The Rebellion of the Familiar:
Irony and/in the Postmodern Fairy Tale
“Everything begins with the intermediary,” says the deconstructionist critic Jacques Derrida (Culler:
12). This statement is an apt way to segue into a further exploration of irony, since it is precisely in the
intermediary that irony begins. The intermediary is also the place in which irony remains and
continues to exist; it is precisely the gap between states or between meaning and intention which gives
birth to irony. Defining irony as a gap addresses also its problematic nature, namely that when
attempting to define it, the subject has already eluded us.
In literary studies, irony has seldom been linked to the postmodern fairy tale, in spite of
obvious connections between the two modes of writing. The traditional fairy tale is almost always
claimed to be allegorical and is a subject prone to psychoanalytical scrutiny, of the Jungian kind in
particular1. Also, the postmodern fairy tale is often seen as allegorical2, although in a more ironic
sense of the term. In the case of Angela Carter’s revisionist fairy tales, the unusual and often
supernatural setting of the story allows for the reader’s focus to move away from arbitrary details and
into deeper levels of interpretation. Such levels of interpretation have often been analysed from a
feminist viewpoint, and although a feminist interpretation of Carter’s work is in many cases an
interesting and appropriate one, it seems to have become the be-all and end-all interpretation of the
works of Angela Carter, a conclusion which is far from reasonable. In fact, the notion of the
postmodern fairy tale as allegorical may not be appropriate in the first place.
Just as allegory is related to the traditional fairy tale, so irony is related to the postmodern fairy
tale, as if the two were sides of the same coin, at least as far as definition goes. In simplified terms, the
definition of both allegory and irony involves a discrepancy between apparent and intended meaning.
1
A Jungian exploration of the traditional fairy tale can be found in Marie-Louise von Franz’s book The
Interpretation of Fairy Tales, which includes “a comprehensive discussion of motifs related to Jung’s concept of
the shadow, the anima, and the animus” (back cover).
2
“An allegory is a narrative fiction in which the agents and actions, and sometimes the setting as well, are
contrived to make coherent sense on the ‘literal’, or primary, level of signification, and at the same time to
signify a second, correlated order of agents, concepts, and events.” (Abrams: 4)
1
The allegorical nature of many traditional fairy tales may serve to lend the stories depth and scope.
Hence, they may serve not merely as children’s bedtime stories but may be viewed simultaneously as
archetypal constructions, which upon analysis may reveal strikingly significant literary themes, such
as e.g. appearance vs. reality3. In the postmodern fairy tale, the author often employs traditional
elements such as setting, plot and/or characters according to the traditional fairy tale formula.
However, while these elements may appear familiar to the reader, the author of the postmodern fairy
tale employs them in such a way that they subvert the reader’s expectations, thereby bringing to light
and emphasizing the unfamiliar. The postmodern fairy tale may thus be said to be less cathartic in the
Aristotelian sense of the word than its origin, yet offers a similar sense of meaning being concealed
beneath the surface. As we will see, however, this “sense of concealed meaning” may indeed be just
that, a sense.
The idea of concealment is manifested by means of a gap between signifier and signified,
between the familiar and the unfamiliar, between what is explicit and what is implied and between
apparent and intended meaning. The gap that exists between these binary oppositions is what I will
henceforth refer to as irony. The uncertainty of this void, in the text in which irony may be said to
exist, mirrors the uncertainty of the modern/contemporary world and “questions the fixity of
conventional reality” (Walker: 23). Here, feminist critic Nancy A. Walker is talking about
conventional reality in terms of patriarchal society, and how the postmodern fairy tale makes us
question this convention. But more importantly, perhaps, the postmodern fairy tale makes us question
our expectations and our desire for fixed meaning, or a stable relationship between language and
meaning, or indeed appearance and reality, in general.
Irony is the literary device that brings these uncertainties to life. Nevertheless, there are
countless opinions on the definition of irony. In his article, “Irony”, deconstructionist Paul de Man
describes irony as an inherently fickle phenomenon, which resists categorisation and/or superimposed
3 The theme of appearance vs. reality as it occurs in the postmodern fairy tale will be the primary focus of this
paper.
2
definition. He describes ironic language as a “doublement”, which “splits the subject into an empirical
self that exists in a state of inauthenticity and a self that exists only in the form of a language that
asserts the knowledge of this inauthenticity” (214). However, he also stresses that the realization of
this inauthenticity inherent within the text does not nearly suffice; it is too simple a conclusion, since
“to know inauthenticity is not the same as to be authentic” (214). In other words, although we may be
able to detect irony and the so-called gap between word and meaning, it does not mean that we, in
detecting the crux, have solved the problem. New Critic Cleanth Brooks, on the other hand, desires to
solve the discrepancy through a unity of binary oppositions; a unity he insists is of intrinsic value in all
great literature4.
I will introduce as many of these various opinions as necessary to illustrate the ongoing
problem of theory in relation to irony, in an attempt to detect possible motivations on the part of the
postmodern author to use irony as a literary device in his/her work. As primary texts, I will be looking
at various examples of postmodern fairy tales, from Angela Carter to Stanley Kubrick, to determine
how irony functions as one of the most important literary devices in this form of storytelling.
