Fairy Tales » peanutbuttercup

Feminism in Carter

peanutbuttercup — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 07:31:30 +0000

Is anyone else looking at this in their review? The stories in The Bloody ChamberÂ turn traditional gender roles or expectations upside down and many feature strong female protagonists. I’m not sure if my essay would still be a “review” if I focused solely on this issue (actually what I’m writing about is the undermining of feminism in “The Lady of the House of Love”) but right now it’s sort of taking over. Are you guys focusing on a few aspects of a story in your reviews, or are you writing an overarching/all-inclusive critique?

Today’s Reading

peanutbuttercup — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 15:40:07 +0000

I found the readings on race and empire particularly relevant for my topic, and I was wondering if anyone else is looking at something similar. I plan on writing on the economic motives and effects of British imperial expansion, as they relate to “The Prince’s Dream,” which condemns Gold and the pursuit of it as the source of men’s misery. It’s a little tricky because none of the stories (except for Kipling’s, set in colonial India) directly reference the British empire, so the relationship is wide open to interpretation. I haven’t found a ton of evidence yet, but I think I can make my ideas work. More generally, I’m interested in how people thought the fact of Britain being the world’s imperial superpower influenced Victorian writers of fairy tales?

Little Red Cap & Imagined Communities

peanutbuttercup — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 04:27:51 +0000

It looks like I am the only one so far planning to write about “Little Red Cap.” I found the interactions between the characters really interesting. Little Red Cap, her grandmother, and the wolf can be interpreted as belonging to an imagined social community, in the same way that Anderson defines the nation as “an imagined political community – and imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign.” The wolf acts as a threat to their community, and by watching out for each other and responding together they build a kind of mini-nation. Obviously, Anderson’s Imagined Communities is going to be a key part of my research, and I also plan on using Wende’s A History of Germany for information on how unification against outsiders can create nationalist feeling.
The one thing that threw me off was the second, shorter Grimm version of “Little Red Cap.” I think I’ll just look at the first one, unless anyone has ideas about what to make of it?

Cinderella

peanutbuttercup — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 20:25:43 +0000

I’m thinking about choosing one of the Catskin/Donkeyskin tales for my essay, because they deviate so far from the Cinderella we are familiar with. I found it interesting (and unfair!) that in them, the father is forgiven for his incestuous desires, and even, in the case of The Princess in the Suit of Leather absolved completely of responsibility. This was a subject discussed in the Tatar intro to the Cinderella stories, and I might consider exploring it further.