The Representation of Gender in Garner’s Politically Correct

Bedtime Stories: A Critical Stylistic Analysis

Fenty Lidya Siregar

, Henni

and Silvanni Comara

English Department, Universitas Kristen Maranatha, Jl. Prof. drg. Suria Sumantri 65, Bandung, Indonesia

Keywords: Gender, Inequality, Representation, Garner, Ideology.

Abstract: Gender equality is essential for a sustainable world; therefore, it is included in United Nation's Sustainable

Development Goals. However, unequal portrayals of female characters are still present in many sectors. These

phenomena have generated concern especially among educators, parents, and feminists. Thus, many studies

are needed to keep uncovering gender inequality and how one can play a role in lessening the inequality. This

study reports on an analysis of ideologies and gender representation in two short stories in Garner's book

entitled Politically correct bedtime stories: Modern tales for our life and times by applying critical stylistic

approach. The study found that Garner constructed the stories of Cinderella and Snow White to challenge the

stereotyped representation and hegemonic ideals of males and females. He used pseudo-generics in naming

and feminist word choices when addressing his characters. He also deleted marriage as a happily-ever-after

end of common fairy tales and changed it into a new end. He also contradicted the concept of beauty and

highlighted undesirable qualities of men. The findings indicated that Garner offered his ideology that females

can free themselves from the unrealistic standard of beauty and it is possible to be subversive toward

traditional gender roles.

1 INTRODUCTION

Gender equality is essential for a sustainable world;

therefore, it is included in United Nation's Sustainable

Development Goals (United Nation, 2012). However,

unequal portrayals of female characters are still

present in many sectors of our lives including

children stories resulting in concerns of educators,

parents, and feminists.

Fairy tales are a famous literary genre for

children. Despite its fame for amusing children with

great stories, they are also acknowledged by their

power to instil values and shape gender roles,

behaviour and representation as well as gender

stereotypes (Shaheen et al., 2019).

The unequal portrayal of female characters has

generated concern especially among feminists. They

put forward that female characters in fairy tales are

usually portrayed in two polarised ways: as either

having such feminine qualities or being evil, such as

witches and stepmothers. The feminine will be

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rescued and have a happy ending, whereas the evil

ones will face death in the end of the story (Nanda,

2014). The portrayal mirrors the cultural and societal

norms at the time the tales are produced which

implicitly silence and oppress women by creating

them as submissive characters (Nanda, 2014).

Previous studies have shown a number of

researchers tried to present a discursive construction

of gender in fairy tales that usually depict the same

gender roles in which men or princess are the brave

characters and saviours for helpless princesses;,

through their studies (e.g. Kochiyama, 2013; Kostas,

2021; Meland, 2020). The studies seem to yield

positive results in which the researchers could make

the participants aware of gender bias embedded in the

fairy tales.

It is also noticeable that recent studies have shown

that more modern re-telling of the fairy tales, have

some shift in the portrayal of the female characters.

Buzarna-Tihenea (2019) who analysed the evolution

of Cinderella and Aurora in Disney’s animated movie

Siregar, F., Henni, . and Comara, S.

The Representation of Gender in Garner’s Politically Correct Bedtime Stories: A Critical Stylistic Analysis.

DOI: 10.5220/0010742900003112

In Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Emerging Issues in Humanity Studies and Social Sciences (ICE-HUMS 2021), pages 41-51

ISBN: 978-989-758-604-0

found that the stories represented both Cinderella and

Aurora as courageous and independent women that

can fight for themselves and do not need a man to

save them from difficult situation. She further argued

that the new versions of fairy tales might have the

same plots similar to their first version, but they have

embedded new social values that reflect the

contemporary system. However, the study of Smith,

(2015) which investigated the adaptation story of

Rapunzel by the Ladybird in 1993 found that the story

still supported gender stereotypes.

