“In the Darkest Zones”

Author(s):  
Jessica R. McCort

This essay focuses specifically on the recent fairy-tale novels Coraline and A Tale Dark and Grimm as examples of gruesome, morally impactful modern fairy tales. Jessica R. McCort situates these particular books in relation to twentieth-century women authors’ dark fairy-tale revisions that emphasize identity development and the current cultural moment, a time in which mainstream American culture is obsessed with the darker side of fairy tales and the resurgence and rehabilitation of the fairy tale. Both Coraline and A Tale Dark and Grimm, filled with violence, gore, and horror, hearken back to the literary fairy tales that precede them and concentrate on the idea that children must learn to conquer their demons in order to achieve self-awareness. As McCort argues, these novels illustrate that children can gain, through textual encounters with the horrific, an enhanced sense of self and the power of bravery. In the end, this essay argues that these books are excellent examples of the social importance of maintaining terror as part of the texture of modern fairy tales for young readers, especially those in which the pursuit of personal identity is at the apple’s core.

2015 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 169-184
Author(s):  
Željka Flegar

This article discusses the implied ‘vulgarity’ and playfulness of children's literature within the broader concept of the carnivalesque as defined by Mikhail Bakhtin in Rabelais and His World (1965) and further contextualised by John Stephens in Language and Ideology in Children's Fiction (1992). Carnivalesque adaptations of fairy tales are examined by situating them within Cristina Bacchilega's contemporary construct of the ‘fairy-tale web’, focusing on the arenas of parody and intertextuality for the purpose of detecting crucial changes in children's culture in relation to the social construct and ideology of adulthood from the Golden Age of children's literature onward. The analysis is primarily concerned with Roald Dahl's Revolting Rhymes (1982) and J. K. Rowling's The Tales of Beedle the Bard (2007/2008) as representative examples of the historically conditioned empowerment of the child consumer. Marked by ambivalent laughter, mockery and the degradation of ‘high culture’, the interrogative, subversive and ‘time out’ nature of the carnivalesque adaptations of fairy tales reveals the striking allure of contemporary children's culture, which not only accommodates children's needs and preferences, but also is evidently desirable to everybody.


2018 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 49-71
Author(s):  
Anastasia Ulanowicz

“We are the People”: The Holodomor and North American-Ukrainian Diasporic Memory in Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch’s Enough. Although the Holodomor — the Ukrainian famine of 1932–1933 — has played a major role in the cultural memory of Ukrainian diasporic communities in the United States and Canada, relatively few North American children’s books directly represent this traumatic historical event. One exception, however, is Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch’s and Michael Martchenko’s picture book, Enough 2000, which adapts a traditional Ukrainian folktale in order to introduce young readers to the historical and polit­ical circumstances in which this artificial famine occurred. By drawing on what scholar Jack Zipes has identified as the “subversive potential” of fairy tales, Skrypuch and Martchenko critique the ironies and injustices that undergirded Soviet forced collectivization and Stalinist famine policy. Additionally, they explicitly set a portion of their fairy tale adaptation in Canada in order to gesture to the role played by the Holodomor in structuring diasporic memory and identity, especially in relation to post-Independ­ence era Ukraine.«Мы — народ»: Голодомор и североамериканско-украинская диаспорная память в книге Enough Марши Форчук Скрыпух. Несмотря на то, что Голодомор — голод в Украине 1932–1933 гoдов — сыграл важную роль в культурной памяти украинских диаспорных общин в Соеди­ненных Штатах и Канаде, относительно мало североамериканских детских книг описывает это травматическое событие. Важное место в этом контексте является книга Марши Форчук Скры­пух и Майкла Мартченко «Достаточно» 2000, которая адаптирует традиционную украинскую сказку для того, чтобы познакомить молодых читателей с историческими и политическими обстоятельствами этого искусственного голода. Опираясь на то, что ученый Джек Зайпс назвал «подрывным потенциалом» сказок, Скрыпух и Мартченко критикуют иронию и несправедли­вость советской принудительной коллективизации и политики сталинского голода. Кроме того, они установили часть своей сказочной адаптации в Канаде, чтобы показать роль Голодомора в структурировании диаспорной памяти и самобытности, и связи последних с независимой Украиной.


1973 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Immanuel Wallerstein

African studies has gone through three well-known phases as a field of study. Up until 1950 or thereabouts, those studying Africa — they were not yet called Africanists — tended to concentrate almost exclusively on the capturing (or recapturing) of a description of Africa eternal: Launcelot the ethnographer in search of a holy grail of the past that was written in the present tense and was undefiled by contact and uncorrupted by civilization. What was once a myth is now a fairy tale and it would be silly to waste time tellling each other the obvious truth that fairy tales are modes of the social control and the education of children.


