Rewriting the Grandmother’s Story

Fabula ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 62 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 172-184
Author(s):  
Vanessa Joosen

Abstract Feminist perspectives have strongly influenced the fairy-tale rewritings of the past decades, but the intersection of gender with other identity markers deserves more attention. This article applies the conclusions of Sylvia Henneberg’s critical examination of age and gender in fairy tales to Gillian Cross’s Wolf (1990), an award-winning rewriting of “Red Riding Hood.” While Wolf presents Nan, the counterpart of Red Riding Hood’s grandmother, as a determined and cunning older woman at first, in the course of the novel, the narrative lapses into the ageist stereotypes of the ineffectual crone and the wise old mentor.

Author(s):  
Elena Poleva ◽  
Oksana Velichko

Введение. Повышенная интертекстуальность романов современного писателя-модерниста Лены Элтанг многократно подмечалась критиками и исследователями. Обращение к интертексту (как к литературным произведениям, так к мифам и фольклору) повышает сематическую плотность повествования, помогает Элтанг раскрыть специфику сознания персонажей, осознающих себя параллельно существующими в социальной реальности и в культуре/текстах. Цель – выявить семантику и функции сказочного интертекста в модернистском романе Лены Элтанг «Каменные клены». Материал и методы. Применен интертекстуальный и мотивный анализ с опорой на работы И. Смирнова, М. Гаспарова, Б. Гаспарова, И. Паперно. Также теоретической базой являются труды фольклористов и психологов, посвященные изучению мотивной структуры фольклорных сказок о девушке-сироте, сюжета инициации (Е. Н. Елеонская, О. М. Фрейденберг, Р. Ефимкина и др.). Материал исследования – роман Лены Элтанг «Каменные клены» (сюжетная линия центральной героини Саши Сонли). Результаты и обсуждение. Анализ романа позволил установить соответствие сюжетной логики романа мотивной структуре сказки, иллюстрирующей этапы инициации. Но, во-первых, в отличие от не знающей психологизма и рефлексивного героя сказки, роман Элтанг представляет собой прозу «потока сознания», ориентированную на раскрытие внутреннего мира человека. Во-вторых, сложная, по сравнению со сказкой, субъектная организация романного текста позволила Элтанг в сюжетных линиях разных героев выстроить аллюзии на сказки разных подтипов (о женской и мужской инициации, заколдованном царстве). Несмотря на индивидуальные усилия Саши Сонли не иметь сходства с падчерицей из сказки, ее судьба выстраивается в соответствии с фольклорным инвариантом сюжета о девушке-сироте (в чем проявляется авторская, надперсонажная воля): смерть матери, утрата дочерью защиты отца; противостояние падчерицы мачехе; соперничество сводных сестер; победа падчерицы благодаря волшебному средству (материнскому оберегу), который способствует и поиску жениха. Функции материнского оберега в романе выполняет Травник – «тайная тетрадка», соединяющая дневник и свод рецептов народной медицины. Он воспринимается Сашей как канал связи с умершей матерью, играет ключевую роль в поиске суженого. В духе модернизма, опирающегося в равной степени и на достижения психоанализа, и на культурные архаичные модели, сюжет инициации героев в романе фабульно выстраивается в соответствии с фольклорной сказкой, но этой внешнесобытийной канве сопутствует внутренний сюжет психологически сложного проживания героями запоздалого взросления, расставания с чувствами вины перед родителями и обиды на них, расставания с прошлым ради будущего. Заключение. Посредством сказочного интертекста Элтанг встраивает индивидуальную жизнь героев в хронотоп большой культуры. Частная жизнь героев ценна уникальностью переживаний, но событийно она повторяет вечные сюжеты.Introduction. The importance of the poetics of intertextuality in the novels of the modernist writer Lena Eltang has been repeatedly emphasized by critics and researchers. The appeal to the intertext increases the semantic density of the narrative, serves to convey the specifics of the consciousness of Eltang characters that exist in parallel in the realities of social relations and culture/texts. Material and methods. Intertextual and motivational analysis based on the works of I. Smirnov, M. Gasparov, B. Gasparov, and I. Paperno was applied. Also, the theoretical basis of the research is the works of folklorists and psychologists devoted to the motivational structure of folklore tales about an orphan girl, the plot of initiation (O. M. Freudenberg, E. N. Eleonskaya, R. Efimkin, etc.). The research material is Lena Eltang’s novel “Stone maples”. The purpose of the work is to identify the semantics and functions of the fairy-tale intertext in Lena Eltang’s modernist novel “Stone maples”. Results and discussion. The analysis of the novel allowed us to establish the correspondence of the plot logic of the novel to the motivational structure of the magic and literary fairy tale illustrating the stages of initiation. But, firstly, unlike a fairy tale, the Eltang novel is a prose of a “stream of consciousness”, focused on the disclosure of the inner world of a person. Secondly, the complex subject organization of the novel text, compared to the fairy tale, allowed Eltang to build allusions to fairy tales of different subtypes (about female and male initiation) in the storylines of different characters. The main character of the novel Sasha Sonley is building an association of his life with a fairy tale. In its storyline, it is important not only to match the archetypal plot, but also to try to change it. Despite individual efforts, the fate of the central heroine is built in accordance with a fabulous invariant about an orphan girl (in which the author’s, supra-personal will is manifested): mother’s death, loss of father’s protection; con frontation to stepmother; rivalry with stepsister; victory of the stepdaughter thanks to a magical means (maternal amulet), which also contributes to the search for the groom. The function of the mother’s talisman in the novel is performed by Travnik – “secret notebook”, which combines the diary and the set of recipes for traditional medicine. It is perceived as a channel of communication with the deceased mother, plays a key role in finding the intended. Conclusion. Despite efforts to “rewrite” the fairy-tale narrative, Sasha is forced to go through the entire archetypal plot of initiation before rebirth, restoration of harmony. In the spirit of modernism, based equally on the achievement of psychoanalysis and cultural archaic model, the plot of initiation of the heroes of the fable is built in accordance with a folk tale, but this outwardly-event outline corresponds to the inner story is psychologically complex living of its late maturity, separation from feelings of guilt towards parents and resentment toward them, parting with the past for the future.


