Wives’ tales
Rebecca Abrams | tales in 1697, attributed his | and her mother-in-law. | ||||||||
sources as “old women, grand- | 6 | Warner takes an unashamedly | ||||||||
mothers and governesses”, | feminist perspective on the genre | |||||||||
From the Beast to the | while the German brothers | of fairy tale without resorting to | ||||||||
Blonde: On Fairy Tales | Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, col- | didacticism or polemic. Instead, | ||||||||
and Their Tellers | lected many of their stories from | she makes her point through | ||||||||
by MARINA WARNER | female friends and relations. | sheer weight of evidence. She | ||||||||
458pp £20 | Women, whose speech has so | shows, for example, how | ||||||||
Chatto & Windus | often in the past been reviled, | aristocratic Frenchwomen in the | ||||||||
have found in the fairy story a | 17th century used fairy tales as | |||||||||
voice with which to explore | a political vehicle to protest | |||||||||
female experience, sometimes | against arranged marriages and | |||||||||
1 | “THINK what you would | using that voice to challenge | financial dependency; and how | |||||||
have been now,” Charles | social convention, sometimes to | vulnerable older women used | ||||||||
Lamb remarked to Cole- | uphold it. | tales to assert the value of their | ||||||||
ridge in 1802,“if instead of being | 4 | Warner is at her strongest | experience and knowledge of | |||||||
fed with tales and old wives’ | when she argues for a historical, | life. | ||||||||
fables in childhood, you had | rather than a psychoanalytical, | 7 | But for a book that includes | |||||||
been crammed with geography | reading of the tales. “The thrust | so much, there are some striking | ||||||||
and natural history!” In fact, as | towards universal significance | omissions. She entirely neglects | ||||||||
Marina Warner makes abundant- | has obscured the genre’s equal | the contribution of the 19th | ||||||||
ly clear in her new book, From | powers to illuminate experiences | century Scottish writer, George | ||||||||
The Beast To The Blonde, many | embedded in social and | MacDonald, creator of powerful | ||||||||
of the tales which had fattened | material conditions,” she writes. | fairy tales often with powerful | ||||||||
the young Coleridge are as | 5 | With an unfailing eye for | heroines. OscarWilde is barely | |||||||
rooted in social and historical | small, quirky details, magpie- | mentioned. Even Hans Chris- | ||||||||
reality as any geography lesson | like, she tracks down these glit- | tian Andersen is passed over | ||||||||
would have been. | tering trinkets and assembles | with frustrating rapidity. An- | ||||||||
2 | Following on from earlier | them into a convincing argu- | other striking absence from this | |||||||
books, such as Alone of All Her | ment for the historical relevance | otherwise comprehensive study | ||||||||
Sex and Monuments and Mai- | of these tales. Stories such as | is the cycle of stories which | ||||||||
dens, in which she explored | Bluebeard and Beauty and the | have boys as their key protago- | ||||||||
myths and symbolism from a | Beast reflect very real, and rea- | nists: Puss in Boots,Tom | ||||||||
feminist perspective,Warner has | listic, fears of the consequences | Thumb,DickWhittington, Jack | ||||||||
now turned her attention to that | of marriage: before the age of | And The Beanstalk. | ||||||||
enduringly intriguing corner of | reliable contraception or mod- | 8 | In her otherwise compelling | |||||||
the fictional world: the fairy | ern obstetrics, love led invar- | analysis of the family relations | ||||||||
tale.The book is divided into | iably to the perils of pregnancy. | portrayed in fairy stories, | ||||||||
two sections; the first half looks | The murdered wives of Blue- | Warner makes scant mention of | ||||||||
at the women and men who | beard may have been the | the brother/sister relationship, | ||||||||
have been responsible over the | victims of childbirth; likewise, | yet this is a central theme in | ||||||||
centuries for the transmission, | the dead mothers of Snow | many classic fairy stories | ||||||||
collection and publication of | White, Cinderella and countless | (Hansel and Gretel, Babes in | ||||||||
fairy tales, while the second half | other fairytale heroines.The | theWood), and highly relevant | ||||||||
examines the tales themselves, | prevalence of unsympathetic | to the rest of Warner’s | ||||||||
their overt and covert meanings, | step-mothers would also have | investigation of the genre. | ||||||||
their relation to social customs | reflected the social reality of a | 9 | Paradoxically, the book suf- | |||||||
and contexts, and their evolution | society in which women died | fers most from an occasional | ||||||||
from the sometimes macabre to | young and widowers quickly | surfeit of information. Unlike | ||||||||
the often saccharine. It is | remarried.Warner is | the fairy tale itself, that exquisite | ||||||||
lusciously illustrated throughout | particularly revealing in her | distillation of history, myth and | ||||||||
with pictures of etchings, wood- | analysis of the term “step- | experience, it seems | ||||||||
cuts, frescos, comic books and | mother”, which she argues | occasionally at risk of buckling | ||||||||
film stills. | could denote a husband’s | under the weight of its own | ||||||||
3 | According to Warner, women | mother, as well as a father’s | facts. Nevertheless, From The | |||||||
have traditionally been the keep- | wife. Seen in this light, fairy | Beast To The Blonde is unques- | ||||||||
ers of these tales, passing them | tales articulate and explore not | tionably a work of immense | ||||||||
on in the enclosed worlds of the | only a young woman’s anxieties | erudition and impressive scope. | ||||||||
bedroom, the kitchen and the | about her new husband, but also | |||||||||
nursery. Charles Perrault, the | the fraught and often hostile | |||||||||
Frenchman who published one | relationship between a new wife | Rebecca Abrams is one of the | ||||||||
of the first collections of fairy | Guardian’s regular reviewers |