Polyphonic resonances of fairy tales and myths: The magic toyshop and life before man

Abstract

Angela Carter and Margaret Atwood exploit fairy tale characters, settings, motifs, and plots in their fiction, they are also authors of original reworkings of fairy tales. This article compares the use of fairy-tale elements in Carter’s The Magic Toyshop and Atwood’s Life Before Man, which not only evoke these resonant forms of story-telling in their titles, character names and plot devices, but create intertexts that parody and give alternate or even reversed meanings to fairy-tale tropes. Both writers see fairy tales as open sources that can be subverted and rewritten. The article focuses on the strategies the authors use to rewrite the traditional patterns of passive female heroine and inscribe a constructive ambiguity.