The reader of postmodern fiction may feel frustrated by the genre’s sense of a dislocation of meaning;
he/she may therefore be inclined to infer or superimpose meaning upon the narrative, for example in
order to make it allegorical. Because it uses irony, however, the postmodern fairy tale succeeds in
subverting the reader’s inherent inclination to force meaning upon the text by substituting dislocation
and indeterminacy for unification and resolution. This technique makes the reading and analysis of
postmodern fiction a volatile and often uncomfortable task. The same may be said for the study of
irony. In The Concept of Irony, Søren Kierkegaard brilliantly puts forth the difficulties that arise in
such study. In this thesis, Kierkegaard provides a constative definition of irony but simultaneously
shows the reader what irony is by writing performatively about it, thereby allowing his own constative
4
Cf. Cleanth Brooks, “Irony as a Principle of Structure”.
3
theory to deconstruct. In this way, Kierkegaard illustrates the elusive nature of irony, how it resists
constative definition, and how it literally engulfs the one who attempts to write about it. As Paul de
Man notes, knowing that one cannot write constatively about irony and be successful in this
endeavour does not prevent the writer of irony from falling into a trap; “it seems instead that [the
writer’s] wisdom can be gained only at the cost of such a fall” (214). Anticipating the
deconstructionist critics, Friedrich Schlegel makes a similar point in his paper, “On
Incomprehensibility”, namely that “words often understand themselves better than do those who use
them” (33). In an ironic way, Donald Barthelme says the same thing of a hymn text in his postmodern
retelling of the classic fairy tale, Snow White, “[t]he words of the hymn notice it. It is explicitly
commented upon, in the text” (25).
Deconstructionist theory is centrifugal in nature, making possible infinite interpretations.
Irony is extremely similar. Once you think you have succeeded in controlling it, it springs up
somewhere else and undermines your illusion of control. Words and meaning are unstable units, i.e.
meaning is constantly shifting and allowing for alternative interpretations. This entails that while we
can begin to try to prove the existence of irony, we always get stuck in the intermediary from which it
is virtually impossible to progress towards our intended goal, i.e. solving the problem. As Kierkegaard
points out in his discussion of positive vs. negative freedom, irony can pass its audience by
completely undetected. Even when detected, there are no stable markers by which we can
permanently identify the phenomenon.
Postmodern authors use this frustrating, yet intriguing, situation for rhetorical purposes. This
is especially interesting to observe in the postmodern fairy tale, since it is precisely the subversion of
expectations, or “the rebellion of the familiar” (Carter: 3), which makes the reader question language
and meaning. As readers, we are accustomed to the Jungian interpretation of the traditional fairy tale,
i.e. that it is allegorical or at the very least symbolic. The characters are flat, and we accept them as
such because they function as symbols, or containers of meaning. In the postmodern fairy tale, the
4
author undermines our expectations of traditional allegory by using irony as a rhetorical device. In
Snow White, Donald Barthelme parodies the idea of fairy tale characters as static and solely symbolic,
when he writes that “PAUL HAS NEVER BEFORE REALLY / SEEN SNOW WHITE AS A
WOMAN” (156). The eponymous character of Barthelme’s novel can be interpreted as both a real
woman (e.g. in light of her sexuality) and as a symbol (cf. “she is a tall dark beauty containing […]”
[italics added] (Barthelme: 9)). Paul’s view and the double nature of Barthelme’s Snow White mocks
our conventional perception of the fairy tale hero/heroine as a sign of something other.
Often, irony begins already in the title. Carter’s novel Love conjures up stereotypical
expectations of what that term signifies. As readers, we may well expect this to be a story of a man
and a woman, who fall in love with one another, and who perhaps encounter obstacles in their
passion, which they may or may not overcome. Often the former outcome will be the expected one, or
the preferred one, because of its cathartic quality. After all, we are used to traditional fairy tale
characters living “happily ever after”. Carter’s novel, however, is in no way tailored to encourage
such conventional expectations. On the contrary, the novel ends with the heroine’s suicide and turns
out to lack any form of catharsis. In fact, the novel is a melodramatic, bleak portrayal of human
relations that makes us question our perception of what love is. Carter’s afterword further subverts
conventional expectations. Just when we think we have identified the author’s intention, namely to
subvert the reader’s expectations and to make him or her question traditional notions of phenomena,
the afterword appears to undermine the entire novel.
The author’s summing up of the characters’ lives in the afterword as they turned out after the
end of the novel comes across as painfully silly and humorous5, an effect which stands in stark
contrast to the pervasively melodramatic mood of the novel that precedes it. This is evident just by
looking at some of the “character updates”. Confer for example the excerpt from the updates on Buzz,
who “added a third z (Buzzz)” (Love: 117) to his name; Lee, who “can hardly bear to think his
5
To this Angela Carter herself states that “there is something a little tasteless about taking her husband and
brother-in-law and the lovers and doctors out of the text that is Annabel’s coffin and resurrecting them. But
good taste is not a significant attribute of this novel, anyway” (Love: 114).
