Once upon a time there was a princess named Snow WhiteFirst of all, the most beautiful in the kingdom. The young woman lost her mother because she was very young. And his stepmother, living with a venomous jealousy that eats away at him, sends him into the woods with the intention of killing him. We can all continue this story because we grew up with it. However, the same story changes when it is told through the eyes of a stepmother who is not as bad as it seems. Neil Gaiman And colleen doran In ‘Snow, Crystal, Apples’ (Comic Planet) and even more when Snow White, the most pale skinned girl in the kingdom, turns into a vampire ready to attack her subjects instead of a sweet and childish princess. . And in Colorado, this familiar fairy tale that changes the narrative and the protagonist’s nature is turned into a horror story. The story is still recognizable, but told in another way, re-told: it’s a ‘retelling’.
‘Retelling’ is a phenomenon that has spread rapidly in recent years, conquering thousands of readers around the world, and making the leap to the silver screen with serials adapting and reshaping them at the same time: We are facing the seven seasons of ‘Once Upon a Time’. A good example is ‘a time’, which ended in 2018 but can be watched on Disney+. We can also find him in the Spanish series ‘Tell me a story’, which tells a different story in each episode. In the first, the three little pigs are brothers devoted to robbing banks.
is he the art of retelling storiesrevives already existing stories, such as fairy tales or Greek and Latin myths, but also introduces variations. For example, changing the narrator’s point of view or focusing on the version of villains or forgotten characters in the stories, such as women playing secondary roles or taking a passive attitude towards the protagonists who save them. But you can also write a ‘re-telling’ by adding new characters that give the plot a different spin, or by changing the setting of the story. Thus, the distant realms of all life can be abandoned for an apocalyptic future conquered by artificial intelligence.
Anything is possible in ‘retelling’ because it is a constant game of intertextuality and has only one condition: The original story must be recognizable, its essence cannot be diluted. Put it this way, it doesn’t seem like a new phenomenon any more: Literary history is a game full of influences and themes, where writers from different eras or distant places connect and influence each other, creating new stories that connect to texts. But in the 21st century, we are witnessing an unprecedented explosion. What is it about children’s stories that appeals to us so much? What is the power of the maverick “what if” at the end of these stories?
Origin of stories
At the heart of the story, the moral purpose of the ending after “they were happy and ate partridge” is clear: to pass a lesson from parents to children. Long thoughts such as “don’t trust strangers”, “love always wins”, “be humble and generous” and so on have been passed down orally for generations, creating a whole system of values. Yet it is difficult to answer the question of why and where the stories unfold. The point is not to map the Grimm brothers’ Bavaria in Germany, because in reality the stories are so transcendent that they are capable of crossing borders and traveling to the other side of the world to tell the same thing. a story full of other names and other landscapes.
All stories share a number of similar features that make them different and necessary for their messages to transcend the barriers of time and space. sums them up laura venturaInternational Doctor of Spanish Philology and Madrid III. Professor of Literature at Carlos University. “They are universal and timeless, but also have very recognizable characters: archetypes”.
Ventura recalls an anecdote she had with students of Chinese descent from her graduate program at the university. They were talking about fairy tales and he told them the story of ‘Hansel and Gretel’ as an example. At one point, the students began to look at each other with amusement. “‘What’s going on?’ I asked. They told me this story wasn’t ‘Hansel and Gretel’, it was just another story they knew when they were little and it later turned into another version. It’s funny because China Then there was little to do in Grimm’s Germany, yet the story was the same. Fairy tales are a universal one. That’s why it’s a component.”
Regarding the characters, Ventura says, these archetypes are “necessary” because they form a set of patterns and without them the stories lose their structure. It has very special features: A hero embarks on a journey full of adventures and dangers, hits bottom at a certain moment and passes a turning point, then recovers, defeats the villain and begins his journey home. This could be the case of Ulysses in ‘Odyssey’, but also the case of Frodo Baggins in ‘Lord of the Rings’ or the Darling brothers in ‘Peter Pan’. This hero needs a villain to defeat, an enemy to face him, and this person represents a series of negative connotations in stories, such as stepmothers or the fearsome dragon. And of course, the princess who needs to be rescued is such a passive subject that she almost goes back to the action, waiting for someone to pull her out of her high tower and despairing. Others, which are repeated in different stories, are the hero’s best friend, the wizard, the kings…
Confronted with such defined characters, ‘retelling’ allows writers to play with the relationships and roles played by the protagonists of the stories. Even so, a hero-like figure is still necessary because he is the backbone of the story and the one who initiates the action. Rather than being an example to follow, ‘retelling’ can turn him into an anti-hero; just as the villain ceases to be the villain in the story and becomes only the character who confronts him. Laura Ventura warns: “Grays already existed in mythology: Apollo killed and raped, and it was Dionysus who made the field fertile.” “Stories are permanent, but we approach them with interpretations developed by our society”.
