A Study Of Reconstructions Of The Themes Of Fairytales In Possession

This study focuses on the repetitive themes in Possession, A Romance---the repetitions between the fairytales and the realistic part of the plots. In her attempt to reconstruct the characters in myths and those in classic fairytales, especially the characters in Brothers Grimm's fairytales, A. S. Byatt has experimented with the device of intertextuality with surprising effect. Fairytales, at the same time, function as the unconsciousness of the text of Possession.By studying the reconstruction of the fairytales in the realistic plots in Possession, A Romance, we could explore the"reality"of the novel. The four themes reflected in the fairytales are also the themes of the realistic plots---the theme of death, the theme of freedom, the theme of metamorphoses and the theme of revival.By reconstructing fairytales in the novel, Possession illustrates a vivid picture of the western society that is dominated by the power of money, of the sex, and of the words. Byatt challenges the western dominating ideology by presenting to us the co-existence of death and revival, the two directions of the metamorphoses and the falsity of the absolute freedom.