Christy Williams

Bio: Christy Williams is an academic researcher. The author has contributed to research in topics: Beauty & Intertextuality. The author has an hindex of 1, co-authored 2 publications receiving 11 citations.

Who's Wicked Now?: The Stepmother as Fairy-Tale Heroine

Abstract: The wicked stepmother is a staple of the popular fairy-tale tradition and arguably its most famous villain. While she wasn't always wicked or always a stepmother in folklore tradition, the wicked stepmother can be found in a variety of well-known Western fairy tales. The Brothers Grimm feature some of the best-known stepmothers, such as those in "Cinderella" (ATU 510A), "Snow White" (ATU 709), and "Hansel and Gretel" (ATU 327A) as well as lesserknown stepmothers, such as those in "The Six Swans" (ATU 450) and "The Juniper Tree" (ATU 720), all of whom are wicked. Walt Disney took the Grimms' wicked stepmother and gave her an unforgettable face in his 1937 film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Snow White's stepmother stands out for her terrifying image as the wicked queen. Since then, the wicked stepmother has become a stock figure, a fairy-tale type that invokes a vivid image at the mention of her role - so much so that stepmothers in general have had to fight against their fairy-tale reflections. A quick Internet search for the term "wicked stepmother" will produce hundreds of websites dedicated to the plight of stepmothers fighting against the "wicked" moniker they have inherited from fairy tales. Robert Coover's 2004 novel, Stepmother, takes on the wicked stepmother figure of fairy-tale tradition and offers a more complex depiction of the character. The plot of Coover's novel is quite simple; the novel, however, is far from simple. Stepmother, the title character and the novel's protagonist, is trying to save her daughter's life. Her unnamed daughter has been found guilty of an unnamed crime against the court of Reaper's Woods and is to be executed. Stepmother breaks her daughter out of prison, and the two of them flee to the woods. Stepmother hides her daughter and, once the daughter is recaptured, tries various schemes to prevent, or at least to delay, the planned execution. She tries appealing to the Reaper, her arch enemy and the authority in the woods, with magic, sex, and reason, but she fails. Her daughter is executed, and Stepmother seeks vengeance. The execution of her daughter and Stepmother's subsequent revenge is not a new plot to Stepmother, as she repeats it over and again with each of her daughters, the many heroines of fairy-tale tradition: How many I've seen go this way, daughters, stepdaughters, whatever - some just turn up at my door, I'm never quite sure whose they are or where they come from - but I know where they go: to be drowned, hung, stoned, beheaded, burned at the stake, impaled, torn apart, shot, put to the sword, boiled in oil, dragged down the street in barrels studded on the inside with nails or nailed into barrels with holes drilled in them and rolled into the river. Their going always sickens me and the deep self-righteous laughter of their executioners causes the bile to rise, and for a time thereafter I unleash a storm of hell, or at least what's in my meager power to raise, and so do my beautiful wild daughters, it's a kind of violent mourning, and so they come down on us again and more daughters are caught up in what the Reaper calls the noble toils of justice and thus we keep the cycle going, rolling along through this timeless time like those tumbling nail-studded barrels. (1-2) Stepmother explains that there is nothing new in what we are about to read; she has experienced it all before and will experience it all again. But she still has to try to save her daughter, and as readers we are left with the impression that she will keep trying with each new daughter's appearance. The impetus of the novel is summed up in its second sentence, narrated by Stepmother: "my poor desperate daughter, her head is locked on one thing and one thing only: how to escape her inescapable fate" (1). Throughout the novel, Stepmother and other characters struggle against their predetermined fairy-tale functions. Despite recognizing the "inescapability" of their fates, they still try to change the cycle of events they know will unfold by manipulating fairy-tale patterns to their advantage. …

Critical and Creative Perspectives on Fairy Tales: An Intertextual Dialogue Between Fairy-Tale Scholarship and Postmodern Retellings (review)

