FAIRY TALES IN MARINA WARNER’S THE LOST

FATHER AND INDIGO

LEILA ROUHI SHALMAEI

The University of Masaryk

Brno, Czech Republic

 Abstract

The magic world of Fairy Tales, the fantasy, the spells, wish-fulfillment,
where everything is possible, and you can find yourself in it enjoying and feeling so
relaxed and happy can be something we look for in our entire life in the real world
full of terror, war, and pain! The stories were meant for children eventually to give
them a lesson but were made for adults originally and shape their experience and
understanding from childhood.

What I am aimed to demonstrate in this short article is finding out the

elements of Fairy Tales in the three works of Marina Warner, their role in the stories,
the reason to be there, the goal of the writer for implying them, the message to the
readers, and the role of a female as the storyteller.
Key Words

Fairy-tale

Marina Warner’s Works

Story Telling

Female’s role
 1- Introduction

A fairy tale or a wonder tale, as Marina Warner calls it, is a

magic world full of experiences that manipulate our perceptions of life
the way it has been planned by its author, which aims to teach us
something or create a change in our inner thoughts or experiences. The
more the readers are drowned by its multi-dimension frames and
constructions, the more they are engrossed by its surface generic and
simplicity which is indeed abysmal and endless.

That is why there have been so many fairy tales from many
centuries ago till the contemporary time, and these tales were also
transformed and underwent alterations that will be continued
constantly in the future. Since there are numerous fairy tales from all
over the world, there are multitudinous viewpoints about them that I
would like to represent the outlines of some significant ones to give
some interesting viewpoints on fairy tales and meanwhile strengthen
the layouts in this article.

Maria M. Tatar believes that a very important quality in the

fairy tale is the change of all circumstances at the beginning of the
story. She calls it a radically unstable game that contradicts all
narrative norms, agitates stability, and violates the idea of misogyny:

“… the hero’s rewards of power, wealth, and wedded bliss are

presented as consequences of his innate qualities, whereas the heroine
must endure a process of humiliation for an ending that signals a loss
of pride and an abdication of power.” (Sellers, 2001)

In this case, in the fairy tale of Cinderella, the situation the main
character plays in is humiliating and her simple nature is looked at as
innocent or foolish. She must suffer a lot to reach the prince.

While Tatar enhances the character, Vladimir Propp raises the

idea that it is the action of a character that matters, not the character.
In his view, the difficulties and struggles the character tolerates, define
the frame of the tale and its plot.

Also, where Cronon Rose and Bettelheim call fairy tales,

embryonic stories of development with a less complicated process of
socialization to its basic patterns, which needs more consideration in
this article, Maureen Duffy renders another engrossing viewpoint. She
assumes that fairy tales let us experience situations or wishes we can
not attain in the real life. Duffy and Bettelheim both agree on the
intensity of situations in fairy tales for children and their unwanted
emotional involvement in them while they can not even understand
them.

Jack Zipes, the writer of many works on fairies, who also

translated two major editions of the tales of the Brothers Grimm,
focused on fairy tales, their evolution, and their social and political
role in civilizing processes. According to Zipes, fairy tales serve a
meaningful social function. He declares that fairy tales are the outcome
of specific historical and economic cohesion, and so they change along
with the changes in the values of a society. (Sellers, Zipes, 2001)
 Susan Seller refers to Zipes’ postmodern cites and favors his
idea of reworking fairy tales which she suggests is the interaction
between the known and the new. (Sellers, 2001)

Like Zipes, Warner emphasizes the importance of the historical

basis of fairy tales. She affirms that if a fairy tale has a happy ending,
it is based on a misunderstanding of its origins, and this signifies the
historical importance in the seventeenth century when women could
choose the person they loved for marrying. In her examination of From
the Beast to the Blonde, she disregards the idea of misogyny and does
not agree with the idea that all stepmothers were wicked. In her
opinion, when a stepmother is considered wicked, her situation at that
time must also be examined if not, it can be inferred that all women
are evils. She asserted that the young women died after their childbirth
and then stepmothers entered the family, they needed to keep
themselves and their children safe and so they were unkind to the
orphans. Therefore, the wrong a woman does in a story, depends on
the social and historical conditions of that time and this should not be
generalized to all women since these circumstances are subject to
change during the time. (Sellers, 2001)

Warner looks at fairy tales as an innate feminist genre and

regards reading these stories as girly with the possibility to change: its
wonders disrupted ‘the apprehensible world to open spaces for
dreaming alternatives’. Dreaming is also an eminent quality in her
novel The Lost Father, which will be referred to later. She also adds
that fairies are optative, which means they are wishes that know no
limits and so do not follow any prescribed rules.
 Warner sees the fascination of fairy tales in their double roles.
Though they are willing to display fear constantly, they are prone to
instability. The happy ending is also a promise and not fulfilled action.