A study of Snayer (2017) used concepts of

remediation and intertextuality and examined

Garner’s version of Cinderella. Drawing on

multimodality and hybridity, the study found how the

linguistic and visual transformations in Garner’s

Cinderella contribute to the creation of the story

which empowers women and relates to contemporary

situation.

The study of Akram et al., (2020) investigated the

fairy tale characters in The land of stories: Beyond the

kingdoms (2015) to identify the presence of

characters’ actions which are subversive from

traditional gender and social roles. They found that

the subversive gender took place and argued that the

subversive actions can lessen gender bias related to

gender and social roles (Akram et al., 2020).

A number of studies have examined the

representation of gender using Critical stylistics

which is a stylistic investigation on manifestation of

social meaning though language (Buzarna-Tihenea,

2019). This approach allows the analysis of how

language is used to represent experience.

Specifically, it can be used to uncover how a text or

spoken producer favours certain readings or

perspectives and suppresses other views. (Buzarna-

Tihenea, 2019). For example, Ibrahim (2018)

investigated selected poems by John Donne in an

attempt to discover how the poet exploited language

resources to convey his ideology to the readers. He

found that the use of pronoun, adverbial of time and

the use of present tense are features that build the

‘hypothesized world’ of the afterlife offered by

Donne through his poems. In the same year, Amara

(2018) employed Critical Stylistic and delved into the

linguistic and hidden discursive mechanism in the

narratives of feminist trauma of exile as reflected in

the writings of Arab-British women novelists. The

study concluded that linguistic strategies such as

repetition and negation are used to narrate

traumatised characters and traumatic experiences.

These studies have proven the usefulness of Critical

Stylistics as an instrument to uncover the ideological

underpinnings in any text.

The present study therefore seeks to uncover

ideology related to gender representation by applying

Critical Stylistics as the analytical tool to evaluate the

gender representation of characters in James Finn

Garner’s stories. The study aims at finding out how

genders are represented in the politically correct

version of selected fairy tales in the book. The

research questions are as follows:

1. How is gender represented in the politically

correct version of two fairy tales?

2. What linguistic features are used in creating

the representation?

2 METHODS (AND MATERIALS)

The objective of this chapter is to discuss the research

design of this study, including the textbook which

will be used to obtain the data and the reasons for

selecting it. Furthermore, this chapter highlights the

procedure of data collection and data analysis.

2.1 Research Design

The study adopted a qualitative research design.

Kumar (2014, p. 104) posits that “the main focus in

qualitative research is to analyse, explain, explore and

discover the perceptions, attitudes, values, beliefs and

experiences of a group or individuals”.

Being explorative in nature, the design of the

study specifically aided in seeking to understand how

language is used to represent experience as well as

how the use of language can be used to show explicit

and implicit ideologies. The current study will

uncover the ideologies related to power and the

representation of women.

2.1.1 Subjects/Materials

The subject of the study is the book entitled

Politically correct bedtime stories: Modern tales for

our life and times written by James Finn Garner in

1994. The book contains Garner’s satire on the trend

toward political correctness and censorship of

children's literature. The book consists of 13 fairy

tales namely: Little Red Riding Hood, The Emperor's

New Clothes, The Three Little Pigs, Rumpelstiltskin,

The Three Co-Dependent Goats Gruff, Rapunzel,

Cinderella, Goldilocks, Snow White, Chicken Little,

The Frog Prince, Jack and The Beanstalk, The Pied

Piper of Hamelin. Garner rewrote the original stories

of the fairy tales so that they become good and moral

tales for children in "politically correct" ways that

adult would supposedly consider and accept.

ICE-HUMS 2021 - International Conference on Emerging Issues in Humanity Studies and Social Sciences

Specifically for the study, two stories (Cinderella and

Snow White) would be analysed. The stories were

chosen because the major characters of the stories are

females who, in the original stories, were rescued by

male characters. These purposed samples limited the

scope of the study; however, it would allow the

completion of the study in the given limited research

time.

