Not So Grim: Liz Lochhead’s Subversion of Patriarchy in The Grimm Sisters

Year 2018, Issue: 39, 139 - 156, 22.06.2018

Merve Sarı

https://doi.org/10.21497/sefad.443419

Abstract

Although originally folk and fairy tales belonged to female story-tellers who had composed these tales, their hold on the stories was gradually lost due to the rising interest of writers like Perrault and the Grimms in these tales. While putting these narratives down, male authors never simply wrote these tales down as they heard them but adapted them in a certain way to promote their patriarchal ideologies through these texts. In the last quarter of the twentieth century, however, postmodern writers, relying on intertextuality and the fantastic challenged the ancient lore, subsequently re-writing and questioning the reliability of these so-called “original” tales. Particularly female authors writing in the postmodern tradition challenged the central by replacing it with the peripheral, through their employment of such techniques as irony, satire, parody and pastiche. Among these writers, Scottish poetess Liz Lochhead stands out with her attempt to recover the “absent” voices in fairy tales. Re-writing the fairy tales of the Grimm Brothers from a female perspective in The Grimm Sisters (1981), Lochhead via her poems subverts the role of the traditionally silent part attributed to women, while voicing the concerns of women as story-tellers, mothers, wives, daughters, sisters, step-mothers, hags and the “other” women. In this regard, the aim of this article is to discuss the role of postmodern techniques and the fantastic in enabling Lochhead to subvert the conventional roles ascribed to women in her The Grimm Sisters and re-write the contemporary feminine experience as it is perceived and experienced by women per se.

Keywords

Fairy tales, postmodern poetry, re-writing, Liz Lochhead, The Grimm Sisters

O Kadar Da Amansız Değil: The Grimm Sisters Adlı Eserinde Liz Lochhead’in Ataerkil Düzeni Altüst Edişi

Abstract

Aslen halk hikâyeleri ve peri masalları bu eserleri yaratmış kadın hikâye anlatıcılarına ait olmasına rağmen kadınların hikâyeler üzerindeki tekeli Perrault ve Grimm kardeşler gibi isimlerin hikâyelere gösterdikleri ilgiyle giderek yok olmuştur. Hikâyeleri yazarken, erkek yazarlar asla bu hikâyeleri duydukları gibi kâğıda dökmez ve bu eserleri kendi ataerkil ideolojilerini destekleyecek şekilde uyarlar. Yirminci yüzyılın son çeyreğinde postmodern yazarlar, metinler-arasılık ve fantastik aracılığıyla eski öğretilerine meydan okumuş ve bunun sonucunda sözüm ona “orijinal” olan bu hikâyelerin güvenilirliklerini sorgularken adı geçen hikâyeleri yeniden yazmıştır. Özellikle postmodern kadın yazarlar, ironi, hiciv, parodi ve pastiş gibi teknikler yardımıyla merkeziyi dışlanmışla değiştiririp geleneği sorgular. Bu yazarlar arasında, İskoç şair Lic Lochhead fantastiği kullanımı ve peri masallarında “namevcut” olan sesleri geri kazanıp yeniden yazması açısından önemli bir yer tutar. The Grimm Sisters (1981) adlı eserinde, Grimm kardeşlerin masallarını kadın bakış açısından yeniden yazan Lochhead, geleneksel olarak kadınlarla özdeşleştirilmiş olan sessiz rolü ters düz ederken kadınların hikâye anlatıcıları, anneler, eşler, kız çocukları, kız kardeşler, üvey anneler, kocakarılar ve “diğer” kadın olarak endişelerini dile getirir. Bu bağlamda, bu makalenin amacı postmodern teknikler ve fantastiğin Lochhead’in The Grimm Sisters adlı eserinde kadınlara ithaf edilmiş geleneksel rolleri alt üst ettiğini ve kadınların güncel deneyimlerinin kadınlar tarafından anlaşıldığı ve deneyimlendiği üzere yeniden yazımını sağladığını savunur.

Keywords

Peri masalları, postmodern şiir, yeniden yazım, Liz Lochhead, The Grimm Sisters

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