Abstract: Critical and Creative Perspectives on Fairy Tales: An Intertextual Dialogue Between Fairy-Tale Scholarship and Postmodern Retellings. By Vanessa Joosen. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2011. Although there are many works that explore intertextuality among folktales, fairy tales, and retellings, few critical works examine the intertextual relationship between fairy-tale criticism and fairy-tale retellings. Vanessa Joosen deftly takes on this gap in her exceptional book Critical and Creative Perspectives on Faiiy Tales, which examines, as she puts it, "the critical impulse in literature, in the retellings" (35). Joosen begins by calling attention to an overlap in the concerns of fairy-tale criticism and retellings noted by other scholars, such as Stephen Benson and Jack Zipes. Joosen argues that retellings interpret traditional fairy tales just as criticism does, and their authors respond not just to the traditional fairy tales but to the criticism about fairy tales as well. In much the same way that criticism turns to retellings to discuss the concepts and ideology of traditional tales, retellings respond to critical concepts in remaking fairy tales. Joosen's primary argument is that "retellings and criticism participate in a continuous and dynamic dialogue about the traditional fairy tale" (3). What makes Joosen's book unique is that she centers her study on the criticism, not the retellings, and traces a complex web of intertextual references to that criticism. Joosen's case studies focus on three well-known and influential works of fairy-tale criticism: "Some Day My Prince Will Come," by Marcia Lieberman (1972); The Uses oj Enchantment, by Bruno Bettelheim (1976); and The Madwoman in the Attic, by Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar (1979). In Joosen's view writers of retellings need not have read the criticism to reference it. Some criticism is so well-known, even outside fairy-tale studies, that writers can be familiar with the critical concepts through popular versions without having read the work itself. For example, Bettelheim's psychoanalytic interpretations of fairy tales and his basic premise that fairy tales function therapeutically for children have so pervaded popular culture that it is unsurprising that many retellings incorporate similar themes. In Chapter 3 Joosen examines how several of Bettelheim's arguments appear in retellings, such as his ideas on Oedipal desire that are picked up in Denise Duhamel's "Sleeping Beauty's Dreams" and Francesca Lia Block's "Beast." In both cases Joosen shows how the writers use and challenge Bettelheim's interpretation. Joosen also explains that this kind of intertextual dialogue can occur when writers of retellings and criticism are interested in the same issues concerning fairy tales and come to similar conclusions independently. This is particularly evident in Joosen's discussions of such retellings as Anne Sexton's Transformauons and Robert Coover's "Dead Queen," which precede the critical texts yet come to similar conclusions about the core issues at the heart of the traditional tales. Joosen's primary focus is on these types of indirect intertextual links as opposed to direct references to criticism by the writers of retellings, although she provides notable examples from those who do allude explicitly, such as Dorothea Runow, whose retelling of "Little Red Riding Hood" is a critique of Bettelheim's interpretation of the same tale. The retellings that Joosen analyzes span the past thirty years and are based on a small subset of popular fairy tales: "Snow White," "Cinderella," "Sleeping Beauty," "Hansel and Gretel," "Little Red Riding Hood," and "Beauty and the Beast." Because each chapter focuses on a critical work, Joosen analyzes several tales related to the critical concepts that predominate in that work. For example, in Chapter 2 she mingles analysis of retellings of "Snow White" ("A Taste for Beauty," by Priscilla Galloway), "Cinderella" ("The Ugly Stepsisters Strike Back," by Linda Kavanagh), and "Sleeping Beauty" (Sleeping Ugly, by Jane Yolen) in her discussion of the "beauty contest" (65), a concept critical to Lieberman's argument. …

Wondrous transformations: rereading and rewriting wonder in contemporary anglophone and francophone fairy tales

Abstract: This thesis compares contemporary anglophone and francophone rewritings of traditional fairy tales for adults. Examining material dating from the 1990s to the present, including novels, novellas, short stories, comics, televisual and filmic adaptations, this thesis argues that while the revisions studied share similar themes and have comparable aims, the methods for inducing wonder (where wonder is defined as the effect produced by the text rather than simply its magical contents) are diametrically opposed, and it is this opposition that characterises the difference between the two types of rewriting. While they all engage with the hybridity of the fairy-tale genre, the anglophone works studied tend to question traditional narratives by keeping the fantasy setting, while francophone works debunk the tales not only in relation to questions of content, but also aesthetics. Through theoretical, historical, and cultural contextualisation, along with close readings of the texts, this thesis aims to demonstrate the existence of this francophone/anglophone divide and to explain how and why the authors in each tradition tend to adopt such different views while rewriting similar material. This division is the guiding thread of the thesis and also functions as a springboard to explore other concepts such as genre hybridity, reader-response, and feminism. The thesis is divided into two parts; the first three chapters work as an in-depth literature review: after examining, in chapters one and two, the historical and contemporary cultural field in which these works were created, chapter three examines theories of fantasy and genre hybridity. The second part of the thesis consists of textual studies and comparisons between francophone and anglophone material and is built on three different approaches. The first (chapter four) looks at selected texts in relation to questions of form, studying the process of world building and world creation enacted when authors combine and rewrite several fairy tales in a single narrative world. The second (chapter five) is a thematic approach which investigates the interactions between femininity, the monstrous, and the wondrous in contemporary tales of animal brides. Finally, chapter six compares rewritings of the tale of ‘Bluebeard’ with a comparison hinged on the representation of the forbidden room and its contents: Bluebeard’s cabinet of wonder is one that he holds sacred, one where he sublimates his wives’ corpses, and it is the catalyst of wonder, terror, and awe. The three contextual chapters and the three text-based studies work towards tracing the tangible existence of the division postulated between francophone and anglophone texts, but also the similarities that exist between the two cultural fields and their roles in the renewal of the fairy-tale genre.

