Exploring Fairytales

I seem to have taken a liking to the fairytale stories told throughout these periodicals. I also did a post on Evelyn Sharp’s fairytale the “Restless River” which included switched gender roles and performances. Sharp worked to play on classic fairytale tropes that often were based on romance and love. Though, those tropes work to reproduce gender stereotypes, the belief that women are inferior to men.

I think that there are many similarities between Lawrence Housman’s “Blind Love” and Evelyn Sharp’s “Restless River”. Both authors characterize the princess as being confident and smart, and they play with masculinity and femininity to mock the patriarchy. The invisible princess, Innygreth, is taking an active role in the story where she is the one who escapes the castle to be with her lover. Her efforts to deceive her father, and make love to a man before she is married shows that she empowered by taking control of her own desire and destiny. She is also described as being “wise”, and confident, which are generally qualities given to a man. Similar to Sharp’s fairytale, the gender roles are reversed and the prince is described as quiet and passive. These narratives seek to use the imagination and storytelling to reconfigure social norms that were oppressive during the Victorian era.