2.1.2 Data Gathering Procedures and

Analysis

As mentioned earlier the data will be taken from

Garner's (1994) book. The chosen stories will be the

data of the current study and will be analysed

qualitatively.

The current study will adopt Jeffries' (2010)

critical stylistics model. The model can be used as a

tool to reveal explicit or implicit ideologies embedded

in linguistic choices of text producers. The model

consists of these categories: “naming and describing,

representing actions/events/states, negating, equating

and contrasting, exemplifying and enumerating,

prioritizing, implying and assuming, hypothesizing,

presenting others’ speech and thought, and

representing time, space and society” (Jeffries, 2010).

Due to reasons of space and time of conducting the

study, the analysis in this paper focuses solely on

naming and describing. Naming and describing deal

with the use of noun phrases in the text, which also

includes the use of adjectives and post-modifying

phrases and clauses and nominalized verbs.

3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

This section presents the result of the study and the

discussion of the findings respectively. Regarding

the findings, as mentioned earlier, the study will only

focus on naming and describing in the stories of

Cinderella and Snow White.

Cinderella

This part presents the findings related to naming

and describing of the characters in Cinderella. Table

1 shows noun phrases referring to female characters

in the story of Cinderella.

Table 1: Noun phrases referring to female characters.

Character Noun Phrase

Cinderella “A young wommon named Cinderella,

whose natural birth-mother had die

”

“Their own personal unpaid labourer”

“Cinderella” (10 times as Subject)

“Cinderella” (5 times as Object)

“This wommon who had captured

perfectly their Barbie-doll ideas of

feminine desirabilit

”

“A wommon that I could make my

princess and impregnate with the progeny

of our

erfect

enes”

“And she’s blonde, too”

“His intended prey”

“She …carried herself like a

wommon of eminent social standin

”

“The young wommon”

“The cause of all the trouble”

Step

mother

“A widow with two older daughters”

“Cinderella’s mother-of-step”

“Her mother-of-step”

Step sisters “Her sisters-of-step”

“Cinderella’s sisters-of-step”

Mother and

step sisters

“Her mother-and-sisters-of-step”

“Cinderella’s own mother-and sisters-of-

ste

, consumed with

ealous

”

Other

women

“The womyn, trained at an early age to

des

ise their own bodies”

“The other womyn”

“Sisters”

“Many desirable womyn”

In the story, only the heroine has a proper name,

Cinderella. The name appeared ten times as a subject

and five times as an object, and every time the name

appeared, it was never pre or post modified. Yet, the

name was used as a possessive adjective pre-modifier

in reference to the stepmother and sisters. Garner also

used a more generic term, “wommon” when making

reference to the heroine. The word was a term that

feminists use to substitute the word ‘woman’.

Emerging in the opening sentence of the story, the use

of the word might indicate that Garner’s version of

the story has a feminist view.

As seen in Table 1, when Cinderella was referred

to as “wommon”, the term always appeared with pre

and/or post modifiers. It is interesting to note that the

pre-modifier used was always the adjective “young”.

Although her exact age was never mentioned in the

story, the use of the adjective suggests that the

heroine is not yet mature. When post modifiers were

The Representation of Gender in Garner’s Politically Correct Bedtime Stories: A Critical Stylistic Analysis

attached, they were in the form of adjective clauses,

as shown the following examples:

(1) “A young wommon named Cinderella, whose

natural birth-mother had died” (Garner, 1994,

p. 31)

(2) “This wommon who had captured perfectly

their Barbie-doll ideas of feminine

desirability” (Garner, 1994, p.33)

(3) “A wommon that I could make my princess

and impregnate with the progeny of our

perfect genes” (Garner, 1994, p.34)

The post modifier in example (1) appeared in the

opening sentence of the story. Combined with the

word “wommon”, the additional information that

Cinderella was delivered through natural birth offers

a further hint about feminism. A natural birth in the

view of feminism is a way for females to show their

independency from males and to exercise females’

character, intelligence and instinct. Natural birth also

shows females’ endurance to pain (Skowronski,

2015). The naming and description in (2) and (3)

appear when Cinderella attended the ball and met the

prince and his friends. The post modifiers were

adjectival clauses presenting further information

about who Cinderella was in the eyes of the male

characters. She was depicted as appealing for the

males because of her physical appearance which was

“Barbie-doll like” (2) – which was further modified

by the phrase ‘of feminine desirability’ showing that

the males idea of the perfect female stature was

accomplished in Cinderella.

