McKinley: Weird words

23rd May, 2000. 12:41 p.m.

Dear Cameron,

There's a mailing list I'm on that you might like. It's called A Word A Day and
every day they send you a word. Each week there's usually a theme to the words.
You can check them out at http://www.wordsmith.org/awad/

Karen.

P.S. I've been meaning to pass this on for quite some time. I don't know if
anyone really cares but I like it when I stumble across McKinley in my critical
reading:

"In contrast to the poets, Robin McKinley takes a more optimistic view of men
and heterosexuality. She portrays self-confident, courageous young women who
take the initiative in a world which they help to define with men. In her
adaptation of _Beauty and the Beast_ (1978) and in her transformed fairy tales
in the collection _The Door in the Hedge_ (1981), it is the woman who dares
oppose tyranny, to seek alternatives to oppression. For instance, in _The
Princess and the Frog_, a princess takes the initiative in overcoming a
powerful prince named Aliyander, who had turned his own brother into a frog and
threatened the father of the princess. Though McKinley is often naive and too
facile in the manner in which she depicts women assuming active roles, it is
this very unquestioning attitude which is significant. That is, for McKinley
there is no reason why women cannot live the lives they choose for themselves
if they are willing to struggle and surmount obstacles which apparently hinder
men, too, from realising their identities."

Jack Zipes, _Don't Bet on the Prince: Contemporary Feminist Fairy Tales in
North America and England_, Routledge, New York, 1989. First published Methuen
Inc. and Gower Publishing Co. in 1987, pp. 23-24.

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Karen Beilharz kkychan@ihug.com.au ICQ2293920 members.xoom.com/veronabeach

"'The rule is," said Vertue, 'that if we have one chance out of a hundred of
surviving, we must attempt it: but if we have none, absolutely none then it
would be self destruction, and we need not.'"

(C.S. Lewis, "The Pilgrim's Regress")
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Received on Mon May 22 19:47:47 2000