Forgotten Tales a Thesis Presented to the Faculty of the College of Arts And

Forgotten Tales A thesis presented to the faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences of Ohio University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Master of Arts Lindsey A. Fischer April 2017 ©2017 Lindsey A. Fischer. All Rights Reserved. 2 This thesis titled Forgotten Tales by LINDSEY A. FISCHER has been approved for the department of English and the College of Arts and Sciences by Patrick O’Keeffe Assistant Professor of English Robert Frank Dean, College of Arts and Sciences 3 ABSTRACT FISCHER, LINDSEY A., M.A., April 2017, English Forgotten Tales Director of Thesis: Patrick O’Keeffe This collection of short stories retells fairy tales and myths to bring out themes of feminism, heroism, and forgotten voices. The critical introduction is an investigation into the history of fairy tale retellings, and how we can best write works that engage in a conversation with other stories. This intro also argues for a return to the oral tradition, which is how these original fairy tales and myths were told, in order to evoke the spontaneity of oral performance. This project is interested in story-telling, from our childhood to adulthood, as I create a new canon of fairy tales for grown-ups. 4 DEDICATION To my parents and brothers for their love and support, to E. for believing in me, and to the wonderful literary nerds in Ellis 8 for the inspiration 5 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This project would never have happened without the advice and guidance of my adviser, Patrick O’Keeffe. Thank you for all the editing and encouragement. I also would like to thank my thesis committee, Eric Lemay and Joan Connor for their teaching during my time here as well as their willingness to be a part of this project. 6 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Abstract……………………………………………………………………………………3 Dedication………………………………………………………………………………....4 Acknowledgments………………………………………………………………………...5 Critical Introduction: A Forgotten Tale…………………………………………………...7 The Divine Image……………………………………………………………………......28 A Living Nightmare: Part 1………………………………………………………….......30 Art Appreciation………………………………………………………………………....41 The Politics of Hospitality…………………………………………………………….....46 Tess………………………………………………………………………………….…...61 Shady Oaks Retirement Home for Lost Ghosts…………………………………….…....66 The Benevolent Curse…………………………………………………………….….......89 A Living Nightmare: Part 2……………………………………………………….…......92 Lotus Petals……………………………………………………………………….….....102 There Once was a Girl who Found a Book……………………………………………..116 7 A FORGOTTEN TALE “Angela Carter, for me, is still the one who said: 'You see these fairy stories, these things that are sitting at the back of the nursery shelves? Actually, each one of them is a loaded gun. Each of them is a bomb. Watch: if you turn it right it will blow up.' And we all went: 'Oh my gosh, she's right – you can blow things up with these!'” –Neil Gaiman *** Neil Gaiman articulates what I never found the words to say: fairy tales and myth are explosive. They are dangerous. Their shrapnel will enter your body and never leave, burrowing under your skin. A writer wields her story as a weapon, using it to blow up not just people, but ideas, stereotypes, and the patriarchy. I experienced this explosion in middle school when I read Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine, which is a retelling of “Cinderella.” In Levine’s version of the tale, Ella is cursed by a fairy to always be obedient. As Ella goes through her adventures and her step-mother and step-sisters abuse her curse, Ella takes responsibility for her own fate by searching for the fairy who cursed her and fighting for her friends. While she ends up happily ever after with the prince, he does not save her; she saves him, by refusing to marry him in order to protect him from the curse. Ultimately, she rids herself of the curse, because she willfully disobeys the prince’s order to marry him. I was never a fan of Cinderella as a kid, finding her a little dull and lacking in personality. Levine blew up this fairy tale and showed me who Cinderella could be: she shattered the original version. As a girl in middle school, dealing with popular girls who acted like wicked step-sisters and a feeling of uncertainty with regard to my physical appearance, I found someone who 8 I could admire. Ella was an independent woman who challenged authority and gained respect from men and women alike. The story embodied female empowerment and smashed the expectation that a woman must be saved by a man. I found that I had been affected, my worldview had been blown up, and now I was in a place where princesses were heroes, not victims. Gaiman was right; these fairy stories have power to destroy. What he doesn’t mention, however, is that these stories create something new out of the chaos and rubble. For me, this something new was confidence in myself as a