The Fairy-Tale Design and the Heroine’s Transition to the Ordinary World Alice Munroe’s “The Red Dress -1946”

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Published: Jul 20, 2023
DOI: https://doi.org/10.14500/kujhss.v6n1y2023.pp56-64
Keywords:
fairy tale, heroine, development, pattern, short story

Main Article Content

Saffeen N. Arif
Department of English, Faculty of Humanities and Social science, Koya University, Kurdistan Region, Iraq
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4859-5176

Abstract





Like many of her contemporaries, the fictional works of the Canadian writer Alice Munro can be read as a realistic portrayal of the people from her native Ontario, Canada, describing their set of beliefs, values, dreams, aspirations, fears, and apprehensions. A second way to evaluate this fiction is to approach it from a feminist perspective, shedding light on the question of women’s need to be free from the patriarchal rule. The aim of this article, however, is to consider the function of the fairy-tale framework by which Munro’s short story “Red Dress – 1946” is constructed. This fairy-tale design is considered a point of departure from which the story’s heroine grows mentally and spiritually so that she can get her way into the normal world. In addition to taking a brief look at some of the views offered by Munro’s critics of her writings, it also tries to answer such questions as, what function(s) does this form perform to the story to bring about the heroine’s development? Aside from where the Bildungsroman and fairy tale genres meet and where they deviate, how far are certain traditional fairy-tale elements, such as structure, themes, characterization, etc. significant in bringing about the heroine’s mental as well as emotional growth?






 

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How to Cite
Arif, S. N. (2023) “The Fairy-Tale Design and the Heroine’s Transition to the Ordinary World: Alice Munroe’s ‘The Red Dress -1946’”, Koya University Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, 6(1), pp. 56-64. doi: 10.14500/kujhss.v6n1y2023.pp56-64.
Issue
Vol. 6 No. 1 (2023): Issue Tenth
Section
Articles
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Author Biography

Saffeen N. Arif, Department of English, Faculty of Humanities and Social science, Koya University, Kurdistan Region, Iraq

Dr. Safeen N. Arif obtained his B.A. (2000) and M.A. (2004) degrees in English language and literature from the University of Baghdad, College of Languages, Department of English; and had his PhD (2010) in British and American literatures from College of Arts at Baghdad University. In his research he is focused on modern and postmodern British and American Novel, and his major interests are literary and comparative studies, translation, Victorian and Modern Novel, in addition to literary theory.

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