She believes that the magic and the spell in fairy tales are
flavors that make their harsh truth seductive.

Though Susan Sellers moves forwards in fairy tales with a

bottom-up approach, she agrees with some of the concepts stated. She
cites her ideas and agrees with the simplicity of the fairy tale genre,
and that the starting statement of once upon a time in it gives a fixed
paradigm to the story which makes the reader follow it. Also, the
magic with the idea of anything can happen, softens the hard sides of
the story and reduces the tension and all its rules will be breached since
they reveal the complex patterns of our desires to adapt to them. In her
vision, Warner and Zipes’s views are the same based on the framework
of historical and economic domains and Warner’s declaration of
continuous change in fairy tales is a positive and feminist attitude.
(Sellers, 2001)
 The Female Narrator

Another important issue that matters in connection to fairy tales

is the art of storytelling. In this regard, it seems appropriate to mention
Rosemary Jackson’s idea of an omniscient narrator who has the full
authority in telling the tale, and the use of expressions such as once
upon a time and happily ever after makes the reader accept all the
events that follow some fixed patterns.

Marina Warner herself remarks that storytelling is a female art

and was originally narrated by them. Her interest in fairy tales and
their history which is in a close connection with the storytellers is
predominant in almost all her works as Anna in The Lost Father.

In The Lost Father, all the tales are fabricated by the narrator’s
imagination who tries to fill the unrevealed parts of the story by using
the diary or inquiries of others. The main teller, Anna, is the sibyl who
tries to join the past to the present. Here as we expected from Marina
Warner’s style of writing and the female role, the power of storytelling
lies within the females in the story. The storyteller, Anna, searches for
her family identity by using the memories of her mother and diaries to
weave the incidents one after the other, though some events might not
be true.

Warner believes that the Sibyl, as the figure of a storyteller,

bridges divisions in history as well as hierarchies of class. (Warner,
1994)
 Also, her novel From the Beast to the Blonde explores the
social context, meaning, and metamorphosis of fairy tales from the
Queen of Sheba via Old Mother Goose to Disney and the role of
women as storytellers, and their role to pass fairy tales to the next
generation which is also pertinent to her feminist views.
 The Lost Father

The Lost Father is Marina Warner’s imaginary memoir of an

Italian family undergoing different incidents in the stream of life. This
fiction portrays realistic family life in a historical period within a
specific culture. Here the imagination of the writer Anna and the
fantasy of the main character Rosalba form the setting for the Fairy to
embed in the story.

Rosalba tries to stick to her imagination and fantasy and live in

the created world where she can reach her desires and stays in peace.
In her imagination, she resembles Carmelina, a fairy tale character,
who could grab her prince from Zenaida the witch. She is not beautiful
and is not understood emotionally, so she resorts to fairy to get what
she wants. By the power of imagination and fairy, she sinks herself
into another world where her wishes are promised.

“Did Zenaida burn up, poison herself by the robe of a prickly pear? Had
she had time to free Tommaso from his changed shape? Had Rosalba, no Carmelina
broken the spell which held Zenaida herself captive? Did she put on the magic dress,
the dress made of pain and courage, and become herself transformed into a human
woman, lovely and gentle, whom some other wicked creature had once enchanted
too?” (The Lost Father, 1988, p66)

She also compares Tommaso with another fairy character, a

Beast, who she fell in love with him to undo magic and change him
into a prince. She always imagines him as a prince.
 This fantasy world brings her security, power, perfection, and
the implementation of desires, as Maureen Duffy says that fairy tales
make us experience situations or wishes we can not have in the real
life! (Sellers, 2001)

That is why Maria M. Tatar says the main character, the

heroine, in the fairy seems foolish or innocent because Rosalba does
not live in the real world. She leaves her room with her bare foot,
unaware of her surroundings, walking in her unrealistic world. She is
emotionally involved in her imagination and fairy stories so deeply
that she can not accept or see the wicked part of Tommaso, who is the
man she loves.

Warner puts her in a fairy world to uncover her inner struggles,

even if sexually since in this way, she can solve her problems since
she may not reach her wishes in the real world.

