Welding brass tits on the armor: An examination of the quest metaphor in Robin McKinley'sThe Hero and the Crown

Altmann, Anna E.

doi:10.1007/bf01131038

Cited by 10 publications

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“…Although her young women are much more interesting and complex in character than Pierce's, they both don armour, ride off on horses and conquer the enemy. They are Britomart, not Britomart and Janet together-even though, as Anna Altmann (1992) shows, one can make a good case that in The Hero and the Crown at least, the hero's journey towards self-realization echoes patterns expressed by women in realistic fiction. Nevertheless the gendered symbols (armour, sword, horse and dragon) and geography (for McKinley, too, bad news comes from the north)-which so trouble Le Guin and Jones don't come into question in these two novels.…”

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confidence: 99%

What We Found on Our Journey through Fantasy Land

Baker¹

2006

Child Lit Educ

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This paper sketches a ''map'' of certain patterns in current children's fantasy. Beginning with literal maps of fantasy worlds, I point out the similarities of the physical layout of a number of invented worlds, suggesting that sameness of geography often indicates a lack of innovation in the ideological or philosophical ideas behind the stories. Where we find a departure from conventional fantasy geography we also find originality in plot and metaphysics, such as in the work of Ursula K. Le Guin, Philip Pullman and Diana Wynne Jones. A change in geography can also signal a new approach to gender roles, as I explore in works by Le Guin and Wynne Jones, over and against fantasies in which female heroes conform to traditionally male models. Finally, I suggest that in Wynne Jones' and Terry Pratchett's children's novels the strict gender roles of fairy tale become an avenue by which the reader questions the conventional destinies of narrative both in literature and in life.

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confidence: 99%