Feminist Frauds on the Fairies?: Didacticism and Liberation in Recent Retellings of "Cinderella"

1. Feminist Frauds on the Fairies?: Didacticism and Liberation inRecent Retellings of "Cinderella" Karlyn Crowley, John Pennington By: Alyson Melnik and Rachael Marchionda

2. Identify the thesis and central claims in the article/chapter. • The article explores the answer to the following question: “The question, then, is whether… readers ever reach a point when they might be troubled by a feminist emancipation of classic fairy tales.” Crowley and Pennington use this question to make their thesis and main points. • THESIS: We draw on Dickens’s discussion in “Frauds of the Fairies” to ask: Can feminist revisions commit a fraud on the fairies by transforming tales into didactic tracts? Yet we take Dickens a step further in highlighting how the historical and sociocultural feminist contexts of fairy-tale creation inform the work of these three writers. By also drawing on Crew’s questions--- do fairy tales “subvert or change power relations” and “challenge and resist ideologies”?--- we suggest that feminist retellings[of fairy tales] that are incapable of [subverting power relations or challenging traditional gender ideologies] may reinscribe gender norms even as they seek to be liberated from them. • IN SHORT: If a feminist retelling of a fairy tale does not effectively subvert power relations (in regards to gender) and challenge traditional ideologies (in regards to gender), it risks reinscribing gender norms rather than detaching from them.

3. WALKER • “…we argue, her versions of classic tales play such a fraud on the fairies; her overt didacticism not only relies on essentialist ideas of womanhood but also destroys the artistic integrity of the tales, creating tales that tend to commit the same crime that she believes the originals do.” • “Walker, as we have argued, is invested in essentialism: maintaining both the essential nature of the tale and essential ideas about gender.” • “What Walker brings to the tale is a mythic backdrop that is placed over the original tale—the original tale remains the primary text, and the added goddess myth is forced upon it.”

4. DONOGHUE/BLOCK • “We argue that these feminist fairy tales are simultaneously operating in a tradition of fairy-tale retelling while also telling the story of the specific gender debates of our recent feminist historical moment.” • “When we turn to Emma Donoghue’s and Francesca Lia Block’s versions of “Cinderella,” we see tales that avoid didacticism by retelling the original tale in a more self-reflective, sophisticated, and descriptive way. Donoghue and Block challenge the original tale’s faulty gender assumptions and provide new, liberatory gender possibilities that work only when the structures of their tales are exploded.”

5. Claim of Walker, Donoghue, and Block • We claim that to the extent that Walker is prescriptive—she insists on a singular interpretation of the tale that is inorganic and dogmatic—Donoghue and Block aredescriptive, for they allow multiple interpretations that illuminate and expand on the tales rather than repeat a one-to-one didactic correspondence. 

6. The examples of support of the author’s claims

7. WALKER • New Age myth to convince us of the essential nature of woman and of the lost world of the goddess, further promoting the prescriptive nature of the tale • “Cinder-Helle”, ansformed by magic into a beautiful woman who attracts the eye of Prince Populo. Thus the protagonist remains passive in the tale as the action works upon her • Cinder-Helle becomes Princess Helle; she makes Nobilita a secretary-companion, and Ecclesia lives “up to her pretenses of piety by taking a vow of poverty and ministering to the sick, Ecclesia learned to feel useful in this life and became a sincere, almost saintly person. As for Christiana, she died dissatisfied. And of course, Prince Populo and Princess Helle lived happily ever after” (196) • She maintains the frame of the Perrault text while embracing troubling gender assumptions, Cinder-Helle remains passive throughout the whole tale and is seen as an object of beauty and desire, and conforms to the patriarchal system of control, welcoming the Prince as her master

8. WALKER (cont.) • While Walker does bring in this "goddess" twist to the story to try and make the female character more dominant and supreme, her efforts are quickly backtracked when she decided to explain Cinder-Helle's role in her magical land as being the stereotypical mothering woman who performs jobs/tasks that women are expected to be experts in (like delivering babies and keeping the peace). Followed by the the back story of a strong male ruling taking control of the goddess's land and for a time ridding the land of the "goddess's temples". This is keeping the original tale's idea from Perrault , of only a man can rule and be successful at it and no matter what people will bow down because a man knows all.  • "Walker is invested in essentialism: maintaining both the essential nature of the tale and essential ideas about gender." If Walker wanted to make a change to the sexist fairy tales she is retelling why would she keep the original back story which in most cases which always feature a passive women and dominant male? 