2002 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
Larry Davidson

AbstractIn response to criticisms of phenomenology as being a solipsistic approach to psychological research and theory, this paper examines the interplay of both the creative/active and receptive/passive constituents of subjective experience identified in Husserl's exposition of intentional analysis. By delineating the ways in which intentional constitution requires passive as well as active processes, we come to see in the first part of this paper how experience and personal identity are as much formed and informed by the social and historical world as they are created by individual subjects. Once we have established the non-solipsistic nature of phenomenology, we then apply it in the second part of this paper to open a window onto the disorder of self long considered to be integral to schizophrenia. Through an exploration of the constitution of sense of self in the experiences of two people with schizophrenia, we see how cognitive disruptions, auditory hallucinations, and delusional ideation may be related to fundamental peculiarities in a person's experiences of intentionality and his/her resulting sense of agency and identity. In conclusion, we suggest that while phenomenology may not be able to provide a complete account of psychosis, it may be used to shed valuable, descriptive light on subjective aspects that provide a conceptual base for the consideration of other factors.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-29
Author(s):  
Norita Mdege

This article uses a sociological approach to analyse David Lister’s Soweto Green: This is a ‘Tree’ Story (1995) and Henk Pretorius’ Fanie Fourie’s Lobola (2013). Although both films, made nearly twenty years apart, fall under the broad category of ‘rainbow nation’ comedies, they indicate a shift in the representations and understanding of South African identities from the highly politicized identities of the 1990s to the emergence of hybrid identities. This shift provides insights into the ways in which post-apartheid South African society has evolved, while at the same time maintaining some continuities. Analysing comedies is particularly useful because the success of comedy depends highly on the social perceptions and world-views of the audience. Thus, comedies can provide great insights into the economic and sociopolitical conditions of the societies within which they emerge. The article will also explore the ideological implications of embedding rainbowism within fairy-tale romances.


2019 ◽  
Vol IV (I) ◽  
pp. 88-94
Author(s):  
Faria Saeed Khan ◽  
Zainab Mazhar ◽  
Fouzia Rehman Khan

The fairy tales depict dissatisfied characters, whose individual potential and capabilities are limited under specific gender categories and societal hegemony. Thus, the characters, thus, rebel against the conventions, through gender subversion, and countering the hegemony forces. Thus, the paper is built on the theoretical frameworks of gender subversion, by Judith Butler (1990) and counter-hegemony by Antonio Gramsci (1971). The qualitative research thematically analyzed the character of Alex Bailey from, The Enchantress Returns by Chris Colfer (2013). The findings revealed that subverting gender gives confidence at the personal level, to counter-hegemonic forms at the social level. The findings also revealed that Alex was criticized, tormented, and discouraged for the subversion of the gender rules and norms, but, she encountered the prevailing hegemony and transformed at the societal level. The transformations are not necessarily massive, but, are sufficient enough to affect Alex and her actions.


Author(s):  
Elena Ortells Montón

The main aim of this study is to explore if, and if so, how Rabih Alameddine, Kim Addonizio, and Kellie Wells have managed to sustain, replicate, disregard, or redefine the patriarchal ideology customarily associated to gender issues within the fairy-tale tradition. What is really striking is that, several decades after the revisionist project undertaken by the "Angela Carter generation", these new voices experimenting with the field of fairy tales still feel the need to revisit the same mythemes and fight against the same ideology and values that pervaded twentieth century retellings of fairy tales. The subversive potential of the fairy tale retellings seems to have been surpassed by the powerful agenda of a patriarchal social system, which, despite the social, psychological and political changes, still retains its status quo.


1980 ◽  
Vol 10 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 21-31
Author(s):  
Immanuel Wallerstein

African studies has gone through three well-known phases as a field of study. Up until 1950 or thereabouts, those studying Africa — they were not yet called Africanists — tended to concentrate almost exclusively on the capturing (or recapturing) of a description of Africa eternal: Launcelot the ethnographer in search of a holy grail of the past that was written in the present tense and was undefiled by contact and uncorrupted by civilization. What was once a myth is now a fairy tale and it would be silly to waste time tellling each other the obvious truth that fairy tales are modes of the social control and the education of children.


Author(s):  
Marina Warner

Fairy tale hovered as a form of literature between children and adults, but in the Victorian era, the fairy way of writing became a mode of communicating moral values, political dreams, and even scientific knowledge to children. Printing technology made books with pictures one of the most exciting and successful ventures of the nineteenth century, and fairy tales began to be produced deliberately to appeal to an audience of young readers. ‘Childish things: pictures and conversations’ explains that, on the whole, the role of artists who helped create fairy tales has been neglected. It describes the re-writing of fairy tales for this younger audience. Modern fairy tales display a darkening tone.


2019 ◽  
Vol 36 ◽  
pp. 243-263
Author(s):  
Kristina Musholt ◽  

Why should we think that there is such a thing as pre-reflective self-awareness? And how is this kind of self-awareness to be characterized? This paper traces a theoretical and a phenomenological line of argument in favor of the notion of pre-reflective self-consciousness and explores how this notion can be further illuminated by appealing to recent work in the analytical philosophy of language and mind. In particular, it argues that the self is not represented in the (nonconceptual) content of experience, but is rather implicit in the mode. Further, it argues that pre-reflective self-consciousness is best understood as a form of knowledge-how. Finally, it will be argued that our sense of self is thoroughly social, even at the basic, pre-reflective level.


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