ONCE UPON A CUR(S)E: Disability and fractured prosthesis in contemporary fairy tale retellings

ONCE UPON A CUR(S)E：当代童话故事重述中的残疾和假肢骨折

• 批准号: 2585816
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Birmingham
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2021 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2585816
• 关键词: ONCE; UPON; CUR; Disability; fractured

Julie Sanders suggests that fairy tales are suitable sites for reimagining because they exist in an abstract social and geographic context, yet she highlights a 'detectable counter-movement' which attempts to relocate the stories back into a social context' (Sanders 2015). From Disney, to adaptations that resist "disneyfication", the twenty-first century has seen a desire to subvert the typically passive female characterising and heteronormative happy ending of traditional western fairy tales. Angela Carter states that 'the fairy tale is not usually constructed so as to invite the audience to share a sense of lived experience' (Carter 1990, xi). The world of princesses and beasts is set apart from our own, and yet there is a conscious endeavour to comment on the lived experience of female fairy tale characters in a way that has been historically overlooked. I argue that the same investigation into the lived experience of disability is so far from being engaged with by both academia and wider society, that even texts which self-consciously attempt to bring traditional tales in line with contemporary feminist values ignore ableism as a genre trope that needs updating. My project outlines a new concept, 'fractured prosthesis', to adequately investigate the alterations, additions and erasures made to disabled characters in contemporary fractured fairy tales. I argue that this analysis is vital in understanding contemporary perceptions of ability and disability. However, I will go beyond this binary to examine the spectrum of disability and the unspoken hierarchy society imposes on these differences. Examining Kissing the Witch by Emma Donoghue, The Surface Breaks by Louise O'Neill and A Curse So Dark and Lonely by Bridget Kemmerer, my research will argue that the reliance on fractured prosthesis to counter patriarchal tropes of the fairy tale genre results in a fractured form of ableism.For my creative piece I propose to write a hybrid novel / short story collection framed within a retelling of Rapunzel, foregrounding the lived experience of disabled characters. The main narrative will tell the story of Rapunzel's birth mother, her adopted mother, and the patriarchal world these two different women attempt to conquer in their own ways. Meanwhile, the reader witnesses Rapunzel navigating this same world with an upper limb disability. The short stories will feature as disability-centric fairy tales Rapunzel hears growing up.My concept, 'fractured prosthesis', builds on the work of David Mitchell and Sharon Snyder. In 'narrative prosthesis' they argue the representation of disability in literature is often a symbolic form of characterisation, or used as a metaphor for other societal issues (Mitchell and Snyder, 2000). Within fairy tale scholarship, Ann Schmiesing furthers this idea with her own term 'editorial prosthesis' (Schmeising, 2014); she describes this as 'a narrative prosthesis introduced, augmented, or commented on by the Grimms' in the seven editions of Kinder und Hausmachen by Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm (Schmiesing, 2014). However, neither of these concepts provide an adequate framework to investigate how contemporary fairy tales are using disability in new and often harmful ways.

朱莉·桑德斯认为童话故事是重新想象的合适场所，因为它们存在于抽象的社会和地理背景中，但她强调了一种“可检测的反运动”，试图将故事重新定位到社会背景中。从迪士尼到抵制"迪斯尼化"的改编作品，世纪人们渴望颠覆传统西方童话中典型的消极的女性形象和异性规范的大团圆结局。安吉拉·卡特（Angela Carter）说：“童话故事通常不是为了邀请观众分享生活经验而构建的”（Carter 1990，xi）。公主和野兽的世界与我们自己的世界是分开的，然而，人们有意识地努力以一种历史上被忽视的方式来评论女性童话人物的生活经历。我认为，同样的调查到残疾的生活经验是如此之远，从从事学术界和更广泛的社会，即使是文本，自觉地试图使传统的故事符合当代女权主义价值观忽略了作为一个体裁比喻，需要更新的能力。我的项目概述了一个新的概念，“断裂假肢”，充分调查当代断裂童话中残疾人物的改变，添加和擦除。我认为，这种分析是至关重要的理解能力和残疾的当代观念。然而，我将超越这种二元性来研究残疾的范围和社会强加于这些差异的不言而喻的等级制度。通过研究艾玛·多诺霍的《亲吻女巫》、路易丝·奥尼尔的《表面破裂》和布里奇特·凯默勒的《黑暗而孤独的诅咒》，我的研究将证明，依靠断裂的假肢来对抗童话类型的父权制比喻，会导致一种断裂的能力主义形式。突出了残疾人角色的生活经历。主要叙述将讲述长发公主的生母，她的养母，以及这两个不同的女人试图以自己的方式征服的父权制世界的故事。与此同时，读者目睹了长发公主在同一个世界航行，上肢残疾。这些短篇小说将作为长发公主成长过程中听到的以残疾为中心的童话故事。我的概念，"断裂的假肢"，建立在大卫米切尔和莎伦斯奈德的工作基础上。在“叙事假体”中，他们认为文学中对残疾的表现往往是一种象征性的特征化形式，或用作其他社会问题的隐喻（米切尔和斯奈德，2000年）。在童话研究中，Ann Schmiesing用她自己的术语"编辑假体"（Schmeising，2014）进一步推进了这一想法;她将其描述为"由Grimm引入，增强或评论的叙事假体"，在Wilhelm和Jacob Grimm的七个版本的金德和Hausmachen中（Schmiesing，2014）。然而，这两个概念都没有提供一个足够的框架来调查当代童话是如何以新的、往往是有害的方式利用残疾的。