Rebellion against Conventions in A. S. Byatt’s Selected Fairytales

Fairytales, as Byatt asserts, are considered as an effective kind of literature for human beings. Studying Byatt’s On Histories and Stories which investigates the importance of fairy tales and explains all variable aspects of these tales clarifies a sign of worldwide completeness in her works. This study investigates the deep relationship between the need of the human soul for truth and, at the same time, their need for fancy fairy tales as entertainment, as suggested by Byatt. Consequently, there is a meaningful relationship between fairy tales and the conception of truth in narratives. In this regard, some of Byatt’s well-known fairytales have been selected to be investigated and discussed with special attention to their intertextual mode. Regarding some of her fairy tales, like “The Story of the Eldest Prince”, “The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye”, “The Thing in the Forest”, “A Stone Woman”, and “The Glass Coffin”, there are some similar writing styles and subjects which can be called as the special characteristics of Byatt’s works. These conformities and similarities in Byatt’s works are first seen as the cause of making her works enjoyable to read. In these fairytales, one will find women that are fighting against a pervasive idea of femaleness that they do not think fits their own expectations and feelings. For this reason, as they forsake their exclusively sexual existence and turn into rational beings, they can come back to life. This study probes to investigate the way A.S. Byatt simultaneously employs and subverts the structural and thematic conventions of fairytales. The study would take advantage of the theories of Linda Hutcheon and the ideas of Byatt mentioned in On Histories and Stories.