Title: Polyphonic resonances of fairy tales and myths : The Magic Toyshop and Life Before Man
Source document: Brno studies in English. 2019, vol. 45, iss. 1, pp. [157]-170
Extent
[157]-170
-
ISSN0524-6881 (print)1805-0867 (online)
Persistent identifier (DOI): https://doi.org/10.5817/BSE2019-1-10
Stable URL (handle): https://hdl.handle.net/11222.digilib/141001
Type: Article
Language
License: Not specified license
Notice: These citations are automatically created and might not follow citation rules properly.
Abstract(s)
Angela Carter and Margaret Atwood exploit fairy tale characters, settings, motifs, and plots in their fiction, they are also authors of original reworkings of fairy tales. This article compares the use of fairy-tale elements in Carter's The Magic Toyshop and Atwood's Life Before Man, which not only evoke these resonant forms of story-telling in their titles, character names and plot devices, but create intertexts that parody and give alternate or even reversed meanings to fairy-tale tropes. Both writers see fairy tales as open sources that can be subverted and rewritten. The article focuses on the strategies the authors use to rewrite the traditional patterns of passive female heroine and inscribe a constructive ambiguity.
References
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[19] Makinen, Merja (2000) Angela Carter's 'The Bloody Chamber'and the Decolonisation of Feminine Sexuality. In: Easton, Alison (ed.) Angela Carter. Houndsmills: Macmillan, 20–36.
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[22] Peach, Linden (2009) Angela Carter. 2nd ed. Houndsmills: Palgrave Macmillan.
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[25] Tóth, Zsófia Anna (2017) Disney's violent women: in quest of a 'fully real' violent woman in American cinema. Brno Studies in English 43(1): 185–212. | DOI 10.5817/BSE2017-1-11
[26] Warner, Marina (1994) Angela Carter: Bottle blonde, double drag. In: Sage, Lorna (ed.) Flesh and the Mirror: Essays on the Art of Angela Carter. London: Virago Press, 243–256.
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[29] Wisker, Gina (1994) Weaving our own web: Demythologising/Remythologising and magic in the work of contemporary women writers. In: Wisker, Gina (ed.) It's My Party: Reading Twentieth Century Women's Writing. London: Pluto Press, 104–128.
[30] Zipes, Jack (1994) Fairy Tale as Myth: Myth as Fairy Tale. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press.
[31] Zipes, Jack, ed. (1986) Don't Bet on the Prince: Contemporary Feminist Fairy Tales in North America and England. New York: Methuen.
[2] Atwood, Margaret (1990) Articulating the mute. Interview by Karla Hammond. In: Ingersoll, Earl G. (ed.) Margaret Atwood: Conversations . Princeton: Ontario Review Press, 191–220.
[3] Atwood, Margaret (1980) Life Before Man. Toronto: Seal.
[4] Atwood, Margaret (1994) Running with tigers. In: Sage, Lorna (ed.) Flesh and the Mirror: Essays on the Art of Angela Carter. London: Virago Press, 117–135.
[5] Atwood, Margaret (2005) Angela Carter: 1940–1992. In Curious Pursuits: Occasional Writing, Margaret Atwood. London: Virago Press, 155–159.
[6] Atwood, Margaret (2005) Not so grimm: The staying power of fairy tales. In: Atwood, Margaret. Curious Pursuits: Occasional Writing. London: Virago Press, 197–203.
[7] Bakhtin, Mikhal Mikhailovich (1981) The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays. Trans. Michael Holquist. Austin: University of Texas.
[8] Beran, Carol (1991) The Canadian mosaic: Functional ethnicity in Margaret Atwood's Life Before Man. Essays in Canadian Writing 41 (Summer 1990): 59–73.
[9] Bonnici, Thomas (1998) Angela Carter's critique of phallocentrism in 'The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories'. Acta Scientarum 20(1): 9–15. Accessed on November 11, 2017.
[10] Bouson, J. Brooks (1993) Brutal Choreographies: Oppositional Strategies and Narrative Design in the Novels of Margaret Atwood. Amherst: University of Massachussetts Press.
[11] Carter, Angela (1967) The Magic Toyshop. London: Penguin.
[12] Carter, Angela (1975) Notes on the gothic mode. The Iowa Journal, 6(3/4): 132–134. Accessed on April 4, 2011. | DOI 10.17077/0021-065X.1927
[13] Carter, Angela (1983) Notes from the front line. In: Wandor, Michelene (ed.) On Gender and Writing. London: Pandora, 69–87.
[14] Davidson, Arnold E. and Cathy N. Davidson (1981) Prospects and retrospects in Life Before Man. In: Davidson, Arnold and Cathy Davidson (eds.) The Art of Margaret Atwood: Essays in Criticism. Toronto: Anansi, 205–223.
[15] Duncker, Patricia (1984) Re-imagining the fairy tales: Angela Carter's bloody chambers. Literature and History 10(11): 3–14. Accessed on February 5, 2011.
[16] Gamble, Sarah (1997) Angela Carter: Writing from the Front Line. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
[17] Grace, Sherill (1980) Violent Duality: A Study of Margaret Atwood. Montreal: Véhicule Press.
[18] Gruss, Susanne (2009) The Pleasure of the Feminist Text: Reading Michéle Roberts and Angela Carter. Amsterdam: Rodopi.
[19] Makinen, Merja (2000) Angela Carter's 'The Bloody Chamber'and the Decolonisation of Feminine Sexuality. In: Easton, Alison (ed.) Angela Carter. Houndsmills: Macmillan, 20–36.
[20] Mitchell, D., (2017) Leda or living doll? Women as dolls in Angela Carter's The Magic Toyshop. Studies in Gothic Fiction 5(2): 4–12. Accessed on April 30, 2018.
[21] Modleski, Tania (1982) Loving with a Vengeance: Mass-Produced Fantasies for Women. London: Routledge.
[22] Peach, Linden (2009) Angela Carter. 2nd ed. Houndsmills: Palgrave Macmillan.
[23] Rowe, Karen E. (1986) Feminism and fairy tales. In: Zipes, Jack (ed.) Don't Bet on the Prince: Contemporary Feminist Fairy Tales in North America and England. New York: Methuen, 209–226.
[24] Tatar, Maria (2015) Female tricksters as double agents. In: Tatar, Maria (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Fairy Tales. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 39–60.
[25] Tóth, Zsófia Anna (2017) Disney's violent women: in quest of a 'fully real' violent woman in American cinema. Brno Studies in English 43(1): 185–212. | DOI 10.5817/BSE2017-1-11
[26] Warner, Marina (1994) Angela Carter: Bottle blonde, double drag. In: Sage, Lorna (ed.) Flesh and the Mirror: Essays on the Art of Angela Carter. London: Virago Press, 243–256.
[27] Wilson, Sharon Rose (1993) Margaret Atwood's Fairy-Tale Sexual Politics. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi and ECW Press.
[28] Wilson, Sharon Rose (2008) Myths and Fairy Tales in Contemporary Women's Fiction: From Atwood to Morrison. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
[29] Wisker, Gina (1994) Weaving our own web: Demythologising/Remythologising and magic in the work of contemporary women writers. In: Wisker, Gina (ed.) It's My Party: Reading Twentieth Century Women's Writing. London: Pluto Press, 104–128.
[30] Zipes, Jack (1994) Fairy Tale as Myth: Myth as Fairy Tale. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press.
[31] Zipes, Jack, ed. (1986) Don't Bet on the Prince: Contemporary Feminist Fairy Tales in North America and England. New York: Methuen.