The same story can be read in very different ways just by looking at the historical context. Listening to the ‘Sleeping Beauty’ story in the 18th century is not the same as hearing it in the 20th or 21st century, because what used to be read as an ordinary love story can lead to an interpretation of the importance of consent today. couple relationships. The society’s view of these stories has changed, but the stories are immortal. Even so, with ‘retelling’ you can: bringing tales and myths to the present, updating their messages and adapting them to today’s historical and social conditions.
look back to look forward
Already ‘we have found studies like’That of kings, Cortázarthat the Minotaur confessed to Theseus that he himself was a victim of his imposed fate; ‘Joyce’s UlyssesThe story takes place in Berlin in 1904 and various parallels are drawn with Homer’s work; ‘Penelope and the Twelve Maids by Margaret AtwoodPenelope recounts her version of her husband’s return to Ithaca, in which she deliberately killed her servants because they saw them as traitors; anyone ‘Little Red Riding Hood in Manhattan’ by Carmen Martín GaiteThat Little Red Riding Hood is named Sara Allen and the forest she enters is the skyscrapers of New York.
Now, ‘retelling’ has found its place in youth literature with ‘epics like’.Court of Thorns and Roses, Sarah J. MaasTransferring the ‘Beauty and the Beast’ tale to a cursed fairy kingdom where the protagonist Feyre accidentally hunts the wrong wolf and has to go to court to make amends; anyone ‘To kill a kingdom’, Alexandra ChristoThe one who turned the Little Mermaid into a murderer who must end the life of the prince of humans, and was turned into a human by the Queen of the Sea to fulfill her mission. Both sagas were successful in sales and were very well received in the TikTok bookmaker community. Broadcasters are recognizing that ‘retelling’ of conversations has a greater impact today, for example an interest in the environment or different social movements.
Irina C. SalabertThe editor and owner of Nocturna Ediciones says that “retelling” “respects the original essence of the stories but also keeps them current.” Wrath and Dawn by Renee Ahdieh It was released by his own label, which saved ‘The Tale of a Thousand and One Nights’ but added a different twist to it from a feminist perspective. In it, Scheherazade volunteers to marry the caliph, a cruel man who killed his wives at dawn to avenge the death of his best friend.
‘Retelling’ is a trendy phenomenon today, just as dystopias were very popular in youth literature a few years ago. Salabert explains that for a publisher, “it’s much easier to suggest a story to the reader that they already know,” especially when they add new elements and go further. Bruno Bettelheim said in his classic ‘Psychoanalysis of Tales’ (1976) that children’s stories contain no irony. On the other hand, Salabert believes that thanks to the ‘retelling’, “the conflict has become more complex, addressing issues such as the sexual identity of the characters, the impact of artificial intelligence or reflecting current social changes”. AND Far from replacing the original source, these new versions invite the reader to turn to it.because they work as “tribute”.
voices in other voices
One of the criticisms of the ‘re-tellings’ is that it adheres to the values of political correctness and acts as a kind of censorship that brushes aside the most problematic elements of the stories seen with today’s eyes. Martha Sanz “We read texts ideologically,” he wrote in ‘Monstruas y centauras (Anagrama, 2018).
However, as the author states, it should be taken into account that representing the world through literature is “a way of constructing it, intervening in it”, and therefore “retelling” is a way of giving a voice to the characters represented through literature. is underrepresented by tradition.
Sanz explains to this newspaper:desecration of texts is the way to show them the greatest respect”and that we metabolize stories to build others throughout literary history. This is not only legitimate, it is inevitable.” Therefore, it is necessary to be aware of this mutation in the stories, but first of all”in no case do not delete the original reference. It’s not a lie. Don’t forget”.