Author(s):  
Émilie Perez

The role of children in Merovingian society has long been downplayed, and the study of their graves and bones has long been neglected. However, during the past fifteen years, archaeologists have shown growing interest in the place of children in Merovingian society. Nonetheless, this research has not been without challenges linked to the nature of the biological and material remains. Recent analysis of 315 children’s graves from four Merovingian cemeteries in northern Gaul (sixth to seventh centuries) allows us to understand the modalities of burial ritual for children. A new method for classifying children into social age groups shows that the type, quality, quantity, and diversity of grave goods were directly correlated with the age of the deceased. They increased from the age of eight and particularly around the time of puberty. This study discusses the role of age and gender in the construction and expression of social identity during childhood in the Merovingian period.


2021 ◽  
Vol 52 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 202-227
Author(s):  
Linda Istanbulli

Abstract In a system where the state maintains a monopoly over historical interpretation, aesthetic investigations of denied traumatic memory become a space where the past is confronted, articulated, and deemed usable both for understanding the present and imagining the future. This article focuses on Kamā yanbaghī li-nahr (As a river should) by Manhal al-Sarrāj, one of the first Syrian novels to openly break the silence on the “1982 Hama massacre.” Engaging the politics and poetics of trauma remembrance, al-Sarrāj places the traumatic history of the city of Hama within a longer tradition of loss and nostalgia, most notably the poetic genre of rithāʾ (elegy) and the subgenre of rithāʾ al-mudun (city elegy). In doing so, Kamā yanbaghī li-nahr functions as a literary counter-site to official histories of the events of 1982, where threatened memory can be preserved. By investigating the intricate relationship between armed conflict and gender, the novel mourns Hama’s loss while condemning the violence that engendered it. The novel also makes new historical interpretations possible by reproducing the intricate relationship between mourning, violence, and gender, dislocating the binary lines around which official narratives of armed conflicts are typically constructed.


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.


Author(s):  
Jack Zipes

Two major tendencies in fairy-tale re-creations and collisions have been observed in the past decades. The first tendency is called remaking and re-creating classic tales. The second tendency is referred to as conflicted mosaics, consists of paintings, sculptures, and photographs that draw on an assortment of fairy-tale fragments to evoke a sense of wonder, if not bafflement. This chapter explores the significance of the two tendencies in fairy-tale collisions with a focus on the recent 2012 exhibit Fairy Tales, Monsters, and the Genetic Imagination, held at the Frist Center for the Visual Arts in Nashville, Tennessee. It also comments on the works of many other talented artists who have been experimenting with the fairy tale along the same lines.


Author(s):  
Matthew Hodge

Prolific and controversial British-Irish playwright Martin McDonagh has built a prominent career on genre-bending works that combine irreverent humor and aggressive violence. His award-winning black comedy play The Pillowman, which premiered in 2003 at London's renowned National Theatre, is one of the playwright's most well-known and divisive pieces of theatre. Arguably, the play's most memorable moments involve segments reenacting original twisted fairy tale-esque stories. The majority of McDonagh's dark tales center on children characters enduring acts of violence and cruelty, ultimately concluding with disturbing endings. The Pillowman script offers few instructions in its storytelling scenes, allowing—even demanding—artistic ownership of each production's unique aesthetic approach to the unsettling material. This chapter discusses the divisiveness of McDonagh's work, his inspiration from violence in historical fairy tales, and the sensitive considerations and controversies theatre leadership teams must ponder when staging fictionalized child-centric violence.


