Shape-Shifting Tales

This book provides an analysis of the representation of women's bodies and their monstrous metamorphoses in selected short stories by contemporary English writer Michèle Roberts. The author explores the relationship between traditional fairy tales such as the Grimm Brothers' and Charles Perrault's, the lives of female saints and Roberts's counter-narratives, focussing on the analysis of images of sublimed fleshliness and of acts of monstrous violence on the body. The book takes into account relevant Women's Studies criticism regarding the mother-daughter relationship, as Roberts's stories question the role of mother figures in traditional fairy tales and hagiography and at the same time rework the concept of motherhood itself.

Autorentext

Valentina Castagna is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Palermo (Italy). She was Visiting PhD Student at Birkbeck College, University of London, in 2005 and was awarded her PhD from the University of Salerno (Italy) in 2007. She is the author of Corpi a pezzi (2007) and has recently edited the Italian critical version of Marina Warner's Brigit's Cell (2010).

Klappentext

This book provides an analysis of the representation of women s bodies and their monstrous metamorphoses in selected short stories by contemporary English writer Michèle Roberts. The author explores the relationship between traditional fairy tales such as the Grimm Brothers and Charles Perrault s, the lives of female saints and Roberts s counter-narratives, focussing on the analysis of images of sublimed fleshliness and of acts of monstrous violence on the body. The book takes into account relevant Women s Studies criticism regarding the mother-daughter relationship, as Roberts s stories question the role of mother figures in traditional fairy tales and hagiography and at the same time rework the concept of motherhood itself.

Inhalt

Contents: Fairy tales and contemporary women s short-stories Monstrous inheritance: animal bodies Cutting the body free: between hagiography and fairy tales Knowledge and desire: cannibal appetites.