Feminist Reworking of Folk and Fairy Tales in Angela Carter's Short Stories.

Angela Carter, the postmodernist British writer, is known for her novels and short stories, many of which present popular literary folk and fairy tales from a fresh perspective, using forceful, evocative imagery, and striking diction. In The Bloody Chamber and Other Short Stories, Carter (1979a) rewrites the tales of Red Riding Hood, Sleeping Beauty, and Bluebeard, and reshapes the original plots to engender unusual and startling endings. Fantasy is a literature of desire, which expresses unfulfilled dreams and represents what one wants and does not have. However, Carter's stories, which are modern adaptations of popular tales, are meant not for children but for mature readers. Sex and violence form the pivot of their plot structure, and they include explicit and shocking descriptions of the male and the female bodies and bodily functions. Carter subverts the binary categories of masculinity and femininity as her female protagonists struggle for freedom from male authority and power, and emerge stronger and more compelling than their male counterparts. Carter's narratives present women-centered plots and employ strategies like irony, satire, juxtaposition, and allusion to create a distinct nonconformist voice. This paper discusses the questioning of patriarchal narration in Carter's stories, using the formalistic approach to examine the plot structure, character portrayal, and narrative devices in her fiction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]