examines the nature and role of myth, reviewing existing theories in an attempt to explain the ongoing potency of mythical paradigms in contemporary women's fiction despite the distorted images of gender they frequently present. To illustrate this, the book offers a series of readings of texts by a range of contemporary women writers whose fictions draw on, interrogate, or rework mythic models, including A. S. Byatt, Michele Roberts, and Angela Carter.