5
daughters might meet young men like him; [yet] does not know that one of them already has” (119);
and “the peroxided psychiatrist”:
She is [now among other things] a director of three pharmaceutical companies, hosts
a radio phone-in on neurosis and is author of a nonfiction bestseller, How to Succeed
Even Though You Are a Woman. She is a passionate advocate of hormonereplacement therapy. She drives a Porsche, rather fast. (115)
Due to Carter’s humorous and blatant use of irony in the afterword, we realize that we cannot
expound satisfactorily or conclusively on the nature, meaning or intention of the work. These factors
remain as elusive as irony, or as Derrida claims, the meaning of the “original is always deferred—
never to be grasped” (Culler: 12). Carter takes on a similar sardonic tone to that of Barthleme in Snow
White in which a similar afterword lists a few possibilities for Snow White’s future destiny such as
“THE FAILURE OF SNOW WHITE’S ARSE”, “REVIRGINIZATION OF SNOW WHITE”,
“APOTHEOSIS OF SNOW WHITE”, “SNOW WHITE RISES INTO THE SKY” (187). These
conclusions to the two novels, respectively, satirise the desire for closure and unity, making that desire
absurd and ridiculous, in Carter’s case as much in regard to herself as in regard to her reader.
The ambiguous nature of Carter’s text itself makes it a prime target for interpretation on a deeper
level. One of the apparent themes one may draw from it, besides the obvious appearance vs. reality, is
the parallel between love and irony. When asked if he loves his wife, Lee replies: “Is there a kind of
litmus paper you could dip into my heart and test such a thing objectively?” (58). The question, of
course, is rhetorical. Love is a highly subjective matter. The same can be said for irony. There is no
test by which we can determine absolutely the presence (or absence) of irony. As I pointed out on p. 4,
in regard to Kierkegaard’s notion of positive vs. negative freedom, irony can pass by completely
undetected, or it can trigger a volley of interpretations, depending on the reader and the context in
which the ironic statement or text is placed.
Kierkegaard acknowledges the link between irony and love, as does Paul de Man. The latter
in regard to Stendahl’s novel, Chartreuse de Parme, in which the relationship between the characters
6
parallels that of the mythological Eros and Psyche: “they are never allowed to come into full contact
with each other” (de Man: 228). Although some critics may reel at a comparison between Carter and
Stendahl, in this case such a comparison is particularly apt. Both novels involve a “successful
combination of allegory and irony”, which in turn thematises “the unovercomable distance which
must always prevail between the selves” (de Man: 228). In Love, there remains a constant gap in both
the relationship between Annabel and Lee and Annabel and Buzz. They keep trying to unite
physically and emotionally but neither relationship succeeds, because the communication between
them is flawed at best. The relationship between Annabel and Buzz is described as an “endless
conversation of silences and allusions” (84), but then every one of Buzz’s attempts at conversation is
“composed of unnerving silences interspersed with rare outbursts of intense but often disconnected
speech” (12-13). In the end, none of the three characters knows how to repair “the gaping hole in the
fabric of everyday behaviour” (Love: 86), which has been created by their failure to communicate
with one another.
Returning briefly again to Kierkegaard’s notion of positive and negative freedom, we may
consequently also conclude that, like irony, love can pass by undetected, according to interpretation.
In Carter’s novel, the vice of her characters is that they constantly misinterpret one another. There is a
communication glitch, i.e. no one says exactly what he or she thinks, and if they do, their statements
are ambiguous and hence subject to misinterpretation. In the postmodern fairy tale, there is almost
always such a profound gap between what seems and what is; it is impossible to determine one from
the other. Barthelme’s Snow White constantly complains of her status as a “horsewife” [sic] (49),
completely unaware that she has misinterpreted the word “housewife”. At the same time, however,
her misinterpretation may be seen as peculiarly appropriate; she is in fact reduced to a beast labourer
by having to tend to her seven dwarves. The irony of this and other situations in the postmodern fairy
7
tale possess a distinctly vertiginous quality6, which, in effect, blurs not only the text and our
interpretation of it, but also the difference between the two. Our own misinterpretation of the text
mirrors that of the characters.
In Carter’s Love, in particular, the relationships between the characters may be likened to the
relationship between text and interpreter. In such an interpretation, the two brothers would signify the
ambiguity of the interpreter, while Annabel and the mother, the former clearly superimposed upon the
latter and vice versa7, would signify the ambiguity of the text being interpreted. In both a literal and an
allegorical sense, there remains the gap, the intermediary, in which all parts seem to get stuck and only
by admitting that predicament can some form of freedom be achieved (cf. note 6).
This notion, which Schlegel terms “the impossibility and necessity of complete
communication” (36), is an essential part of the work of Samuel Beckett, an author to whom Love
also alludes. In his play, “Not I”, the only character is a mouth, which ironically has trouble with
expressing and understanding anything. There is a constant search for words and a “straining to
hear…the odd word…make some sense of it” or to make streams of words stop (Beckett: 376-383). If
we still regard Annabel as a symbol of a text to be interpreted, Lee’s confession that sleeping with his
wife, Annabel, “is like reading Samuel Beckett on an empty stomach” (Love: 39) might as well be our
own confession in terms of our role as interpreter of the ironic text, in which nothing really makes
sense. There is a lack of a desired catharsis from which we can draw a sense of closure or relief
similar to that of the unified whole New Criticism is committed to revealing. Because language fails
both the reader and the characters, “it is no wonder we are all going round the bend with this language
6
“Irony is unrelieved vertige, dizziness to the point of madness. Sanity can only exist because we are willing to
function within the conventions of duplicity and dissimulation […]” (de Man: 215-216).
