Body, Trauma and Transformation in “The Woodcutter’s Bride” by Deirdre Sullivan

Abstract

In the short story “The Woodcutter’s Bride”, included in her collection Tangleweed and Brine, Irish author Deirdre Sullivan rewrites the traditional tale of “Little Red Riding Hood” using narrative strategies which link the treatment of space with that of the body of the main character to emphasize the protagonist’s metamorphosis and her role in the plot, all which contributes to subvert the coming-of-age motif in the story. Sullivan’s tale uses one of the best-known endings of the canonical tale, the one rewritten by the Grimm brothers, to reinvent the plot of the protagonist and emphasize the devouring act as a traumatic experience and an incomplete transformation at once. According to fairy tale scholars such as Jack Zipes and Maria Tatar, transformation is one of the genre core aspects, and can be analyzed from a sociocultural perspective. In the analysis tradition of “Little Red Riding Hood” we can examine concepts such as trauma, desire, the main character’s agency and the importance of her disobedience into an adverse context. Sullivan’s version elaborates on those concepts and, by letting the main character tell her own story the author provokes an identification with the reader. The representation of the body and space work as narrative strategies that question earlier versions of “Little Red Riding Hood” and at the same time foster dialogues with other rewritings of the same plot written by contemporary women authors.