9. DONOGHUE/ BLOCK • Cinderella is acutely aware of how she should act as a girl, but she is simultaneously defiant. Cinderella even has a meta-awareness that she is in a fairy tale that has certain expectations • Prince Charming asks for Cinderella’s hand in marriage: “I opened my teeth but no sound came out” (7). Donoghue cleverly inverts the notion of the voiced and voiceless—Cinderella is voiceless because she refuses to conform to the patriarchal and to the narrative code that drives the canonical “Cinderella” fairy tale. • In the ending of Donoghue’s story, “The Tale of the Shoe”, finds Cinderella embracing self-love (if the stranger is only a voice in her head) and lesbian love • In Francesca Lia Block’s, “Glass,” Cinderella is comfortably independent with a strong voice of her own as she is the storyteller • The troupe of the wicked stepmother and sisters is eliminated which takes away the idea of the jealous competition between women that it shown through the more classic versions of this tale • Cinderella is the subject, not an object; she is active, not passive

10. DONOGHUE/ BLOCK (cont.) • Donoghue and Block avoid didacticism in retelling Cinderella, meaning there were not trying to teach little ones the way a women should behave in society in order to have her Prince Charming come and save her. • they focused more on retelling the story in a self reflective way that gave voice to the Princess that was never given in the original tales, this showing the tales in a  "self-reflective, sophisticated, and descriptive way" according to Donoghue and Block.  • “Nobody made me do the things I did, nobody scolded me, nobody punished me but me. The shrill voices were all inside."

11. Evaluation of the Argument

12. Introduction As we begin to read this scholarship it is easy to quickly realize that the authors decided to open up their argument with plenty of background information. Now this is helpful to the reader because it does give you a better understanding of what the problem is (the approach feminist retellings of fairy tales) and how it affects the story and reader. While I understand why it is important to add scholarly citing into an argument for relevance, I believe that Crowley and Pennington may have taken this tacit a little too far. The scholars that were cited in the first 5 pages of the text all were wonderful and are very relevant to our class and especially the topic of feminism in the fairy tale world. Although it came to a point where the lines became blurred as to who was actually saying what because so many different names and quotes were beginning thrown out and so closely together. Crowley and Pennington seemed to have much of a voice which made it very difficult at first to find any claims that THEY had made and not the scholars that they were referring to so frequently. 

13.  Because both of the author’s voices were slightly lost in all the jumbled mess of the background information of different fairy tales and opinions, the argument (that was barely existent) had very little strength to it. • Not only was the introduction difficult to read through for claims and evidence, it was just difficult to read through period. At many times you would catch yourself rereading certain sections over again because of the confusion of whose words were actually whose.   • On the other hand, with all these different scholars being presenting in this text it bring for great resource to relate to a very common topic brought up in class  •   For example, a major scholar the author’s brought into play was Zipes. Who obviously has a large impact on our class in particular but also had the most modern view on the feminist fairy tale which can be very helpful when it comes to understand the topic/problem of these types of fairy tales and also the many other problems that have been brought up by these stories 

14. Body Moving on to the actual heart of the text, the argument moves along quite nicely. Once Crowley and Pennington bring in their three main authors into focus, the thesis becomes clearer. The examples coming from Walker, Donoghue, and Block back up the idea presented by Dickens of the frauds in feminist fairy tales. The stories explained by the authors show the reader both the good and the bad in the feminist retelling of Cinderella, which helped greatly when it came to finding useful evidence in supporting Crowley and Pennington’s claims related to Dickens questioning. Walker was a great example of the "fraud" that Dickens had brought up, with the examples of her work showing a large part of the original male dominating background text. While on the other hand the stories shown my Donoghue and Block gave wonderful examples of how feminist fairy tales are possible, and can make great stories without forcing the idea of feminism down the reader's throat.

15. This text also can be used as an useful reference in class, as it touches on just about everything we have discussed in class dealing with women's roles in fairy tales. It supports most of our feelings that women are portrayed as too passive and left without a voice of their own, many of time leaving as angry because a women is much more than just an object of sex.  •  It can also be used to see the argument from a slightly different view, is it really possible to change fairy tales and the female role in these classic stories? As the text shows, trying to feminize classic tales can go very wrong and ruin the idea the author may be trying to show because of the deeply rooted underlying sexism that can be not rid of.