The fairy tale intertext in Margaret Atwood's 'Alias Grace' and Anne Hebert's 'Kamouraska'

This study examines the use of the fairy tale intertext in contemporary Canadian women's fiction. In using specific fairy tale plots, themes, motifs, and/or characters within their works of fiction, women writers of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries purposefully express their goal for the revival and continuity of the female narrative voice and sense of agency. To explore the fairy tale-fiction relationship, Margaret Atwood's Alias Grace and Anne Hebert's Kamouraska are approached from what fairy tale scholar Jack Zipes has constructed as the theory of contamination of the fairy tale genre. The fairy tale genre's integration into contemporary fiction represents an important development where fairy tale narratives are critically reread so as to bring out deeper meanings for the contemporary audience.