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Author
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Comment
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kristiw
Unregistered User
(10/4/05 4:32 pm)
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retelling fairytales, eating disorders
Hi,
In the same vein, I suppose, as some of my past threads on women and appetite and the insatiable woman, I'm looking for modern retellings of fairytales which deal with anorexia (the retellings, not the originals), and classic stories that are susceptible to those kinds of readings. I'm doing narrative analyses of personal accounts, and I'm looking at ways we narrativize our experiences.
I'm not interested in proving that certain stories "give you an eating disorder" (/make you susceptible to abusive relationships, in this case with food rather than men); I think that's a gross oversimplification. But I am interested in how our experiences change the way we hear and tell stories.
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Veronica Schanoes
Registered User
(10/4/05 9:31 pm)
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Re: retelling fairytales, eating disorders
In the Arabian Nights, there's a story of a beautiful woman who eats almost nothing--she spends her meals eating one grain of rice at a time, grain by grain, with a pin. Finally one evening, her husband, who has grown curious, stays up and follows her. She turns out to be a flesh-eating ghoul who goes to graveyards and gorges on corpses every night.
I think that story is ripe for an eating-disorder retelling.
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KathieRose
Unregistered User
(10/5/05 5:36 am)
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Re: retelling fairytales, eating disorders
This reference is more about myth, specifically the Persephone myth in which Persephone starves herself while in the underworld with Hades (until she eats the fateful pomegranate seeds), but it might be of interest to you anyway: Starving Women by Angelyn Spignesi [published by Spring Publications, I think, probably back in the 80s]. Excellent research and an interesting perspective on the myth and anorexia, as I recall.
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AliceCEB
Registered User
(10/5/05 8:06 am)
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Re: retelling fairytales, eating disorders
In Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Mists of Avalon, Morgaine starves herself while pregnant with Mordred. It has been many years since I read the book, but I recall that, in general, she was a character that shunned food.
Best,
Alice
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evil little pixie
Registered User
(10/5/05 9:44 am)
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Re: retelling fairytales, eating disorders
I don't remember what this tale is called (I think it may be Italian, but I could be wrong), but it seems like it might work for your purposes.
A rich man is so miserly that he declares he will marry only a woman who doesn't eat anything and therefore won't cost him anything to support. The beautiful girl across the street hears of his requirement and decides she wants to marry him (I think for his money), so she asks an old woman for advice. The old woman tells her to sit in her window every day acting like she's eating invisible food, and when someone asks what she's doing, to say she eats only air. The girl takes the woman's advice, and the rich man hears of the girl who eats air and decides she'll be the perfect wife. They marry, and while she doesn't eat at meal times, she secretly gets food at night. She has the money to do so because every day her husband takes her to his treasure room to show off, and she puts something sticky on the soles of her shoes so a few coins will stick to them. I don't remember the rest of the story (though I think the husband finds out), but as it involves not eating as a means to attract the opposite sex, it seems like a good match for today's emphasis being thin in order to attract the opposite sex, and how one method of getting thin that can swerve into an eating disorder is limiting food intake, especially when other people can see you eating. I'm sorry I don't remember the name or the rest of the tale, but I'm sure someone out there does . . . :)
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evil little pixie
Registered User
(10/10/05 5:08 pm)
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Re: retelling fairytales, eating disorders
Now I'm curious -- Does anyone recognize the tale I described above? I'd like to read it again, but I don't know how to find it.
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kristiw
Unregistered User
(10/10/05 8:55 pm)
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yes, please!
Yes, I'd love some sources! Suggestions for critical analysis are more than welcome too: at the moment I have hopes for Levorato's book, "Language and Gender in the Fairy Tale Tradition: A Linguistic Analysis of Old and New Story-telling."
I'm looking at the continuing presence of fairy tales in women's imaginative lives and what kind of roles women see themselves occupying in the stories, depending on their relationships with food. I admit I'm having a hard time reconciling that section of the paper (personal narratives) with the parts in which I analyze traditional versions of stories and (to some extent) how they speak to me through my own experiences with appetite. I have an idea that I'll be able to bring the two into conversation by incorporating literary texts (like Angela Carter's or Anne Sexton's) since it creates a sort of continuum of personal voice: folktales with no known author, to fiction with an author who may or may not be the narrator, to real-life narratives whose author is explicitly present.
This is actually a thesis, so if no one is particularly interested
now I may bring it up again later in the year... by your leave ;)
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