2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 42-64
Author(s):  
I.V. Vachkov ◽  
M.A. Odintsova ◽  
O.A. Tristan

The article presents the results of the study of the specifics of spiritual crisis experience and attitudes to Self in persons with spinal injury (N=65) and conventionally healthy respondents (N=63). The characteristics of spiritual crisis most typical of people with spinal injury were: dissatisfaction and loneliness attributed to the past, present, and future; and suffering attributed to the past. The categories of dissatisfaction, loneliness, and suffering were heterogeneous, as reflected in texts produced by people with spinal injuries and healthy people of different sex and age. Groups distinguished by time elapsed since injury did not differ on quantitative signs of spiritual crises but differed qualitatively in their experiences of dissatisfaction, loneliness, and suffering. People who had lived with the injury longer often experienced uselessness, and a lack of contacts, attention, and support; they were disposed to self-flagellation and guilt. Their attitude to Self reflected in the texts of fairy tales. Healthy controls wrote simple fairy tales describing the interaction of the Real Self and Ideal Self. By contrast, people with spinal injuries focused their stories on emotional experiences of their attitude to Self (complicated fairy tales) or finding meaning, accepting oneself and life in all its fullness and variety (complex fairy tale). Counseling people with a spinal injury, one should take into account both gender and age of the injured person and the potential of the fairy tale itself, which becomes a resource in the experiencing of spiritual crisis and in changing attitudes to Self.


2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (6) ◽  
pp. 584-594
Author(s):  
Olga A. Nesterova

The article examines the chronotope of fairy tale as a basic plot component in the structure of the novel “My Children” by the contemporary Russian writer Guzel Yakhina. The article investigates the ways of archetypical space functioning within the system of mythological time, and analyzes the principal space and time coordinates of the lives of main characters and their interaction. There is shown that Yakhina’s appeal to the genre elements of fairy tale allows her to underscore the universal and all-encompassing nature of the historical processes that shaped the tragic fate of the Volga Germans in Soviet Russia. In the novel “My Children”, the plots and images of German folklore serve as a basic model for organizing different types of space arising from the stable archaic communicative mo­dels and cultural archetypes of folk tradition. The no­vel presents such elements of the space and time continuum of fairy tales as the existence of borders (both open and closed) and the character’s travels within different worlds; the transformative capacity of space and time (extension and compression, appearance and disappearance, plasticity and rigidity, dynamic and static properties, etc.); the link between the “lower” and the “upper” worlds or the “space of giants” and the “space of dwarves”; and the mutual influence of space and time characteristics. The article identifies the semiotic and semantic properties of the underground, underwater, aquatic, terrestrial and aerial spaces presented in the novel. The everyday and socio-historical space and time continua in the novel are a mirror reflection of the space and time characteristics of fairy tale, while archetypes are incarnated in the domain of social interaction. Yakhina’s novel “My Children” presents such chronoto­pic features as relativism, invariance, and symmetry. The use of the archetypical structure of fairy tale allowed the writer to make a literary analysis of complex socio-cultural and socio-psychological processes.


2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Fekede Menuta ◽  
Ruth Vatvedt Fjeld

The Gurage are South Ethiosemitic speakers living in the Gurage Zone in Ethiopia. In the Gurage culture, cursing expressions have differing sociological significance. They are used both literally and pragmatically. Although the cursing expressions are endangered due to modern religions, they are not well studied and documented. The objective of this article is to describe the sociolinguistic and pragmatic meanings and the structural patterns of cursing expressions in the Gurage culture, and then to compare the expressions with Nordic countries’ cursing to uncover if there are universal tendencies in the rules and routines of cursing. The study follows qualitative research methodology. The cursing expressions were partly collected from literature and largely elicited from key informants. For the cursing in Gurage, the Gumer variety, from among other 12 dialect clusters of Guragina, was chosen to maintain uniformity in description. The findings showed that self-cursing in Gurage is used to express regret, encouragement, admiration, congratulation, condolence and politeness. Alter cursing is used to cause fear, to express emotions and negative attitude towards others. Age and gender determine cursing practice. Only elder men can take part in formal group alter cursing. Women generally curse themselves and individuals in informal situations. Formal alter cursing in Gurage is graded by elders for its severity. Cursing in the Nordic countries of today is more restricted to psychological functions and a kind of identity construction. In the past, however, several of its functions were similar to the ones in Gurage.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document