Fairy Tales, Myth, and Psychoanalytic Theory: Feminism and Retelling the Tale by Veronica L. Schanoes (review)

In this study, Veronica L. Schanoes sets forth a project involving a series of related pairings: psychoanalytic theory and second-wave feminism; literary theory and literature; subject and object; self and other; mother and daughter. Focusing on works published in the 1970s and the 1990s—two decades in which, she notes, feminist writers particularly engaged with both theory and fairy tale retellings—Schanoes produces “the first project to consider the works of the revisionists and the works of the theorists in tandem” (3). This emphasis on reading works in relationship with one another serves her larger purpose of exploring revision as a specifically feminist means of revisiting and redefining meaning.

In the introductory chapter, “The Mother’s Looking-Glass,” Schanoes clearly locates her discussion within the broader theories of psychoanalysis, second-wave feminism, and postmodernism, particularly in terms of selfhood and women’s experiences of dual consciousness. By calling on theorists and authors such as Luce Irigaray, Nancy Chodorow, and Adrienne Rich, she neatly establishes the conversation into which she is intervening by calling attention to the two common interests that will make up the primary threads of her work—namely, mother-daughter relationships and the mirror as a symbol of femininity.

Because she is specifically interested in works that can be understood as retellings of fairy tales and myths, Schanoes also takes time in the introduction to briefly consider the definitions of and distinctions between the two. While contemporary audiences tend to align myth with “high culture” and fairy tale with “low culture,” the two genres share key elements that serve her purposes: both incorporate elements of fantasy, and both are now frequently understood as “children’s stories.” Despite differences, then, they each illustrate key points about feminism and experiences of selfhood. As the author is careful to note, scholars such as Vanessa Joosen and Jack Zipes have investigated the relationships between feminism and fairy tales; however, she argues, her investigation subverts the usual approach that understands feminist readings as a subset of fairy tale scholarship, instead presenting fairy tales as a subset of feminist literature.

Chapter 1, “Mother-Daughter Relationships in Theory and Text,” begins by considering the absence of mother-daughter relationships in many of the best-known fairy tales as one reason that feminist theorists and authors have been drawn to the genre. Throughout the 1970s and 1990s, Schanoes asserts, both white and Black feminists make such relationships central, emphasizing the psychic bond between mother and daughter. Drawing on Rich’s description of “a constant identification between mother and daughter, hazy ego boundaries that provide a more fluid sense of self” (23), she presents such works as Angela Carter’s “The Bloody Chamber,” Tanith Lee’s White as Snow, and Toni Morrison’s Beloved. The latter text allows her to engage specifically with issues associated with Black maternity, such as the other-mother, to which she unfortunately does not return frequently enough in later discussions.

Schanoes continues her consideration of mother-daughter relationships in chapter 2, “Revisions of Motherhood and Daughterhood,” which shifts its focus to the specific ways in which texts revise and speak to each other. “Insofar as a revision both requires and embodies its older version,” she asserts, “the revision does not destroy its mother-story, but instead recreates and prolongs its life” (34). Turning to texts by Kathryn Davis and Kelly Link, as well as returning to texts discussed in the previous chapter, Schanoes positions this discussion within the context of the 1990s Wellesley Stone Center theorists, whose work—like that of the creative writers—developed concepts relating to the “relational self” that are both inspired by and revisions of previous work.

In chapter 3, “Revision and Repetition,” Schanoes considers the larger literary and theoretical assertions about revision set forth by Sigmund Freud, T. S. Eliot, and Roland Barthes, among others, in order to assert that revision must simultaneously contain past, present, and future. She argues that retellings undertaken...