Once upon a Time ― Myth, Fairy Tales and Legends in Margaret Atwood's Writings

Appleton (English, Old Dominion University) both edits and contributes to this examination of the uses made by author Margaret Atwood of traditional myths and fairy tales. Atwood's work is known for its surrealist qualities and ardent feminism. The articles here look at the deeper, atavistic themes that Atwood explores and inverts in her stories. They discuss themes of extinction both actual and spiritual, the creation of myth, the retelling of the Odyssey from Penelope's point of view, the magic of "verbal photographs" in The Blind Assassin, the fate of the earth and Atwood's identification with an ancestor who was hanged as a witch and survived. Men are allowed a voice in one essay, in which the prince is revealed as all too human. The essays as a whole present a complex image of Atwood's mythic journeys. Annotation c2009 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

SARAH A. APPLETON has taught seminars on Margaret Atwood and other women writers. She is the author of The Bitch Is Back: Wicked Women in Literature (SIU, 2000) and, with Mica Howe, co-editor of He Said, She Says: An RSVP to the Male Text (Farleigh-Dickinson, 2000). Professor Appleton has also published essays on Margaret Atwood and many others in such journals as Margaret Atwood Studies and African-American Review. She is currently writing one book on the fates of male and female narcissists in literature and editing another collection of essays. She is teaching in the English program at Old Dominion University.