Date of Award
1-1-2021
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Ph.D. in English
First Advisor
Annette Trefzer
Second Advisor
Leigh Anne Duck
Third Advisor
Jaime Harker
Relational Format
dissertation/thesis
Abstract
This dissertation examines the use of fairy-tale allusions to explore masculinity in four novels published during the Cold War period. This notable focus on men and masculinity held in common across these four novels from four different decades is interesting because it suggests that the shift in focus to women and feminist ideals in fairy-tale revisions of the 1970s and after is even more stark a shift than has yet been recognized by scholars. This dissertation finds that Eudora Welty’s novella The Robber Bridegroom (1942), Vladimir Nabokov’s novel Lolita (1955), Donald Barthelme’s novel Snow White (1967), and Ross Macdonald’s novel Sleeping Beauty (1973) all subvert a reader’s expectations of one or more character types drawn from traditional fairy tales, in some cases going so far as to invent an entirely new character type. These new and different character types each show the difficulty in performing Cold War gender norms, which aim to divide gender roles into the strict binaries of “hard” and “soft.”
Recommended Citation
Wood, Susan E., "Masculinity and Cold War Fairy Tales: Eudora Welty, Vladimir Nabokov, Donald Barthelme, and Ross Macdonald" (2021). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 2143.
https://egrove.olemiss.edu/etd/2143