Jack Zipes - Dont Bet on the Prince: Contemporary Feminist Fairy Tales in North America and England

For Carol

With Hope for a Better Future

Contemporary Feminist Fairy Tales in North America and England

Jack Zipes

First published in 1987 by Methuen, Inc., and Gower Publishing Co., Ltd.

This edition published 2012 by Routledge

Routledge

Taylor & Francis Group

605 Third Avenue,

New York, NY 10017

Routledge

Taylor & Francis Group

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon,

Axfordshire OX14 4RN

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor and Francis Group, an informa business

First issued in hardback 2015

Jack Zipes, 1986

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission of the publishers.

Library of Congress in Publication Data

Main entry under title:

Dont bet on the prince.

Bibliography: p.

Includes index

• 1. FeminismFiction. 2. WomenFiction. 3. Short stories, American. 4. Short stories, English. 5. Fairytales. 6. Fairy talesHistory and criticism Addresses, essays, lectures. 7. Feminist literary criticismAddresses, essays, lectures. 8. Women in literatureAddresses, essays lectures. I. Zipes, Jack David.

PS648.F4D66 1986 813.0108352042 85-29794

ISBN 978-0-415-90263-2 (pbk)

ISBN 978-1-138-13451-5 (hbk)

DOI: 10.4324/9780203825792

Further copyright details are given on the acknowledgements page.

The plans for this book were initiated by David Hill, Caroline Lane and Lynne Jarch, who helped me develop my ideas in fruitful discussions. As the book began to take shape, I benefited from the suggestions of Jessica Benjamin, Lois Kuznets, Anita Moss, Wolfgang Mieder and, in particular, Janice Price, who provided needful prodding. In more ways than one, Ken Silverman served as a provocative muse, and I am grateful for his support as critic and friend. In the final stages of my work, I was fortunate to have the advice and help of John Irwin and the editorial staff of Gower. Throughout all the stages my wife Carol Dines made valuable recommendations and helped me redefine many of my notions. I can only express my gratitude for her encouragement by dedicating this book to her.

_________

The cover illustration is The Little Girl Who Did Not Believe in Fairies,Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale R.W.S. (18721945). Copyright F. Fortescue-Brickdale esq. Reproduced with the kind permission of F. Fortescue Brickdale esq. and by courtesy of Chris Beetles Watercolours Ltd. A greetings card reproducing this painting under the title Fairyland has been published by the Bucentaur Gallery Ltd.

The Princess Who Stood On Her Own Two feet in , Ed. Letty Pogrebin (New York: McGraw Hill, 1982). Copyright 1982 by Jeanne Desy. Reprinted by permission of Floricanto Press, Oakland CA. This story will be published in 1986 in a bilingual (Spanish/English) picture book edition by Floricanto Press, 604 William Street, Oakland, California 94612, USA. (ISBN 0915745-054).

Prince Amilec in by Tanith Lee. Copyright 1972 by Tanith Lee. Reprinted by permission of Macmillan, London and Basingstoke and Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Inc., New York.

Petronella is reprinted from The Practical Princess and Other Liberating Talesby Jay Williams and illustrated by Rick Schreiter. Text copyright 1973 by Jay Williams. Reproduced by permission of The Bodley Head, London and Scholastic Inc., New York.

The Donkey Prince is reprinted by the kind permission of Simon and Schuster, New York. Copyright 1970 Angela Carter.

And Then The Prince Knelt Down and Tried to Put the Glass Slipper on Cinderellas Foot in . Reprinted by permission of Atheneum Publishers, New York and Lescher and Lescher Limited, New York.

Snow White is reprinted by kind permission of the .

The Moon Ribbon reprinted by permission of Curtis Brown, Ltd. Copyright ?1976 by Jane Yolen, from The Moon Ribbon and Other Tales. First published in Great Britain by J. M. Dent and Sons Ltd.

Russalka or The Seacoast of Bohemia in Kittatiny by Joanna Russ. Copyright 1978, Joanna Russ. Reprinted by permission of Ellen Levine Literary Agency Inc. First published in the USA by Daughters Publishing Co.

The Green Women in The Best of Ms. Fiction Ed. Ruth Sullivan (New York: Schribner, 1982). Copyright 1982, Meghan B. Collins. Reprinted by permission of Richard Curtis Associates, Inc.

Briar Rose (Sleeping Beauty) in by Anne Sexton. Copyright ?1971 by Anne Sexton. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Company.

Little Red Riding Hood in Beginning With O by Olga Broumas. Copyright 1977 by Olga Broumas. Reprinted by permission of Yale University Press, New Haven.

Rapunzel reprinted from Story Hour. Copyright 1982 by Sara Henderson Hay by kind permission of University of Arkansas Press.

Wolfland in Red as Blood or Tales from the Sisters Grimmer (New York: Daw Books, 1983). Copyright Tanith . Reprinted by permission of Daw Books Inc.

Malagan and the Lady of Rascas in Elsewhere 5, Eds. Terri Windling and Mark Arnold (New York: Berkeley, 1984 pp. 189204). Copyright 1984, Michael de Larrabeiti. Reprinted by kind permission of the author.

Bluebeards Egg by Margaret Atwood (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1983). Copyright 1983. Margaret Atwood. Reprinted by permission of Phoebe Larmore, Venice, CA.

Some Day My Prince Will Come: Female Acculturation through the Fairy Tale by Marcia Leiberman in College English, 34 (1972) pp. 38395. Copyright Marcia R. Leiberman, 1972. Reprinted with the permission of the National Council of Teachers of English, Urbana, Illinois, USA.

The Queens Looking Glass in The Mad Woman in the Attic. The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Imagination. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979). Copyright 1979, Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar. Reprinted by permission of Yale University Press.

Feminism and Fairy Tales in Womens Studies. 6 (1979) pp. 23757. Copyright 1979 Karen E. Rowe. Reprinted by kind permission of the author.

It is obviously difficult to define the feminist fairy tale. Part of the difficulty is due to the fact that some feminist fairy tales are written by authors who would not necessarily define themselves as feminists. Despite this fact, their tales, and the others in this collection, are imbued with a particular vision of the world which I would call feminist. Not only do the authors challenge conventional views of gender, socialisation, and sex roles, but they also map out an alternative aesthetic terrain for the fairy tale as genre to open up new horizons for readers and writers alike.

Created out of dissatisfaction with the dominant male discourse of traditional fairy tales and with those social values and institutions which have provided the framework for sexist prescriptions, the feminist fairy tale conceives a different view of the world and speaks in a voice that has been customarily silenced. It draws attention to the illusions of the traditional fairy tales by demonstrating that they have been structured according to the subordination of women, and in speaking out for women the feminist fairy tale also speaks out for other oppressed groups and for an