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Author
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Comment
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icklemermaid
Registered User
(11/18/05 9:13 am)
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Fairy Tale Dissertation
Hello there,
Apologies if this is a question that has been repeatedly asked on here, but this seems like the perfect place to help me out...Basically, I am planning to do my UG dissertation on fairy tales, concentrating particularly on issues of gender. I'm aware that there is a lot of material out there, but my main problem at the moment is homing in on a specific theme to discuss and even more, what my primary texts should be. So far I'm considering looking at Grimm's and Angela Carter's work, but do people think that I should pick certain fairy tales to look at e.g. Sleeping Beauty, Little Red Riding Hood and Snow White ??
I'm basically feeling rather overwhelmed with the mounds of work that has been written on thuis subject and i'm conscious that i only have 8,000 words to play with.
In anticipation for people's advice, thankyou!
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MmusicofTheNight
Unregistered User
(11/18/05 11:07 am)
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Women
If you're concerned with the passive roles so many females play, "Sleeping Beauty" and "Snow White" are helpful. For a look at some stronger characters, I would recommend the collection "Tatterhood and Other Tales"
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princessterribel
Registered User
(11/18/05 11:59 am)
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Re: Women
Hiya, I am largely in the same boat as you...my advice would be to focus on one story, but try what I am doing which is to take that one story and its other versions and compare the treatment of gender as it has changed over time, perhaps?
For example, take the sleeping beauty story (say Grimms example) think about how it deals with issues of gender and then compare it with a 20th or 21st century version of the story, or older versions. Perhaps you could look at sleeping beauty versions across cultures to see what gender discussions can arise from a cultural perspective.
There is an abundance of information at ur fingertips, may I suggest, Marina Warner's 'from the beast to the blonde'. This is a particularly great book and has several chapters looking at female characters in fairy tale. However, as you could find information about gender and the fairytale in almost every study of this type of literature, sticking to a comparison of one or two tales will definately help you to limit your areas of research and it should prove a less daunting adventure!
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evil little pixie
Registered User
(11/18/05 2:33 pm)
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Re: Fairy Tale Dissertation
Try looking here: www.surlalunefairytales.c...tales.html
I second the idea of taking a particular story and looking at as many versions of it as you can find, going as far back as you can. I'd suggest "Little Red Riding Hood" (check out the "Path of Needles or Pins" article from the link above), but there are many others that would work. Good luck!
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icklemermaid
Registered User
(11/20/05 2:21 pm)
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Re: Fairy Tale Dissertation
thanks everyone, these are some very helpful replies and I am now fairly decided that the best way to approach this study will be to concentrate on one (or at the most two) text(s). However, my next question is, if ,say, I decide to concentrate on the story of Sleeping Beauty, besides the obvious Disney version, where/how do I go about finding all the different versions/adaptations etc of this story? I'm sure there are ridiculous amounts of this story in circulation, but are there 'main' ones? This question goes for the other stories that i'm considering using (Snow White/Red riding hood) too...I'm a bit stuck as to where to begin looking!
thanks again!
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kristiw
Unregistered User
(11/20/05 2:58 pm)
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About the Sleeping Beauty
I don't know how well this is thought of academically, but my first thought was Travers' "About the Sleeping Beauty"-- it has several prominent versions of the story from different cultures, as well as some analysis. Good Luck!
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evil little pixie
Registered User
(11/20/05 7:22 pm)
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Re: About the Sleeping Beauty
If you go to the SurLaLune main page ( www.surlalunefairytales.com/ ), Heidi has annotated a number of tales and included a wide variety of information, sources, and different versions for each. I'm not sure of the best way to research a tale not annotated on SurLaLune, but my guess would be to either google it or to ask someone who specializes in fairy tales and folklore. Good luck!
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Rosemary Lake
Registered User
(11/21/05 2:05 am)
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cross cultural versions
If Heidi doesn't have the different versions and notes on a tale, you can find some at Ashliman's site. Google for the tale and 'Ashliman'.
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princessterribel
Registered User
(11/21/05 2:32 am)
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No need!
NO NEED!
Heidi does have an annotated version of sleeping beauty (its on the home page as you scroll down, the stories are on the right hand side) click on that then when it comes up the menu bar ont he left has a 'similar tales across cultures' option, there are plenty of other cultural versions provided.
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icklemermaid
Registered User
(11/21/05 3:32 am)
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Re: No need!
Thankyou!
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sandmaenchen
Unregistered User
(11/22/05 6:09 am)
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fairy tale dissertation
I'm working on a paper on feminist rewritings of fairytales at the moment. I chose bluebeard rewritings by Bronte (Jane Eyre), Angela Carter and Margret Atwood, but since all are very different I have difficulties with comparing them. Especially Atwood's version is difficult, because I have no terminology to describe what she does to the original tale. Can anybody recommend a text about rewriting that could help me?
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princessterribel
Registered User
(11/24/05 5:27 am)
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response
May I suggest that you post a new thread on the main board, otherise your qustsion will not be seen by everyone, only by people who choose to open this particular discussion which is quite old now.
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sandmaennchen
Unregistered User
(11/25/05 12:17 pm)
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feminist rewritings of fairy tales
I'm working on a paper on feminist rewritings of fairytales at the moment. I chose bluebeard rewritings by Bronte (Jane Eyre), Angela Carter and Margret Atwood, but since all are very different I have difficulties with comparing them. Especially Atwood's version is difficult, because I have no terminology to describe what she does to the original tale. Can anybody recommend a text about rewriting that could help me?
Thank you
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Veronica Schanoes
Registered User
(11/25/05 12:24 pm)
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rewriting
Writing Beyond the Ending by Rachel Blau DuPlessis is very good, as is Postmodern Fairy Tales by Cristina Bachilegga. There's a book specifically about Bluebeard revisions called Reading Feminist Intertexuality through Bluebeard Stories by Casie Hermansson. For Margaret Atwood specifically, there's Sharon Wilson's Margaret Atwood’s Fairy-Tale Sexual Politics. There's a ton of stuff on Carter--really all you have to do is go to a library's database or to the MLA database, and start running some keyword searches.
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