'Fairy-tales are less-than-myths, however. They are volatile, anybody's ... they are part of the historic world' (L. Sage, 1998)This piece, also appearing in the book Angela Carter and the Fairy Tale as well as previously Marvels & Tales, furthers the analysis of Angela Carter's method in her work: what her attitude to the genre of folklore was, and what background led her to become the prominent writer that gained her fame. 'In her work, she valued and sought abstraction as an antidote to the climate of foggy realism' in which she had grown up. Italo Calvino, another writer of short stories/ tales, used revisions of folktales reminiscent, in their fantastical elements, of fairy stories, to gain acclaim and to transport him to different social standing. Carter described that Calvino's story, like her own, 'highlighted the transformative effect of the rediscovery of fairy tales and folktales' not just within the world, but on their individual persons as well.
Carter was drawn to the accessibility of fairy tales. They come originally from peasant classes; the folk of the world, and then made their way in popularity through the ranks of society to the bourgeoisie. Each story contains a unique sociopolitical commentary from its time, location, and author. Folk and fairy tales used to exclusively, and now commonly also can, be heard by word of mouth, making them accessible. They are public territory, with no single authorial voice. 'The fairy tale has a two-faced character. Its promiscuity - the stories are anybody's - means that you do have to understand it historically, as drawn into the sensibility of the times.' Carter analysed at first the rich layers of this genre, then added her own for future generations to consume and analyse.
Carter sees the genre as 'a means by which a writing woman may take flight. Gender-politics don't undo the formal appeal of the fairy tale, though they do mean you have to take a longer detour through cultural history to arrive at lightness.' I found this particular exerpt from the article so interesting, especially in its specific use of 'flight' rhetoric. The story that I am focusing on is one in which the lead female character at the end becomes a bird, and escapes her husband back into the wilderness. She quite literally 'takes flight.' In a women establishing her independence and autonomy through writing of fairy tales, this is mirror by the tales themselves with freedom and escape plots. The symbolism is really powerful in this I think.
It is argued that the magical elements of the wondertale are a method by which social project is imbued and hidden within a story. They are of vital importance to the tale. '[Carter] associated [fairy tale] with a world where our dreads and desires were personified in beings that were non-human without being divine.' This measn they are coded with personal, as well as social, ideals and wishes.
Judith Butler described bodies as 'a field of interpretive possibilities, the locus of a dialectical process of interpreting anew a historical set of interpretations which have become imprinted on the flesh' (Sex and Gender, 1986)
In her three versions of Cinderella, the first, The Mutilated Girls is a tale 'about cutting bits off women, so that they will fit in.' This occurs in the instance of 'The stepmother hacking off her daughters' feet to get them into the slipper.' In a feminist reading of folk tales, we see how women are restriced and policed, both in their bodies (here shown with cutting off of appendages) and in their personalitites and desires. In The Crane Wife, though it is not an actively performed mutilation like the former, the crane is forced to lose her wings, the instrinic signifier of her 'bird-ness,' for the sake of entering human society.
Carter studied and analysed Shakespeare before starting on her own works of crative writing. He has heavily influenced her, as Sage explains. 'Shakespeare, for Carter, looks two ways; his stage was a threshold between worlds, where folk culture was made over into high culture, but never completely.' There is a prevailing attitude that folklore and tales belong to 'low-culture,' being of the common people for the common people.
As well as an influence, Shakespeare provided writing for adaptation by Carter. 'In the Midsummer Night's Dream story she writes that to be lost in the forest is "to be committed against your will- or, worse, your own desire - to a perpetual absence from humanity, an existential catastrophe, for the forest is as infinitely boundless as the human heart"' The setting for my take on The Crane Wife will be in a forest, and this above quote provides resonance and context for the location.
Reference: Sage, L. (1998). Angela Carter: the Fairy Tale. Marvels & Tales : Journal of Fairy Tale Studies, 12(1), pp.52 - 68.
