Feminist appropriations of Hans Christian Andersen's

Mostert, Linda Ann

Title: Feminist appropriations of Hans Christian Andersen's "The little mermaid" and the ways in which stereotypes of women are subverted or sustained in selected works
Creator: Mostert, Linda Ann
Subject: English literature -- Criticism, Textual
Subject: Feminism and literature
Date Issued: 2011
Date: 2011
Type: Thesis
Type: Masters
Type: MA
Identifier: vital:8451
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10948/1371
Identifier: English literature -- Criticism, Textual
Identifier: Feminism and literature
Description: According to Lewis Seifert, “Fairy tales are obsessed with femininity … These narratives are concerned above all else with defining what makes women different from men and, more precisely, what is and is not acceptable feminine behaviour” (1996: 175). This study, then, will demonstrate how certain patriarchal ideas associated with fairy tales are disseminated when fairy tale elements are reworked in film, visual art and the novel. The aim of this project, more specifically, is to show how certain stereotypical representations of women endure in works that could be read as feminist appropriations of Hans Christian Andersen’s ‘The Little Mermaid’. Stereotypical representations of women are numerous and may include: depicting females as fitting neatly into what is often called the virgin/whore or Madonna/whore binary opposition; depicting women as being caring and kind, but also passive, submissive and weak; and depicting older women as being sexually unattractive and evil (Goodwin and Fiske 2001:358; Sullivan 2010: 4). It must be said that the list of stereotypes relating to women given here is far from exhaustive.
Format: 112 leaves
Format: pdf
Publisher: Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University
Publisher: Faculty of Arts
Language: English
Rights: Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University

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Feminist appropriations of Hans Christian Andersen's "The little mermaid" and the ways in which stereotypes of women are subverted or sustained in selected works