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A Fairy Tale Reality?: Elfriede Jelinek's Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and the Mythologization of Contemporary Society
- Women in German Yearbook: Feminist Studies in German Literature & Culture
- University of Nebraska Press
- Volume 24, 2008
- pp. 165-184
- 10.1353/fgs.2008.a254030
- Article
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This article examines a central tenet of Elfriede Jelinek's work, the perpetuation of myth(s) surrounding gender and the mythologization of contemporary society. Specifically, my reading focuses on the "princess myth." Analyzing Jelinek's rewritings of Snow White and Sleeping Beauty, the first two of a cycle of Princess Plays (1998-2003), I demonstrate how the author exploits the fairy tale reservoir of German High Romanticism and how she scrutinizes its popularization. Furthermore, she appropriates poetic techniques of Early Romanticism. As a result, Jelinek's dramas construct Woman as victim and accomplice of male power, while transgressing this image through linguistic deconstruction and play. By probing the possibility of a "disturbance" in the proliferation of gender identity, Jelinek creates spaces for imaginary (dis-)identification. The article concludes with Jelinek's commentary on the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, and thus traces the powerful impact of the princess myth in contemporary Western society. (BT)