|
|
This is a limited free preview of this book. Please buy full access.
Preface
This book is the result of a seduction. It began in 1993 when, as an undergraduate student at the Universitat de Barcelona (Spain), I read Angela Carter’s Heroes and Villains (1969) in order to meet one of the requirements for a course on “Utopias and Dystopias.” Ever since, both text and author haunted me, and I resolved that the minor dissertation for my degree would discuss issues of deconstruction in Angela Carter’s equally seductive collection of fairy tales The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories (1979).
As part of the research, I read a number of re-deployments of the fairy-tale mode, amongst which was Jeanette Winterson’s Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit (1985). The inclusion of such a text in a list of feminist re-writings of fairy tales was surprising, to say the least. Whilst reading Winterson’s text, I realised that its main aim was not to offer a traditional re-deployment of fairy-tale imagery, plots and motifs; but, instead, to use fantasy and imagination in such a way as to prove how useful they can be to all subjects, and especially to those who find themselves in hostile circumstances. Again, I became seduced by a text which I found both hilarious and moving, and by its message that fantasy and imagination can effectively save the day, and more.