“Power and all its secrets”: Engendering Magic in Neil Gaiman’s The Ocean at the End of the Lane

Fafnir

Laura-Marie von Czarnowsky¹ 

[1] University of Cologne;

关键词: neil gaiman;    feminism;    ecofeminism;    performance;    fantasy;   

DOI  :  

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Neil Gaiman’s recent adult novel, The Ocean at the End of the Lane (2013), presents the power of magic as an exclusively female concept. At the same time, however, it can be argued that the text subverts its own feminist potential in its advocation of motherhood as paradigmatic femininity. Gaiman’s ecofeminist vision connects the nurturing qualities of the motherly Hempstocks with the prospering magical landscape they inhabit. Evoking the image of the triple goddess of Neopaganism and connecting it to the Greek Moirai, Gaiman presents them as direct counterparts to the text’s other magical creature, the villainess Ursula Monkton, who appears as embodiment of Freud’s unruled id. Both variations of female magic empowerment can be read productively as gendered performances of the femme fatale and the godmother, used in order to effectively manipulate their human surroundings. Contrasting evil hypersexual femininity, which eventually has to be banished from the scene, with a benevolent nurturing femininity, the text clearly values one over the other. While the domesticity of the Hempstocks’ thus seems to communicate a surprisingly old-fashioned set of gender politics, continuously pointing to the constructedness of gender roles actually makes the text a postmodern meta-commentary on the performance of gender roles.

【 授权许可】

Unknown