7
Just as there is an obvious doubling of personalities personified in the form of the two brothers, each
possessing the qualities his counterpart lacks, so there is also a doubling apparent in Annabel and the brothers’
insane mother. The reader is likely to suspect this connection earlier in the novel than the place in which this
fact is professed by the narrator, who appears to be able to read the characters’ minds: “[…] the woman in the
playground [Lee and Buzz’s mother] and the girl on the hill [Annabel] were already superimposed on one
another in [Lee’s] mind so that to speak of his mother was to speak of Annabel” (Love: 47).
8
dinning forever into our eyes and ears” (Barthelme: 36). Any attempt at communicating our way out
of the intermediary is ultimately doomed to fail; “it’s inescapable” (Barthelme: 36).
In this sense, then, irony and the postmodern fairy tale can more easily be assimilated with
deconstructionist theory than New Critical theory. Both irony and the postmodern fairy tale allow for
more than a single conclusion, and deconstruction is more willing than New Criticism to explore the
intermediary and remain in it. Also, deconstruction acknowledges readily the gaps inherent in any
argument (including its own), especially when dealing with such an elusive phenomenon as the ironic
text. Since interpretation is by definition subjective, we must necessarily accept that no control can be
exercised either over language or meaning in relation to the text (or texts) in question.
The following extract from Jonathan Culler’s An Introduction to Literary Theory can be applied
surprisingly accurately to Carter’s Love. Paraphrasing an argument by Derrida in regard to a work by
Rousseau, Culler states:
Her absence, when he has to make do with substitutes or signs that recall her to him,
is first contrasted with her presence. But it turns out that her presence is not a moment
of fulfilment, of immediate access to the thing itself, without supplements or signs; in
her presence too the structure, the need for supplements is the same. […] Even if
Rousseau were to ‘possess her’, as we say, he would still feel that she escaped him
and could only be anticipated and recalled. […] her presence turns out to be a
particular kind of absence, still requiring mediations and supplements” (Culler: 1113).
The same can be said of Carter’s characters in Love, Buzz and Annabel. Their relationship is
simultaneously co-dependent and mutually exclusive; one cannot exist without the other, but,
ironically, they cannot exist together either. When they finally experience physical unity, they find
they are in fact closer in spirit than in flesh. There is no way for Annabel to ‘possess’ either of the
brothers. As Culler says “[their] presence turns out to be a particular kind of absence, still requiring
mediations and supplements” (13). These mediations and supplements, however, Annabel is
unwilling to seek out anymore, and she sees no other solution than to commit suicide to escape the
unending torment of existing in limbo: “why should she have been forced to simulate a life-likeness
9
that did not satisfy her?” (Love: 112). Thus, the story may be interpreted as an effective allegory on
the study of irony. However, the character Lee also confirms that the whole affair is “ironic, yes” (91).
In this light, Annabel may be seen as a metaphor for the theorist getting lost in “the unmasterability of
theory” (Culler:16), or in her own case, in love and “the condition of life itself” (16), i.e. both
character and interpreter experience a complete lack of control.
With this acknowledgement, the text may indeed also be a simulacrum8, in the spirit of
Milton’s Satan in Paradise Lost, at least if one takes into account Carter’s ironic afterword. In this
case, we are fooling ourselves and allowing irony to sweep us away with it, because the afterword
seems once more to underline the instability of meaning in the postmodern fairy tale. It would appear
that not even the author has a firm grasp upon the text; nor do we as interpreters, of course. Ironically,
by saying as I have attempted to earlier, that Carter is consciously using irony as a strategy to revise
the traditional fairy tale, it now becomes clear that even this conclusion may prove insufficient.
Uncomfortable as such a confession may be, it is nevertheless necessary. The text is not necessarily a
unified whole which resolves its own ambiguities in light of its greatness, rather it permits several
possibilities to be “blown crazily down the wind” (Brooks: 968) like a kite.
Brooks attempts to control this centrifugal force by drawing the conclusion that the tail of a
kite successfully manages to keep the kite under control, but as we can see, the solution is not so
simple. What we need is to catch the string and hold on to it. So far, of course, this has proved
impossible, which places Brooks’ metaphor itself in question. Again, this shows how irony cannot be
controlled to our satisfaction. As Barthelme puts it, “[w]hereas once we were simple bourgeois who
knew what to do [like the New Critics], now we are complex bourgeois who are at a loss. We do not
like this complexity” (94). Yet, whether we like it or not, a discussion of irony must necessarily
involve the fall of the interpreter, as was noted on p. 4.
8
This is also a possible interpretation of Carter’s screen adaptation of her short story “The Company of
Wolves”, which will be discussed in detail later in this paper. While we may attempt to analyse the nature of the
grandmother’s proverbs (“old wives’ tales”), in the end, her head shatters like porcelain and is revealed as
completely hollow. This pokes fun at our constant desire to create meaning out of a text.
10
A seemingly simple statement from Jeanette Winterson’s The Passion sums up this
paradoxical situation in light of its own ironic nature. Throughout Winterson’s text, but perhaps most
notably at the very end of it, the narrator states: “I’m telling you stories. Trust me” (Winterson: 160).
