Sweet-Tongued Foes: Female Antagonists in Fantasy Fiction for Children and Young Adults
In: Illuminating the Dark Side: Evil, Women and the FeminineSearch for other papers by Anne Klaus in
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It is a common pattern in fantasy fiction for children and young adults that during their perilous quests to save a community or country from evil young heroes are confronted with trials and temptations that need to be resisted and overcome. Frequently, these stories feature personified temptations - the most subtle of them being women as evil temptresses. While male opponents usually confront and challenge the child heroes openly, female adversaries deliberately utilize the trust of the children (who are often orphaned or half-orphaned) in them as mother figures. It is only in the course of the stories that the young heroes are able to see through the veil of tenderness, protection, sympathy and stunning beauty that surrounds the deceitful female enemies. The fantasy stories that will be considered in this paper are C. S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950) and The Magician’s Nephew (1955), Amanda Hemingway’s The Traitor’s Sword (2005) and James Moloney’s The Book of Lies (2004). Philip Pullman’s trilogy His Dark Materials (1995-2000) will take on a special role as it features a powerful woman, Mrs. Coulter, who incarnates a high degree of ambiguity by displaying the extremes of both polar forces, good and evil, showing that qualities which seemingly exclude each other can coexist in one individual. The paper will not only pinpoint similarities in the depiction of the female antagonists but will also reveal how these presentations are highly evocative of wicked witches and tricksters in fairy tales and female seducers in mythology - most prominently observed by Joseph Campbell in his The Hero With a Thousand Faces.