Reconstruction of Fairytale Canon in A. S. Byatt's Short-Genre Fiction

Essay from the year 2011 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 2.0, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, language: English, abstract: In A. Bayette's novels, traditional fairytale discourse is the source of many borrowings, defining the plot, composition, system of archetypical images and stylistics of its texts. The archetype as an invariant of a fairytale plot or motif is also actualised in the form of a whole series of binary oppositions constituting the archetypical core of the folklore tale: sleep - waking, captivity - liberation, destruction - restoration, prohibition - violation of prohibition. The role status of characters can also be conditioned by traditional opposition: for example, the author of wishes is a forced executor of wishes. However, the main binary structure that defines the originality of the art picture of the world of fairytale novels Bayette, can be conventionally presented as a confrontation between static and dynamism. Staticism is understood as a predictable adherence to a certain algorithm of actions in the limited space of a classical plot, and dynamism is understood as freedom to break a given scheme, freedom to creatively transform a fairytale canon. Turning once again to the fairytale, the author, just like its heroes, rethinks what is known to create their own worlds and encourage the reader to create their own stories.