woman and recognition that older tales have a lot more to offer than bland princesses. As a writer I realize how dangerous it is to work with a medium that is a beloved fixture of many readers’ pasts. Readers react to this genre viscerally and have set expectations that are shaped by the memories of childhood, which is usually when they first encountered these tales. I even find there are some tales I cannot rewrite, because they have such a sentimental hold on me: one of these is “Red Riding Hood”; another is “Daphne and Apollo.” I am interested in how retelling fairy tales and myths bring back memories of childhood, and if this collision of past and present is perhaps the bomb ready to be set off. Therefore, the critical and creative aim of my thesis is in three parts: 1.) I explore how retelling fairy tales and myth rewrite our childhoods, 2.) I use two of my own stories to relearn my own childhood and explore the retelling genre’s hybridity, and 3.) I argue for a return to the tradition of oral story-telling so as to regain the improvisational and collective nature of the original fairy tales and myths. I argue for this return because as a writer of retellings, what I see as the greatest danger to the genre is repetition and 9 predictability. Oral story-telling encourages spontaneity. While its very form is a reminder of the past, oral storytelling is about creating a unique experience in the present; fairy tale and myth retellings must embrace this tradition of improvisation and imagination to remain relevant, surprising, and exciting. Before delving into the art of retellings, I will provide the essential characteristics of a fairy tale and myth and define what I mean by a ‘retelling.’ Vanessa Joosen, a celebrated scholar of fairy tale criticism, assigns fairy tales and myths an obligatory set of characteristics: a time and place beyond our reach, an acceptance of the supernatural, plot-driven and episodic narratives, often optimistic endings, and most often a third person omniscient narrator. Retellings change at least one of these essential characteristics: a contemporary or set historical time period, doubt of the supernatural, characters with psychological development, less focus on action and a lack of an optimistic ending, and the narrator changes to first person or other (Joosen 13-16). The art of telling these stories over again is one that requires the writer to bring something new to an old pattern, twisting one or more of these characteristics, while staying true to the others to make the story recognizable to the reader. For example, Kelly Link, a writer of fairy tale inspired short stories, says, “I liked that there were clusters of stories, where you could see how one pattern had been endlessly reworked and retold. I loved fairy tale retellings, and how they were a kind of vocabulary/basic narrative language/recognizable pattern for so many readers” (“A Brief Interview with Kelly Link”). Link suggests that these new tales exist in the space of intertextuality, where their associations lend them strength and their divergence from tradition give them resonance and meaning. 10 Joosen claims that there is an inherent paradox in a retelling in terms of its relationship with tradition and our childhood: “By critically distancing themselves from the fairy tale, retellings invite readers to reconsider the traditional text…at the same time it criticizes and reinforces the target text; it is simultaneously negative and affirmative, desacralizing and resacralizing, rebellious and conservative” (Joosen 16-17). The retelling forces readers to consider the older text they knew in childhood, while also encouraging them to toss aside the old text for this newer rendition. It rebels against tradition, while also relying on tradition for its foundation. It recognizes the prominence of the old text, while criticizing and often mocking its outdated ideals to create new meaning and vision. For example, Angela Carter has said, “Myth gives history shape,” and that includes our own personal history (“A Conversation with Angela Carter”). These myths and stories were how we explained the world. Our values sprung from the old tales that affect our perception of our lives. Smashing these traditional stories and retelling them, like Angela Carter does, is both an act of destruction and creation. Regarding Carter’s work, Kelly Link says, “What she was doing of course, was rewiring some very old stories. But it felt as if it were me…who was being reconfigured in some necessary way” (“Kelly Link Discusses”). Retellings rewrite history, culture, childhood, and the ways we were taught to see the world. When we read a retelling, we are reshaping and relearning our childhood, seeing how we have grown. Fairy tales are often an essential feature of our pasts. Retelling them is more than just changing around some plot points or adding characterization or shifting the point of view.

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