Ironically, this statement both affirms and negates everything which precedes it and which follows it.
Whichever way we consider it, the statement turns upon itself, thus undoing the illusion that the
relationship between language and meaning is a stable one.
In Love, Carter’s narrator makes us aware of the unstable relationship between binary
oppositions such as language and meaning again and again. When we realize that the motto of the
brothers Lee and Buzz is: “Do right because it is right” (Love: 10), we tend to believe that the
characters have a stable axis around which their chaotic world revolves. However, any such belief is
undermined. As with all the other characters and events in this novel, even this Kantian imperative is
an ironic statement, as it only feigns stability. In reality, “the motto [is] no help at all since it only
implie[s] the question of the nature of the right” (Love:39). What appears to be stable is, in actuality,
crumbling beneath the surface.
A “blurring of the boundaries between fact and fiction” (Culler: 109) and appearance and reality, or
dream and reality, does indeed seem to be one of Carter’s favourite themes and/or effects, since it is
detectable in much of her work, most notably perhaps in her revisionist fairy tales. Although most of
Carter’s work contains elements of the fairy tale or the fantastic, there are certain stories that exhibit
these elements more obviously, and that are more readily dubbed “revisionist fairy tales”. These are
the stories adapted from what we consider the classic fairy tale formula in the tradition of e.g. The
Brothers Grimm. One of Carter’s best-known revisionist tales of this kind is “The Company of
Wolves”, a postmodern retelling of “Little Red Riding Hood” by the Brothers Grimm. Originally
conceived as a short story, and included in her collection entitled The Bloody Chamber, Carter revised
this text twice; once for the radio (cf. also note 10) and again by adapting it for the screen together
11
with director Neil Jordan in 1984. The film that issued as a result of this collaboration is a bona fide
tribute to the classic theme of appearance vs. reality, or dream vs. reality.
Five minutes into the film, we are already confronted with a dream-like reality. The main
character, Rosaleen, is asleep on her bed, next to her lies a copy of a magazine entitled “The Shattered
Dream”. From this scene, the camera shifts to a forest scene in which Rosaleen’s sister apparently gets
lost among trees and the toys from her sister’s room, which have come to life and have attained
human proportions. Rosaleen’s sister is chased and eventually killed by a pack of wolves. However,
we can only assume this is the case since we never actually witness the murder, we only draw this
conclusion because the scene shifts again to the burial of the sister. Hence, the film begins with an
uncertainty that will subsequently permeate the entire script.
The plot consists of several layers of storytelling. First, we encounter a modern setting in
which Rosaleen is apparently sleeping. Then the story changes location to a timeless setting, and then
again to another timeless setting, which constitutes a mimetic representation of Rosaleen’s
grandmother’s stories. These stories become a significant element in trying to understand the film.
Here, a feminist interpretation is appropriate to shed light on Carter’s use of irony. What the
grandmother tells her granddaughter is what we recognise as “old wives’ tales”, which, by patriarchal
definition, are understood to be superstitious, i.e. pertaining to folklore rather than reality9. Pieces of
advice such as “never stray from the path, never eat a windfall [apple] [, n]ever trust a man whose
eyebrows meet…” (Curious Room: 193) intermingle throughout the story, though the first one most
frequently. What we have here are seemingly reasonable warnings from a grandmother to her
granddaughter, which turn out to be ambiguous and even irrational. Or do they? This is the crux in
Carter’s use of the old wives’ tales in her story; we are never sure whether to believe them or not.
Using “old wives’ tales” in this way also makes us question our perceptions of them, which
are inevitably coloured by patriarchal society. Carter makes us question why we consider “old wives’
9
cf. dictionary definition of “old wives’ tale”: n. A superstitious belief or story belonging to traditional
folklore (American Heritage Dictionary).
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tales” to be superstitious and/or irrational, because the film shows us that they are not necessarily so.
In a patriarchal society, we may readily discard them as superstitious and irrational. In the film,
however, where dream mixes with reality, nothing can be taken for granted. Indeed, it turns out that
the grandmother’s warnings in several cases are extremely relevant for the young girl Rosaleen.
Nevertheless, as we discovered in note 8 page 10, we should be aware that Carter’s screenplay might
be less a sign pertaining to patriarchy and more a simulacrum. When the grandmother’s head shatters
and is seen by the reader or viewer to be empty, he/she is once more left with a question rather than an
answer.
The doubt as to a text being either a sign or a simulacrum is echoed also in Barthelme’s Snow
White. One of the dwarves contemplates a carpet and subsequently queries: “Where is the figure in
the carpet? Or is it just … carpet?” (135). This satirical interpretation of the above-mentioned doubt as
to the nature of the text underlines the ridiculous aspect of analysis, how one can move so deep into
the labyrinths of theory and theory of theory, or irony of irony, that one cannot effectively
“disentangle oneself from irony anymore” (Schlegel: 37).
The most frequently applied of the grandmother’s proverbs in Carter’s Company of Wolves is:
“never stray from the path”, which is reminiscent of Chaucerian irony. Chaucer’s use of irony allowed
him a freedom to break free from the obligatory use of medieval commonplaces, which had only one
purpose, a didactical one. This purpose was to inculcate in the reader the warning not to “stray from
the path”, the path being the Word of God, which all were expected to follow. As it turns out in “The
Pardoner’s Tale” it is not the straying from the path as such that is a dangerous phenomenon, but
rather the blind acceptance of such commonplaces. The same may indeed be said to be the case with
The Company of Wolves.
