M.A. (Clinical Psychology) / The present study explores, through means of a selective literature study and the presentation of a descriptive single case study, whether fairy tales can be used as a viable medium or tool in therapeutic work with children. This involves an examination of a central debate between theoretical perspectives that advocate an understanding of fairy tales based on their intrinsic or absolute meaning or those that view fairy tales from a relational perspective where meaning is consensually negotiated and validated through its interpersonal locatedness. A single descriptive case study, in which fairy tale telling was a feature of a therapeutic case conducted with a five-year-old client at a children's home, is presented and evaluated in light of the literature reviewed. It was found that themes similar to those reflected in the review of the literature were present and evidenced by the therapist involved wi th the clinical case study. These themes are conceptualised using a constructivist framework that offers an integrative conceptualisation accommodating both intrapsychic as well as inter-personal theoretical distinctions.

One of the fundamental stories in fairy tale studies is "Cinderella": folkloric designation ATU 510A, the Persecuted Heroine. As Fairy tale and Folklore studies continue to evolve, authors beyond Basile, Perrault and Grimm are added into the Cinderella canon to lend a more nuanced approach to the study of this fairy tale. Yet "Cinderella" is still often interpreted as a tale of feminine submissiveness, in which the heroine is little more than a passive ornament or else a likeable social-climber. These interpretations stem largely from the focus of "Cinderella" stories written by men. Though studies of "Cinderella" are expanding, "Cendrillon", "Aschenputtel", and Walt Disney's Cinderella remain the foundational tales that are thought of when "Cinderella" is mentioned. This research addresses the problem that female writers of "Cinderella" remain marginalized within analyses of the tale. This research considers five versions of "Cinderella" from the seventeenth century to the twentieth century, from women authors, mediated in five different formats: literary fairy tale, novel, short story, and poetry. Mme D'Aulnoy's "Finette Cendron" and Mlle L'Héritier's "L'Adroite Princesse ou les Aventures de Finette," protofeminist literary fairy tales from seventeenth-century France, present Cinderellas who hail from the birth of the modern fairy tale but show personalities that most do not associate with the princess. D'Aulnoy and L'Héritier's Finettes are dutiful to their family and kingdom, but aggressively pursue their ambitions and secure for themselves both high-status as well as fulfilling futures. Jane Austen's eighteenth-century novel Persuasion brings a sharp contrast to traditional views of the fairy helper. Louisa May Alcott's "A Modern Cinderella: or, The Little Old Shoe" is an American Romantic short story originally published in a little magazine which paints a different perspective on the desires of a nineteenth-century Anglo-women in a Prince. Austen's and Alcott's stories give voice to how they perceive the place women are given in the world and their hostility to the patriarchal structures of their society allude to the rise of 'Defense of Women' literature during their period. Austen and Alcott highlight the restrictions that women face, but do not resign women to the fate of subjugation; instead they insist that women should decide their own fate and never settle for less than they are owed. "…And Then the Prince Knelt Down and Tried to Put the Glass Slipper on Cinderella's Foot," a poem by Judith Viorst from the 1980s, challenges the traditional expectations of the Cinderella cycle. At the sunset of the twentieth century, the poem challenges the typical Cinderella motifs and recursive narrative devices with a second-wave feminist perspective on women's perceptions of their ideas on romantic love and self-love and offers a Cinderella who speaks with her own voice. This research looks at women's culture using the lens of socio-cultural and historical approaches, feminist theory, and global studies to provide insight into each tale. Women authors use the Cinderella tale-type to express the idealized woman, reject literary stereotypes about women, and reveal women's attitude toward love and marriage in their respective cultures. Women who add to the Cinderella cycle use the heroine of their story to assert that women are capable of managing their own affairs and determining their future. Cinderella is adapted to present the image of a woman who successfully navigates her society to seize a fulfilling future. The concept of a 'fulfilling future' is one that begins in magnanimity and evolves into Cinderellas who expect 'princes' to show caring natures or who reject princes who do not meet their expectations. Feminine identity is embodied through retellings of Cinderella in relation to her sisters, her Fairy, her Prince and women's attitudes about their social identity and voice. By considering these previously overlooked contributors to the Cinderella narrative, this research provides different perspectives into women's perceptions of power, autonomy, and love and asks important questions about how women use "Cinderella" to claim their voice.

No description available.

No description available.

A collection of short stories and one novella featuring women’s issues, fairy tales, a coming-of-age story, and a pregnancy that turns out differently than expected upon delivery.

published_or_final_version / Literary and Cultural Studies / Master / Master of Arts

This thesis contains what I consider to be the best of my work over the course of my three years in the MFA program at Virginia Commonwealth University, and it is meant to demonstrate my range of ability as a creative writer. Included are a portion of my unfinished novel, Twelve Hearts of Clay, as well as a few of my favorite short stories. "Calluses," my foray into experimental writing, is perhaps the most completed piece in the collection, having found publication in the October 2010 issue of Blue Crow Magazine, an Australian literary journal. "Dead Baby Jokes," the short short piece included here, was also published, in Front Porch Flash Fiction, a local anthology from Sink/Swim Press. "An Epic Masterpiece, TBD" veers into the realm of the absurd and "Grace" is my attempt at straightforward realism. "The Dragon's Daughter" is a modern retelling of a medieval folktale. I see the novel, Twelve Hearts of Clay as the heart of the thesis. The concept for the novel came to me slowly, and over the course of a number of drafts, beginning in the Fall of 2010 in Dr. Cokal's Novel Writing Workshop. I've included the first fifty pages in sequence, and then I jump forward in the narrative to events coming down the line. Included are four modern fairy tales that will mark the four different sections of the novel and also serve as a fantastic versions of the main characters' histories and backstories. My novel and many of the stories included here place the magical world of myth and folktale right alongside the realistic world we know and see daily, and elements of each world can seep into the other. These stories are meant to draw on the reader's pre-existing understanding of narrative as a way of processing the world, something I think we learn in the form of childhood stories and fairy tales. The novel's themes and concepts of art, troubled romance, constructed identities, fairy tales and folklore are all reflected in the short stories. Each story takes a single theme and explores it outside of the context of the novel, which is, I believe, a result of the way I've been working, switching back and forth between the novel and stories, depending on which project was frustrating me the least at that moment, but ruminating always on the same questions and concerns.

This paper explores how Charles Dickens’s use of a female narrator in Bleak House (1853) fundamentally problematizes and undermines his use of the fairy tale’s cultural cachet, motifs, and characters to prop up and project his fantasies of the feminine ideal. More specifically, it examines the effects of the thematic presence of several tale-types and stock fairy tale figures on Dickens’s ability to prescribe ideal feminine behaviors, such as incuriosity and selfless obedience, to both his characters and his female audience. Because Esther’s ability to write and her interest in either discovering or constructing her own identity establish her as competitor to the males who attempt to script her life, Dickens tries to control and circumscribe her ability to know and act through her own and other characters’ resemblance to traditional fairy tale character types, especially Bluebeard and Griselda. Esther’s narrative, however, betrays these unnatural delimitations in telltale interruptions and denials as Dickens attempts to circumvent the constraints he has placed on her voice. Esther’s narrative therefore resists but imperfectly overcomes the Victorian male author’s scripting of femininity. / text

Thesis (M.Ed.)--Regis University, Denver, Colo., 2008. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on June 6, 2008). Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (doctoral)--Rijksuniversiteit te Groningen, 1923. / Includes bibliographical references.