Angela Carter's works, and her philosophy on the appropriation of folktales, has been a huge inspiration to me in my studies and animation work this semester. I picked up a book, entitled Angela Carter and the Fairy Tale (Roemer and Bacchilega, 2001) which originally appeared as a special edition of the paper Marvels & Tales in 1998. I will go into detail in further posts about the individual contributions by various writers to the issue; for now I want to focus solely on the introductory chapter.
'Carter was drawn to the fairy tale as a vehicle of sociopolitical commentary' (Roemer and Bacchilega, 2001)
This chapter sees the authors give a general introduction to the world of Carter's writing, but more interestingly I found, an overview to the genre of folktales. Roemer and Bacchilega discuss the origins of folktales and their development through the years to become the fairy tales and marchen we know and adapt today. The terminology and semiotic differences between all of these terms I have found confusing, and previous explanations have been contradictory, but thankfully I found this piece to clear up the ideas in my mind.
'According to the Grimms' Deutsches Woterbuch, Marchen meant simply a "fictional tale,"' which is how I had come to understand the phrase. I generally lump all of folklore/tales/ fairy tales into this category together, and it seems I haven't been too far wrong: The Grimms placed 'diverse subgroups of folktales within the larger category of Marchen.'
'Marchen was typically rendered as "popular story" "wonder tale" or "fairy tale." Interestingly, the latter term derived not from any Germanic perspective but from the earlier translation into English of the seventeenth century French term conte de fées, which referred to narratives with supernatural beings as characters.' These 'supernatural' being tended towards fairies, hence the name, yet also included characters like beasts, metamorphosing humans, talking animals, etc. This means that tales that didn't include the fairy godmother character can still be included in fairy tale analysis. '[Carter] diffuses terminology by labeling "fairy tale" as a "figure of speech," moreover one used loosely to describe the great mass of infinitely various narrative that was, once upon a time and still is, sometimes, passed on by word of mouth.' All of this explanation provides clarity to me in studying folk and fairy tales. To understand the origin and terminology of these stories to begin with, gives me a better means of socio-politically contextualizing them.
We tend to think of the Grimms' and Perrault's adaptations as coming directly from folklore, as heard from peasant mouths directly. Apparently, they come less directly from the folk classes, and tend to be more attributed to bourgeoisie than supposed. Rather than talking to peasants and working classes to get their stories, the Grimms would work from written sources, journals, reviews etc; The Grimms would 'flesh out these verbal skeletons as their own perspectives inclined them. They reinforced the Christian aspects, the homey sayings, and the violence, while deleting sexual references.' 'The resulting tales were not primarily indicative of peasant values but those of the German middle class.' This was similar to what happened with the French tales in the case of contes de fées. 'The Grimms acted in accordance with the romantic perspectives of their day in focusing on the material rather than taking into account the socioeconomic conditions of the tales' informants.' As Carter has stated, the fairy tale was supposed to be a means of sociopolitical commentary, but in editing these stories in such a way, the Grimms and Perrault took away some of their embedded meanings and the voice away from the lower classes, to adapt it to tell the conditions of the higher classes instead.
'The contes de fées, like the oral tales still being told at salons, had specific sociopolitical functions. Informed by female perspectives and featuring female characters, the contes offered their creators opportunities to critique conditions of the day, particularly the social institution of forced marriage and the general lot of women in a predominantly male-controlled world.' Even though the class issue was being removed from them, they still served as a powerful tool by the 2nd class citizens (women) to provide commentary and criticisms of their situation. Although the now famous writers tend to be men, such as Perrault, in actuality it was the female attendees of the salons who provided the bulk of writing and analysis of fairy tales during the revival of the contes in France.
'The intermixing of folk (however folk may be defined), literary, and, in the twentieth century, mass media versions of fairy tales, sets in motion, in Carter's words, the transnational and "endless recycling process" of storytelling. It is the "user-friendly" nature of the tales which allows them to participate in a powerful "public dream".'
References:
Roemer, D. and Bacchilega, C. (2001). Introduction. In: D. Roemer and C. Bacchilega, ed., Angela Carter and the Fairy Tale, 1st ed. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, pp.8 - 12.
