{"title":"The Liberation of Fairy-Tale Heroines in James Finn Garner’s Politically Correct Bedtime Stories","authors":"Biljana Vlašković Ilić","doi":"10.1515/fabula-2022-0009","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This paper reexamines the way in which traditional fairy tales depict famous heroines (Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, Cinderella, and Snow White) by comparing them to their “liberated” versions from James Finn Garner’s Politically Correct Bedtime Stories. We argue that the greatest value of the modern adaptations of classic fairy tales lies in their enabling us to see the world as a child might, introducing at the same time the grown-up theme of the liberation of women and breaking the pattern of portraying easily led, ineffectual, and vulnerable female characters in children’s literature.","PeriodicalId":42252,"journal":{"name":"FABULA","volume":"63 1","pages":"180 - 194"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1000,"publicationDate":"2022-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"FABULA","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1515/fabula-2022-0009","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"FOLKLORE","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Abstract This paper reexamines the way in which traditional fairy tales depict famous heroines (Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, Cinderella, and Snow White) by comparing them to their “liberated” versions from James Finn Garner’s Politically Correct Bedtime Stories. We argue that the greatest value of the modern adaptations of classic fairy tales lies in their enabling us to see the world as a child might, introducing at the same time the grown-up theme of the liberation of women and breaking the pattern of portraying easily led, ineffectual, and vulnerable female characters in children’s literature.
期刊介绍:
Fabula is a medium of discussion for issues of all kinds which are of interest to international folk narrative research. The journal contains eight divisions: Articles, Minor Contributions, Research Reports and Conference Reports, News, Projects and Queries, Reviews, Bibliographical Notes, and Books Received. Principal themes of the article section are the study of popular narrative traditions in their various forms (fairy tales, legends, jokes and anecdotes, exempla, fables, ballads, etc.), the interrelationship between oral and literary traditions as well as the contemporary genres. Interest focuses on Europe and overseas countries which are influenced by European civilization, but still, there is quite a number of contributions from other culture areas.