Feminist Rewritings of Fairy Tales in Ireland: A Case Study of Deirdre Sullivan

Abstract

Deirdre Sullivan is an emerging Irish writer who has been repeatedly rewarded for her work and has received favourable criticism from authors and academics such as Jack Zipes but has not yet aroused much critical attention. Her most acclaimed book, Tangleweed and Brine (2017), is a collection of fairy-tale rewritings and one of the most innovative subversions in the 21st century. Following other revisions of classic fairy tales published at the end of the 20th century and in the early 21st century that exposed and criticised the patriarchal messages that those tales propagated, Tangleweed and Brine recovers the witty and independent heroine lost in the 15th century. The heroines of this collection break the rules imposed by the heteronormative society and are capable of openly talk about social taboos such as paedophilia, sexual harassment or domestic violence. This article focuses on the fairy-tale rewritings in Tangleweed and Brine, aiming at exploring the revisions of femininity and imposed roles on women as well as exposing silenced topics.