In (3), further information about Cinderella in the

post modifier comes from the character of the prince.

Here Cinderella was still represented as perfect,

however her perfection was somehow related to the

prince, to be the prince’s princess and to be the

mother of the prince’s future child(ren). The use of

the word “impregnate” shows how a feminine issue,

pregnancy, can only work when a male is involved.

Appearing in the clause “I [the prince]

could…impregnate”, the usage can be interpreted as

emphasizing male control over female issue. This

also appears in the naming used to refer to Cinderella

as “his [the prince’s] intended prey” (Garner, 1994,

p. 34).

Garner also referred to Cinderella as “their [the

stepmother and sisters’] own personal unpaid

labourer” in the beginning of the story. This suggests

that Garner wanted to set the character of Cinderella

similar to the original version. The word “labourer”

was pre-modified by the words “their personal

unpaid” (Garner, 1994, p.31) which showed that

Cinderella was not treated nicely by her stepmother

and sisters.

Garner’s adherence to the original version of the

story also appeared in the description of the

stepmother and sisters. This could be seen when the

stepmother and sisters saw Cinderella in the

ballroom, Garner described them using of the noun

phrase “Cinderella’s own mother-and sisters-of-

step, consumed with jealousy” (Garner, 1994, p.34).

However, Garner created a special term for

naming the stepmother and sisters. Instead of using

the usual term, he used hyphenated modifier, and

used the form “-of-step”. The form is similar to the

form “-in-law”, as in mother-in-law or sister-in-law.

The use of the hyphenated modifier indicates that the

mother and sisters got their position in the story

because of marriage.

When referring to other female characters in the

story, Garner used the term “womyn”, hinting further

that his version of the story had a feminist point of

view; yet he seemed to free the readers to create their

own portrayal of the female characters by not giving

a lot of description; except in one noun phrase “The

womyn, trained at an early age to despise their own

bodies” (Garner, 1994, p.33). The use of passive

construction in the post modifier shows that the

women were objects being forced by an unknown

agent to hate their bodies. This can also be interpreted

that how females value their beauty is often based on

labels given by others, not according to themselves.

On the other hand, concerning the noun phrases

used to refer to female physical appearances, Garner

gave specific description as can be seen in the table 2.

When giving names on the things worn, it can be seen

in Table 2 that Garner used noun phrases that were

pre-modified with adjectives which described the

head noun. From the names, readers find out that the

gowns that the stepmother and sisters wear were

expensive ball gowns. Readers can also assume the

same kind of clothes was worn by Cinderella, as it

was mentioned that her dress was tight-fitting, yet it

was clinging and beautiful. The tight-fitted nature of

the dress was also emphasised when Garner described

how the mother and sisters wore the dress: forcing

“ten pounds of processed nonhuman animal carcasses

into a five-pound skin” (Garner, 1994, p. 32). This

description on one hand shows how tight the gowns

were; on the other hand, it also gives a description that

the stepmother and sisters did not have ideal bodies.

The tight dresses were also said to be damaging for

the wearers’ health as they cut off the blood

circulation.

ICE-HUMS 2021 - International Conference on Emerging Issues in Humanity Studies and Social Sciences

Table 2: Noun phrases referring to female physical

appearance.