In a family where the patriarch extends its roots and honour

matters more than feelings, covering the desires both emotional and
sexual, and hiding beneath the shelter of imagination and fairy is the
best way to move on with them. Rosalba is a sample of silenced
women who can not cry out their genuine feelings:

“… the stories are fantastical… they also encode a great deal of experience
and knowledge from among the usually unnoticed and voiceless group-women,
children, the poor.” (Warner, 2010)
 Indigo or Mapping the Waters

Indigo, another novel written by Marina Warner, is a

modernized and altered retelling of William Shakespeare's The
Tempest. She explores the colonial conflicts of an island, using myths
and fairy tales to tell the story of the Everard family.

In writing this novel Warner uses fairy tales for inspiration of

it. Though the novel portrays the modern life in London, Miranda’s
relationships with Xanthe and with the Everards’ maidservant
Serafine, and Kit’s memories of his childhood on the island, adding
the fairytale elements to the story made it more touching: Xanthe is a
modern version of fairytale princess visited with blessings and curses
by fairy godmothers.

When Xanthe is born, a real princess is invited to the ceremony.

She is then the fairy character in this novel as a godmother, making
wishes for the child: a good nose, hard common sense, a hard head, a
heartless of a statue’ (Indigo, 58-60)

Italo Calvino states that spells in fairy tales demonstrate a

mysterious power that dominates the characters’ life. Making wishes,
wish fulfillment, and spells are used to show the power of fairy tales.

When Bettelheim talks about authors rewriting other’s works,

it could be referred to Marina Warner who rewrote The Tempest and
in doing so changed the characters. The witch in The Tempest turned
into an elder lady who was kind to children, told them fairy stories,
and saved newborn children’s life. Miranda made a wish for she was
influenced by Serafines’ fairy tales. Serafine is also an important
character in the story with magical power when she saves a child from
the body of a dead woman who had drowned near the island with some
other slaves. The miraculous power of her may be regarded as a fairy
power. She is then separated to live on an island with another child she
had adopted. She was respected or feared as a godmother with magical
power. This magical power is more evident later when she gives life
to her adopted girl to save her life. (Indigo, 1992)

Here again, I refer to Bettelheim’s remarks on the impact of

fairy tales on children that while it teaches them and shows them a
solution to solve their problems, they may have limited understanding
of the tales and get too much involved in them. Miranda, though a kid,
makes a wish and pours spells on the baby, which proves her tense
involvement in the fairy power and the magic.

In watching fairy tales or reading the stories, they can find two
specific characters wicked or decent. Then, Bettelheim is right that
fairy tales must have clear personalities of good or bad so that the
children can identify them in their real life.

In Indigo, Xanthe, the other kid in the story is shown as a

character in fairy stories: ‘…shook more golden dresses and slippers from the
wishing tree’ (Indigo, 1992)

A fairy tale is meant to have a happy ending, but Xanthe, the

princess with the good wishes of the real princess, faces a gloomy
destiny at the end of the story.
 4. Conclusion

Fairy tales have a great impact not just on children, but on

everyone who gets involved in them. They make us feel happy and get
to our wishes, though children may get too much involved in them
emotionally, which is not approved by the critics.

Fairy tales are not new. They existed for a long time and were
retold or rewritten till they reached us in the modern time. They are
intensely influenced by the social and economic conditions of society
and are changed based on these conditions and images, or films are the
best ways to distribute them all over the world through their power of
vision.

They are simple events full of enchantments and magic which

make the hard moments in them tolerable. The fairy tale is a world
where everyone can live there by using her own imagination and can
be hopeful that can get to their wishes one day. It is a place for Silent
Women, where they can reveal their inner thoughts and struggles.
Though for fulfilling this and having a happy life as Bettelheim says,
one must face the struggles in life and does not shy away. (Bettelheim,
1976)
References

Bettelheim, Bruno, The Use of Enchantment: The Meaning and

Importance of Fairy Tales, Penguin, 1976.

Bibliography Archived, at the Way Back Machine, 2006.

Dearnley, Elizabeth., Interview with Marina Warner, July 2013

L. Barbara, Myth lore, A V ale: A Very Short, Conrad, Joann, University of

California, The Journal of American, 2019

Tatar, M. Maria, Introduction A. S. Byatt, The Annotated Brothers Grimm,

W W Norton & co Inc, 2012.

Sellers Susan, Myth and Fairy Tale in Contemporary Women’s Fiction,

PALGRAVE, 2001

Warner Marina, The Lost Father, Chatto & Windus, 1988

Warner Marina, Indigo, First published by Chatto & Windus, 1992

Warner Marina, From the Beast to the Blonde: On Fairy Tales and Their

Tellers, Chatto & Windus, 1994

Warner Marina, Fairy Tale: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University

Press, 2018

https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/marina-warner/indigo-2/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Zipes