Flowers, Women, and Work in the Socialist Fairy Tale: Toward a Feminist, Materialist, and Ecocritical Approach

Youth literature within the German Democratic Republic (GDR) officially enjoyed equal status with adult literature, with authors often writing for both audiences. Such parity of esteem pre-supposed that youth literature would also adopt the cultural–political frameworks designed to nurture the establishment of socialism on German soil. In their quest to forge a legitimate national literature capable of transforming the population, politicians and writers drew repeatedly upon the cultural heritage of Weimar classicism and the Bildungsroman, Humboldtian educational traditions and Soviet-inspired models of socialist realism. Adopting a script theory approach inspired by Jean Matter Mandler, this article explores how directive cultural policies lead to the emergence of multiple scripts which inform the nature and narrative of individual works. Three broad ideological scripts within GDR youth literature are identified which underpin four distinct narrative scripts employed by individual writers to support, challenge and ultimately subvert the primacy of the Bildungsroman genre. A close reading of works by Strittmatter, Pludra, Görlich, Tetzner and Saalmann reveals further how conceptual blending with classical and fairy-tale scripts is exploited to legitimise and at times mask critique of transformation and education inside and outside the classroom and to offer young protagonists a voice often denied their readers.

Download Full-text

The Alluring Nature of Children's Culture: Fairy Tales, the Carnival and the World Wide Web

International Research in Children s Literature ◽

10.3366/ircl.2015.0166 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 8 (2) ◽

pp. 169-184

Author(s):

Željka Flegar

Keyword(s):

Children's Literature ◽

Fairy Tales ◽

Fairy Tale ◽

Mikhail Bakhtin ◽

Children’S Literature ◽

Social Construct ◽

Time Out ◽

The Social ◽

Children's Culture ◽

Language And Ideology

This article discusses the implied ‘vulgarity’ and playfulness of children's literature within the broader concept of the carnivalesque as defined by Mikhail Bakhtin in Rabelais and His World (1965) and further contextualised by John Stephens in Language and Ideology in Children's Fiction (1992). Carnivalesque adaptations of fairy tales are examined by situating them within Cristina Bacchilega's contemporary construct of the ‘fairy-tale web’, focusing on the arenas of parody and intertextuality for the purpose of detecting crucial changes in children's culture in relation to the social construct and ideology of adulthood from the Golden Age of children's literature onward. The analysis is primarily concerned with Roald Dahl's Revolting Rhymes (1982) and J. K. Rowling's The Tales of Beedle the Bard (2007/2008) as representative examples of the historically conditioned empowerment of the child consumer. Marked by ambivalent laughter, mockery and the degradation of ‘high culture’, the interrogative, subversive and ‘time out’ nature of the carnivalesque adaptations of fairy tales reveals the striking allure of contemporary children's culture, which not only accommodates children's needs and preferences, but also is evidently desirable to everybody.

Download Full-text

Analysis of the Disability Paradigm of Picture Fairy Tale Books used in Education in Understanding Disabled Children

Journal of Emotional & Behavioral Disorders ◽

10.33770/jebd.36.2.18 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 36 (2) ◽

pp. 379-403

Author(s):

Kyung Pae Kwon ◽

Won Il Cho

Keyword(s):

Fairy Tale ◽

Disabled Children

Download Full-text