While being warned repeatedly against straying from the path by her grandmother, the young
girl Rosaleen inevitably does so anyway. Nevertheless, she comes to no mortal harm. On the contrary,
she finds resources within herself to conquer what evil forces come her way. Hence, the evil forces
13
are also matter of interpretation. Confer for example the statement by Rosaleen’s mother: “If there’s a
beast in men it meets its match in women too” (Curious Room: 205). Although an interpretation such
as “men are beasts” is easy to make, the wolves in the film seem to be not so much a symbol of male
untrustworthiness as of the irony present in the relationship between appearance and reality in general.
Furthermore, at the end of the film, a voice-over narrates the following epilogue:
“Little girls”, this seems to say,
“never stop upon your way;
never trust a stranger friend;
no one knows how it will end.
As you’re pretty, so be wise;
wolves may lurk in every guise.
Now, as then, ‘tis simple truth:
Sweetest tongue has sharpest tooth.”
While emulating a classic epilogue in the spirit of medieval commonplaces, we should keep in mind
the paradoxical nature of the statements in this verse.
First, the epilogue is addressing “little girls”, just as an old wives’ tale would. Second, one of
the first words is “seems”. If our alarm bells do not go off with the very first word of the epilogue,
they should definitely go up at this point, since “seems” is highly ambiguous, as is the following
statement: “stranger friend”. How can a person be both a “stranger” and a “friend”? Additionally, if
“no one knows how it will end”, as the verse goes on to say, then why issue a warning in the first
place? Chances are that nothing will go wrong, that there will be no dangers whatsoever to beware of.
As we go on, we become even more confused. If we deconstruct the lines “wolves may lurk in every
guise” and “sweetest tongue has sharpest tooth”, both statements are far from being “simple truths”,
as the narrator claims at least the latter “truth” to be. Rather, these so-called truths are decidedly ironic.
If “wolves may lurk in every guise”, then there is no saying that the narrator herself is not a wolf in
disguise. The same can be said of the final line: “sweetest tongue has sharpest tooth”. The narrator’s
voice does indeed sound sweet and helpful; however, if we were to believe her claim that sweet is
equivalent to evil per se, then we would be fools to trust anything the narrator has to say. The
14
epilogue, in effect, is equivalent to the oxymoron “everything I say is a lie”. This, of course, makes the
truth of the entire tale questionable, which is as ironic as an author can get.
Carter’s epilogue to the film is perhaps the most striking example of irony we have seen so
far. Irony interweaves with irony and makes analysis in search of truth virtually impossible, if not
wholly so. If we cannot trust what we are being told, what can we trust? The question is rhetorical, at
least if we take into consideration the fact that we cannot trust what we see either. Several times,
toward the end of the film, various characters discuss the ambiguity inherent in the adage “seeing is
believing”. Rosaleen questions these words each time she hears them, because she often finds that
even her eyes fool her. This becomes apparent when her father shoots what he thinks is a wolf but
which turns into a human being as soon as he has cut off its limb as a trophy. Hence, when the father
says to his daughter that “seeing is believing”, she answers him with a question, “Is it?” (Curious
Room: 225).
What we can glean from these examples is that Carter presumably wants us to question our
certainty in commonplaces, appearance and meaning through the intricate use of irony. However,
while the author seems to be in control of such an alleged intention, it is likely that we may again
subvert such a conclusion and extract an entirely different one from the debris of the first. As
mentioned earlier in connection with Carter’s novel Love, irony has this tendency to turn upon itself
and “dissolve in the narrowing spiral of a linguistic sign that becomes more and more remote from its
meaning, and it can find no escape from this spiral” (de Man: 222). This spiralling leaves the author
and reader in an ongoing search for the “real truth”, if there indeed is such a thing.
In the beginning of the film, Rosaleen has fallen asleep after reading “The Shattered Dream”.
At the end, her dream appears to shatter also, when a wolf bounds in through her window shattering
the glass as well as her dream-like state10. Yet, we are still not aware whether the experiences she has
10
Rosaleen’s dream-like state is emphasised even more in Angela Carter’s adaptation of her short story “The
Company of Wolves” for the radio. In this, Rosaleen is called Red Riding Hood, and is a budding teenage girl,
quite aware of her dream-like state on the verge of adulthood. She says,
15
had are real or only dreamed, whether we should trust what we see and what we hear, or not. There is
no stable yardstick against which we can compare our perceptions. We remain in the unknown, a no
man’s land, just as the hunter in Carter’s film script (Curious Room: 239-40).
ROSALEEN: Are you our kind or their kind? Tell me truly.
HUNTER: Not one nor the other. Both.
ROSALEEN: Where do you live? In our world or theirs?
HUNTER: I come and go between them. My home is nowhere.
In other words, the home of the hunter/wolf is in the gap between dream and reality, he/it exists in the
intermediary, a place exploited not only by Carter, but also by author Arthur Schnitzler in his novella,
Dream Story and in director Stanley Kubrick’s screen adaptation , Eyes Wide Shut.
