Content area
Full text
Neil Gaiman's oeuvre is a well-studied section of the fantastic and for good reason: spanning decades, genres, age groups, and media, his works have become a touchstone of contemporary speculative fiction, especially in terms of appropriation of fable and fairy tale into fantasy.1 These have been examined from critical lenses including fairy-tale studies (Slabbert), the dialogic relationship between his works and Victorian fairy tales (Collins), feminist perspectives (Czarnowsky), and adaptation studies (Perino; Klapcsik). Gaiman focalizes many of his fairy-tale and fable appropriations on the voices of women, but the deployment of fairy-tale figures in postmodern appropriations also involves the repetition of stereotypical representations of women, particularly older women or witches. As Kay Turner notes in her consideration of "Frau Holle," "no matter what narrative name she bears—witch, hag, grandmother, fairy, sorceress, even goddess—the old woman of the fairy tale is distinguished at once by an excess of miraculous power and knowledge" (Turner, "At Home" 51), and that "the charisma associated with these female figures emanates from their unusual propensity for agency" (Turner, "Playing with Fire" 246). The consideration of age constructs in fiction, especially in fairy tales, is necessary because "fairytales' depiction of old age has become a template for viewing older women in reality more broadly" (Anjirbag and Joosen 1). With the context of this critical discussion in mind, I return to Gaiman's works to examine them through a lens that unites the concerns of both age studies and fairy-tale studies, reflecting Sylvia Henneberg's observation that sexism in children's classics is "compounded by a hefty dose [of] ageism when female elders emerge only to be diminished" (126). This article will primarily examine Stardust, The Sleeper and the Spindle, and "Chivalry" as these are the most closely drawn from fairy tale and fable, and they are all narratives that hinge on the intersection of gender, power, and age. By paying more attention to the construction of older women in these narratives, I ask questions about the potential imagined in society for women as they age.
Often Gaiman's works are characterized as demonstrating "the contemporary urge to rewrite fairy tales from a feminist perspective" (Klapcsik 330). Despite this, women in Gaiman's works with few exceptions dull in comparison to the men and boys whose...