On The Subversive Rewriting Of Grimm's Fairy Tale "Snow White" By Contemporary British And American Writers

As one of the oldest literary forms in human history,fairy tales record the wisdom,experience and cultural imprint of humankind for thousands of years.At the same time,it has built a romantic and illusory utopia for humankind.It holds the common ideals and aspirations of mankind to pursue happiness,and it also focuses on people's understanding of life and love.Today,we still love fairy tales,not only because it opens a window for us to contemplate ourselves and our society,but also because it contains great openness and possibility being rewritten constantly to express the unique spirit of each ages and reflect the changes of the times.The object of this article is Grimm's fairy tale Snow White which is one of the most widely circulated stories in western classic fairy tales.Over time,this well-known story shows different appearances in the long history.Especially since the 1960 s,various social and cultural ideological trends have provided the best opportunity for writers to rewrite this story.The main content of this thesis is to explore how contemporary British and American writers rewrite the Grimm's fairy tale Snow White.The author chooses the three most representative works of rewriting,placing them in the background of Western social culture in the 20 th century.On the basis of careful reading of the texts,the author explores the reason for contemporary British and American writers' recreating and the deep implication contained in reconstructed works.The first part gives a general introduction to the reasons for the selection of the topic,the value of research in the contemporary era,and the status of domestic and foreign research related to this topic.In addition,the author also mentions the innovation of this paper.The second part focuses on Snow White in Grimm's Fairy Tales,which is the basis of this thesis.Firstly,the author makes a brief introduction to the origin of the Grimm Brothers and Grimm's Fairy Tales,as well as the social,historical and literary backgrounds of the Grimm's Fairy Tales.Then she makes a comparative analysis of the three important evolution versions of Snow White.Finally,from the perspective of psychoanalysis and cultural ideology,the author explores the implied meaning of Snow White.It concluded that "Snow White by the Brothers Grimm is actually a microcosm of women in Victorian patriarchal society."In the third part,the author selects two feminist rewriting works —The Snow Child and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.The author takes the second wave of women's liberation movement as the social base point.On the basis of careful reading of the texts,combining with the theory of feminist literary criticism,the author discusses the creative background,writing strategies and value and significance of these two works.In order to understand how feminist writers subverted the feudal ethics and morality advocated in classic fairy tales,break the unequal gender power mechanism and establish a new era of women's values.The fourth part focuses on studying Barthelme's postmodern fairy tale rewriting experiments-Snow White.Based on the background of postmodern cultural thoughts,the author discusses the post-modern fairy tale's rejection of traditional fairy tale narrative patterns and expression techniques,the deconstruction and reconstruction of the classic figures and the denial and questioning of traditional rationality.Firstly,the author stands in the postmodern context and makes an intertextual comparative analysis of Snow White and the source text,then explains the rapid being dwarf of figures such as Snow White,Paul and the Dwarf.In order to expose the anti-fantasy essence embodied in post-modern texts.The Snow White of the Brothers Grimm and the recreation of contemporary British and American writers,just like the magic mirror in the story,which truly reflects the society and life in different times.Because of the rewrite writer's attention,the western classical fairy tales have been given contemporary cultural values,reached a fusion of tradition and modern.This makes them were able to maintain a timeless new classic position.This also provides a new idea for the inheritation of our country's traditional fairy tales.