Ironically, the closer we come to a conclusion as to the “true” meaning of a text, the further we are
from such a thing. This aporia is brilliantly portrayed both in image, dialogue and in writing, by
Schnitzler and Kubrick, respectively. Although not a fairy tale in the traditional understanding of the
term, Arthur Schnitzler’s Dream Story contains enough elements of the fantastic to make it an
interesting addition to this paper. These elements are magnified in Stanley Kubrick’s visualization of
the novella, Eyes Wide Shut. One of the most interesting aspects of the film and novella is the use and
presence of irony throughout both. Much of the irony can be likened to romantic irony, since it would
appear that the plot itself is based loosely on John Keats’s “Ode to a Nightingale”, in which the
speaker of the poem is spellbound by the sound of a nightingale’s song that brings him to a state in
between states. He is not aware whether he “wake[s] or sleep[s]” (Norton: 792).
Twelve. Going on thirteen, thirteen going on fourteen … not such a little girl, for all that you
baby me, Granny. Thirteen going on fourteen, the hinge of your life, when you are neither one
thing nor the other, nor child nor woman, some magic, in-between thing, an egg that holds its
own future in it.
An egg not yet cracked against the cup.
I am the very magic space that I contain. I stand and move within an invisible pentacle,
untouched, invisible, immaculate. Like snow. Waiting. The clock inside me, that will strike
once a month, not yet … wound … up …
This mirrors the confusion of dream and reality which is inherent in all versions of Carter’s story and which is
so closely linked to the ironic.
16
Similarly, in Eyes Wide Shut, although an omniscient narrator tells the novella and the film is
likewise recorded from this point of view, the nightingale recurs as a personified transcendent factor.
In the film adaptation, the main character Bill Harford enters what one might call a dream-like state
shortly after meeting an old friend named Nick Nightingale. The alliteration of the name is in itself
interesting because it draws attention to itself. Nick Nightingale in effect becomes a catalyst for Bill
Harford’s experience, during which Harford, like Keats’s persona, cannot determine what state he is
in. In the novella, this is expressed in several situations, one of which proceeds as follows.
Didn’t he have a fever? Wasn’t he perhaps lying at home in bed this very moment –
and hadn’t everything he believed he had experienced been nothing more than his
delirium. (Schnitzler: 156)
Compare this passage to the following from Keats’s poem.
Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
Fled is that music: —Do I wake or sleep? (Norton: 792)
The states of the two characters are extremely similar, if not identical. The irony involved in both
cases is romantic irony, initially coined by Friedrich Schlegel. Roughly speaking, romantic irony
implies a dislocation in the text, often of meaning and of existence. Romantic irony not only makes
the character or persona doubt what is going on, but also makes the reader do the same. Since
romantic irony is often only ironic in retrospect, we must reread the text in light of this doubt. In doing
so, we allow doubt to steer us into a gap that parallels the one in which the persona of the text finds
himself.
Carter similarly exploits the significance of the nightingale in Love. The narrator of the novel
likens Annabel’s speech to the “fallacious […] song of a mechanical nightingale” (Love: 62). To Lee,
there seems to be nothing but Annabel at this point, yet she is as untrustworthy as he. Lee professes
always to tell the truth (Carter: 21), but his tears are ambiguous as is his smile, which he practices to
find the right one to conceal his true emotions (19). So in fact Lee is fooling himself when he believes
himself to be straightforward and truthful. All the characters believe themselves to be truthful and
17
unambiguous, that there is something wrong with the rest of the world, not them. The narrator
attempts to explain this paradox in the relationships between the characters as follows:
[T]he principal actors (the wife, the brothers, the mistress) assembled a coherent
narrative from [disparate sets of] images but each interpreted them differently and
drew their own conclusions which were all quite dissimilar for each told himself the
story as if he were the hero except for Lee who, by common choice, found himself
the villain. (Love: 43)
The problem of subjectivity and interpretation recurs here in that meaning shifts according to the
characters’ perception of it. And that is only in the novel itself. Add to that the confusion of the
reader’s interpretation, and irony comes full circle, in effect “sweeping us away with it” (Kierkegaard:
218). In the process of analysis, we uncover irony after irony into infinity, allowing for almost any
interpretation under the sun. We attempt to deconstruct what irony has already deconstructed for us,
namely the binary opposition between appearance and reality. No wonder we are confused.
The character, Bill Harford experiences a similar type of confusion in Eyes Wide Shut, in
particular in the bedroom scene, the scene in the story in which things slowly start to disintegrate, or at
least derail. The conversation between husband and wife in this scene is a brilliant illustration of what
irony is capable of. Irony is centrifugal in that it takes what seems to be whole and centred on a single
meaning and manages to disseminate it, thereby making almost any interpretation possible. The
character Alice Harford sees all her husband’s statements as ironic in the argument she has with him.
Every time he says something she misinterprets what he is saying to mean the exact opposite of what
he apparently intended it to; in effect, Alice undermines Bill’s every statement. This brings to light the
elusive and unstable nature of language and meaning, how signifier and signified do not co-exist in a
fixed, stable relationship; depending on the circumstance, the signifier can refer to anything it pleases.
