Novas histórias sobre a velha tradição : Angela Carter e Barbara G. Walker releem Branca de neve

Abstract

Fairy tales date from centuries back. Despite appearing to bring simple stories to readers and listeners, they are reflections of a time and certain locations and, contrary to the genre timelessness, they transmit and perpetuate meanings as social constructions, that in this contemporary context have been questioned. Even today we continue to narrate fairy tales and, among their manifestations, we are interested in re-reading the classics of children‟s literature from contemporary writers confronting meanings crystallized by tradition, considering unusual prospects until then. These writers claim to rethink sexist and dominant attitudes, demonstrating the marginalization of women‟s role in the magical narratives and pointing changes to the behavior of men and women and their social and hierarchical relationships. The purpose of this dissertation is to evaluate the manner and extent of the break/subversion of crystallized meanings by the traditional narrative of Snow White , in the revisionist perspectives achieved by Angela Carter, in The Snow Child (1979), and Barbara G. Walker, in Snow Night (1996). The study considers, among other things, the concept of revision and the course of revisionism, as defined by Adrienne Rich (1985); intertextuality and revisionist strategies such as parody (HUTCHEON, 1989), feminist metafiction (GREENE, 1991), narrative displacement and delegitimization of the known story (DUPLESSIS, 1985) and the fictional revisionism levels presented by Maria Cristina Martins (2005) in her research on contemporary retellings of fairy tales. In relation to the transgression/subversive level, we consider the concept of carnivalization outlined by Mikhail Bakhtin (1981; 1987). We hope to show that the fairy tales, even though they are magical framing of the world that permeate the centuries, do not need to be as they are and their meanings do not need to be unique, unchangeable or crystallized.