Myths and fairy tales in contemporary women's fiction
Subtitle: from Atwood to Morrison
By: Sharon Rose Wilson.
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Published: 2008
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 207
Subjects: Atwood, Margaret Eleanor, -- 1939- -- Criticism and interpretation; Lessing, Doris May, -- 1919- -- Criticism and interpretation; Morrison, Toni -- Criticism and interpretation; Feminism and literature -- English-speaking countries -- History -- 20th century; Women and literature -- English-speaking countries -- History -- 20th century; Fairy tales in literature; Myth in literature; Postmodernism (Literature) -- English-speaking countries; Sex role in literature
Description: "Myths and Fairy Tales in Contemporary Women's Fiction explores contemporary feminist, postmodernist, and postcolonial women writers' use and revisions of fairy tales and myths. With close readings of works ranging from Margaret Atwood to Doris Lessing to Toni Morrison, Wilson examines meanings of myths and fairy tales as well as their varying techniques, images, intertexts, and genres. Although the writers represent several different nationalities and racial, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds, they employ a type of postcolonial literature that urges readers and societies beyond colonization. Wilson argues that the use of myths and fairy tales generally convey characters'transformation from alienation and symbolic amputation to greater consciousness, community, and wholeness, and it is in and through story that characters construct a hybrid way of establishing themselves in the larger world."--Jacket.