The unblemished concubine: Representations of Anne Boleyn in the English written word, 2000-2012

Abstract: Anne Boleyn, the second wife of Henry VIII, has been the subject of fictional and nonfictional historical narratives since her execution in 1536. Although already a contentious figure for her role in Henry VIII’s annulment of his first marriage and England’s ensuing break from the Roman Catholic Church, the nature of her death ensured that she would become a focus of examination, intrigue and scrutiny. This fascination is, in part, fuelled by limited primary source materials, particularly from Boleyn’s perspective; there is an accepted, familiar narrative of her life that is defined by landmark events, however we cannot know precisely how she experienced these events. The reasons for her death are unclear because conclusive evidence confirming either her guilt or her innocence is yet to be uncovered. This combination of fascination and ambiguity means that Anne Boleyn is an apt case study for a consideration of the tensions between history and fiction that appear in all historical narratives. In recent decades, postmodern historiography has highlighted the literary qualities of histories, and scholars such as Hayden White have drawn attention to the narrativisation, emplotment and characterisation that occur in both fictional and non-fictional histories. The role of the historian as author—rather than as objective observer—has been integral to such scholarship. This study examines ten twenty-firstcentury historical narratives, encompassing a range of historical writing, including academic histories, popular biographies, historiographic metafiction and historical fiction. In spite of variations in style, audience, genre and veracity, each of the focus texts constructs both a characterisation of Boleyn and a narrative of her life. A close textual analysis of these narratives reveals that there are representational techniques and practices that are shared by the authors, regardless of their claims to authenticity and accuracy. Thus, the thesis rejects the apparent disjuncture between fictional and non-fictional histories on the basis of their capacity to relate truth, and argues that these texts should each be considered examples of historical writing.

Once upon an ideology: exploring the ideologies and identities of female figures through a selection of classic and contemporary fairy tales

Abstract: ..................................................................................................................................... ii Declaration of Originality ......................................................................................................... iv Dedication .................................................................................................................................. v Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................... vi

Who's the Fairest of Them All? Defining and Subverting the Female Beauty Ideal in Fairy Tale Narratives and Films through Grotesque Aesthetics

Abstract: ............................................................................................................................................. ii Acknowledgments ....................................................................................................................... iii Table of Contents .......................................................................................................................... iv List of Figures .............................................................................................................................. viii Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 1 ........................................................................................................................................ 20 1 How History, Typology and Psychoanalytic Scholarship Have Maintained the Beauty Ideal as a Dominant Presence in Female Relationships in Fairy Tales ...... 20 1.1 The Medieval Basis for the Dominant Presence of the Beauty Ideal for Women in Literary Fairy Tales ......................................................................................................................... 22 1.1.1 How the Written Tales Were Influenced by a Medieval Association between Beauty and Good Morality ................................................................................................................................................ 22 1.1.2 The Historic Reality of Death in Childbirth and its Influence in Creating the Cruel, Envious Stepmother ............................................................................................................................................ 25 1.1.3 How the Medieval Approach to Marriage and Beauty Establishes a Power Hierarchy for Women in Fairy Tales ............................................................................................................ 26 1.1.4 How a Combination of the Medieval Beauty Ideal, Physical Reward and Punishment, and Marriage Enforce Violent Female Relationships in Versions of “Cinderella” ............................................................................................................................................................. 27 1.1.5 The Lack of Correlation in Male Characters between Appearance, Violence and Morality ..................................................................................................................................................................... 30 1.2 How the Archetype of the Mother and the Typology of a Tale Encourage Envy and Conflict Centered around the Beauty Ideal .......................................................................... 32 1.2.1 Exploring the Mother Archetype and its Influence on the Moral and Aesthetic Splitting of Female Characters into Two Extremes ............................................................................... 33 1.2.2 How Envy and Violence Based on the “Snow White” Typology Reinforce Beauty as the Source of Power and Center of Conflict in Female Relationships ............................................ 35 1.3 How the Perceived Audience of the Tales and Psychoanalytic Scholarship Have Legitimized the Use of Violence and Punishment of Female Envy over Beauty ............... 42

Shift from Wicked Stepmother to Stepmother in Eastern and Western Fairy Tales.

Abstract: Objective The image of the wicked stepmother has created a prejudice against stepmothers, which makes it difficult for them to adjust to their stepfamilies. This study compared fairy tales from different cultures to reestablish the nature of stepmothers. Methods Grimms' Fairy Tales (GFT) was used to represent Western culture, with stepmother characters appearing in 15 out of 210 tales. "The Collection of Korean Traditional Fairy Tales" (KFT) was used to represent Eastern culture, with stepmother characters featured in 14 out of 15,107 tales. We examined the relationships between stepmothers and stepchildren in GFT and KFT. Results Daughters were abused more often than sons in both genres. In GFT, jealousy spurred the abuse in 12 of 15 cases, while in KFT greed was predominant in 12 of 14 cases. Conclusion The fairy tale portrayals of wicked stepmothers may be associated with the stigma children place on their stepmothers, which needs to be overcome.