Like Fridolin in Dream Story, and Bill Harford in Eyes Wide Shut, we begin to “sense that all this
order, balance and security in [our lives are] really an illusion and a lie” (Schnitzler: 172).
18
Postmodern texts like the ones discussed above question our sense or understanding of the binary
oppositions appearance/reality (or dream/reality) and language/meaning, sometimes even fact and
fiction. Irony deconstructs the link between the two oppositions in a text, so that the identity of each of
the oppositions turns out already to bear traces of the other. Furthermore, irony blurs the difference
between the two, so that one can “no longer tell whether one [has] experienced something or merely
dreamed it” (Schnitzler: 175).
The postmodern fairy tale reveals that situations or people we think we know are in fact
nothing like we imagined. In Carter’s The Company of Wolves, Rosaleen cannot be sure of the people
or the wolves she meets. One might just as well be the other. She can also not be sure of what her
grandmother tells her. Trust in conventional perceptions is constantly questioned. Likewise, in Love
the characters never know what is going on in the other person’s head because there is a breach in
communication. In Eyes Wide Shut, Bill Harford thinks he is “sure” of his wife, her fantasies and her
intentions, but she subverts his every expectation and reveals new surfaces, leaving her husband
completely confused as to what the truth is. The conclusion of both the novella and film is likewise
interesting in this respect. First of all, it theorises over the theme of all of the texts discussed in this
paper, namely the idea that what we think is familiar will often rebel against our security in that belief.
BILL: Are you…are you sure of that?
ALICE: Am…Am I sure? Umm…only…only as sure as I am that the reality
of one night, let alone that of a whole lifetime, can ever be the whole
truth.
BILL: And no dream is ever just a dream.
The postmodern fairy tale shows us the irony of the fact that we have no control, we only think we do.
This is what de Man calls the “irony of understanding”.
While feminist interpretation is not the only valid approach to Carter’s work, one must
nevertheless take into consideration the other side of the coin. By deeming Carter’s work feministic in
nature, the feminist critic falls into the trap of making an ultimate conclusion, thereby ruling out many
alternate possibilities. However, in sticking to feminist criticism, the critic simultaneously
19
deconstructs the binary opposition man/woman, thereby opening up for a new range of
interpretations. Ironically, then, it is sometimes necessary to adhere to one type of criticism to allow
for one range of interpretations, but it is necessary at the same time to look at other modes of
interpretation, since the critic otherwise falls into an ironic trap by making a definite conclusion about
something which is inherently elusive.
An example of this can be drawn from this very essay. If we take into account the various
interpretations I have provided within the last nineteen or so pages, one of which is that one cannot
reach a satisfactory conclusion as far as irony is concerned, it should be noted that this interpretation is
in itself a conclusion. Although it disparages any previous critical conclusions made about irony,
irony comes into play in that same disparaging. When a critic dismisses the conclusions of other
critics, he or she simultaneously creates a new conclusion, in effect falling into the same trap. This is
indeed the “irony of irony”; “irony runs wild and can’t be controlled any longer” (Schlegel: 37).
In relation to theory in general, Culler states: “What we learn from these texts is that the idea
of the original is created by the copies, and that the original is always deferred—never to be grasped”
(12). Similarly, by theorizing about irony, we performatively place ourselves in limbo. Because irony
exists primarily in the intermediary, we must necessarily be swept away by it, as Kierkegaard’s
metaphor of the river suggests (218). Self-contradiction is inevitable; one conclusion either craves
another or undermines it. Hence, we become swept up in our own theory, which is what makes the
study of irony both intimidating and intriguing.
In the case of the postmodern fairy tale, irony is an appropriate device, precisely because it
resists definition and thereby control. Irony draws the reader into an intermediary state in which the
agony of the characters can be sensed. Not only do the characters not know whom or where they are,
we, as readers, are equally clueless as to both their identity and sense of place.
The interpretation of irony in the postmodern fairy tale, then, is essentially a question of
relinquishing one’s innate desire to control and create unified meaning. It is a giant step away from
20
New Criticism and Jungian interpretations, which seemed appropriate for the original fairy tale. The
reason for this may be that the nature of irony and/in the postmodern fairy tale is to eliminate the
recurring desire to create meaning and unity from ambiguities and uncertainty. As the feminist critic
Nancy A. Walker argues, “irony as a linguistic device forces a re-evaluation of the meaning of a text”
(Walker: 25), but not just from a feminist perspective. The greater our desire to pinpoint and, to use a
term from T. S. Eliot’s ironic poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”, to “fix” irony “in a
formulated phrase” (Norton: 2141), the more elusive it becomes. We may also use a line from
Barthelme to describe the elusive nature of irony: “To experience a definition placed neatly where you
can’t reach it and higher up […]” (37). The fact that Barthelme leaves out a full stop after this
sentence further emphasises the infinite aspect of the interpretation of irony.
“Irony is an inquiring mode that exploits discrepancies, challenges assumptions and reflects
equivocations, but that does not presume to hold out answers” (Furst in Walker: 23); the same is true
of the postmodern fairy tale. The search for a definition of irony turns us into the heroes of
Barthelme’s Snow White, perpetually “DEPART[ING] IN SEARCH OF / A NEW PRINCIPLE /
HEIGH-HO” (Barthelme: 187). In effect, irony always has the last laugh.
21
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