Fairy Tale's Elixir Of Youth

Fairy tale, the initial recording of primitive wishes, the bedtime companion of little children as well as the magic trump of recreational and commercial appropriations, never fails to hold the world spellbound and always enjoys perennial youth. Its elixir is the timely revisions from various socio-historical backgrounds and with disparate purposes. Taking two major specimens,"Snow White"and"Sleeping Beauty", from the canonical fairy tale, the dissertation attempts to synchronically explore several contemporary revisions, including Snow White,"The Snow Child""The Dead Queen", Briar Rose,"Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs", and"Briar Rose (Sleeping Beauty)", respectively by Donald Barthelme, Angela Cater, Robert Coover, and Anne Sexton. With a close investigation into the developmental courses of the two tales, the revisional dimension of the chosen works and their contribution to the literary heritage, the dissertation ventures to reach the conclusion that fairy tale revisions, though subversive and sometimes hostile, are of benefit to the development of the genre, since they destruct the embedded obsolete ideology of the canonical tales and embrace the ethos of the modern era.To fulfill the schema, the dissertation is further divided into three chapters besides Introduction and Conclusion. The introductory part briefs the understanding of classic fairy tale and its revisions with the theoretical catalyzer, presents its literature review home and abroad and the general research methods, and informs the content, framework, significance as well as contribution of the present dissertation.Chapter One,"Birth and Curse: The Fairy Tale Godfathers", is devoted to the diachronic study of the two fairy tales from their anonymous ancestors, to Basile, Perrault, the Brothers Grimm and Walt Disney. The analysis leads to the discovery that fairy tale, once a portion of the oral culture, has been textualized, later bowdlerized and canonized, which in turn results in its mythicization, fossilization and even commercialization.The second chapter,"Disenchantment: The Twentieth-Century Rebels", shifts the attention to the revisional tales and is in quest of their subversion to the precursory works. Grouping their aggressive interventions under the iconoclasm of the stereotypical characters, the revelation of the latent relationship and the remark of hidden taboos, the dissertation elucidates the effect of the unconventional refashioning and the revelation to the present understanding of the ancient art. Without the false sense of simplicity and naiveté, fairy tale is largely manipulated by the dominant ideology to procure its ends.The third chapter,"Awakening: The Spellbound Reader", continues the significance of fairy tale revisions and summarizes their remodeling into three transfers, namely the literary one, the tempo-spatial one and the power one. With the application of multiple means, such as the adjustment of narrative voice and setting, the epigones convert the original readerly texts into writerly ones. Their efforts change the power relationship of the classic and, at the same time, empower the reader to create a possible meaning in accordance with his/her comprehension. The emancipation of the conventional tales from authoritative hegemony and of the reader from the enchanted blindness infuses vigor into the otherwise senile tales and makes them updated to our age.After the discussion of the two tales'past and present versions as well as the destruction and constructiveness of modern rewritings, and with the hope to justify the validity of such reconstructions, the dissertation endeavors to conclude that the chosen contemporary revisions save the classic from the stagnation by breaking through the shackles of literary and ideological dominance and adapt them for the modern reader with extensive modifications. In all, fairy tale revision was, is and will be an indispensable part of its evolution. With the fountain of youth, fairy tale will age naturally and remain ageless along the changing times.