Characte

Noun Phrase

Step mother

and/or

sisters

“Expensive clothes”

“Natural body images”

“An unrealistic standard of feminine

eaut

”

“Their ball gowns”

“Ten pounds of processed nonhuman

animal carcasses into a five-

ound skin”

“Immense cosmetic augmentation”

Cinderella “Male concept of beauty”

“Tight-fitting dress (that will cut off)

your circulation”

“High-heeled shoes (that will ruin) your

one structure”

“(Paint) your face with chemicals and

make-up”

“A clin

own”

“Sli

ers

(

made of

)

finel

cut cr

stal”

“Im

ractical

lass sli

ers”

“Cinderella’s beautiful gown and

sli

ers”

“Her

easant’s ra

s”

“The confinement of her gown and

sli

ers”

All women “Their bodices, corsets, shoes, and every

other confining garment”

“Their shifts and bare feet”

“For the boudoi

”

“Comfortable, practical clothes for

womyn”

The description of what Cinderella wore is

completed with the description of the slippers. It is

mentioned that the slippers were made of fine crystal,

showing that the slippers were expensive and

beautiful. However, the slippers were high-heeled

and impractical. It is also said that the slippers were

dangerous for one’s body because it ruined the

wearer’s bone structure.

Another feature of physical appearance related to

what the women wear is the makeup. It is mentioned

that the makeup that the mother and sisters put on was

too much as Garner (1994, p.32) described it as

“immense cosmetic augmentation”. When talking

about Cinderella, it is also mentioned that the makeup

was from chemical substances, which implied that it

could be dangerous for the skin.

Garner wanted to put forward his criticism

towards the standard of female beauty when talking

about the dress, footwear and make up. He mentioned

that the standard of beauty was unrealistic and unfair.

However, most females tried to confirm with the

standard, even though they might sacrifice their

health and physical structure.

This kind of description lasted for about three

quarter of the story. The description started to change

as the story mentioned that the clock stroke twelve

and Cinderella’s gown changed to rags. Garner’s use

of the noun phrase “peasant rags” emphasized the

contrast between the magical beauty and the reality.

This contrast also became the turning point of the

story as other female characters in the story found that

Cinderella had been freed from “the confinement of

her gown and slippers”. The other females put away

“bodices, corsets, shoes, and every other confining

garment”, all of the attributes that first defined their

beauty. Now they were only wearing their shifts and

nothing on their feet. This somehow symbolises how

the women are freed from the standard of beauty and

how females should appreciate their natural body

image. The end of the story showed that the latter kind

of clothes the women wear was “comfortable,

practical clothes”. This change of the clothes shows

that the way of freeing the females from the standard

of beauty is by stripping off the physical attributes, so

that the female can enjoy being themselves.

The naming and description of male characters in

the story can be observed in the following table:

Table 3: Noun phrases related to male characters.

Characte

Noun Phrase

Fathe

“Her fathe

”

Prince “The prince” (6 times as Subject)

“The prince” (1 time as Object)

“The envy of every other prince for

miles aroun

”

“Our perfect genes”*

Fairy

Godperson

“A man dressed in loose-fitting, all-

cotton clothes and wearing a wide

rimmed hat”

“A Southern law

”

“A bandleade

”

“Your fairy godperson”

“Individual deity proxy”

Other men “His [the prince’s] cronies” (as subject

“His cronies”

(

as ob

ect

)

“Ever

other male”

“The men”

“The prince’s best frien

”

“A large if cerebrally constrained duke”

“Other sex-crazed males”

“A

ile of human animals”

The prince

and other

men

“This vicious dis

of testosterone”

“The combatants”

“Their macho dance of destruction”

From the table it can be seen that Garner

mentioned about Cinderella’s father only once in the

beginning of the story. It can be interpreted that

The Representation of Gender in Garner’s Politically Correct Bedtime Stories: A Critical Stylistic Analysis

Cinderella did not really have a father figure in her

life. This is somehow different from the original story

and the Disney version of the story, in which

Cinderella seems to miss her mother so much, so that

there is a fairy godmother coming to accompany her.

Whereas in Garner’s version, the deity accompanying

Cinderella was a fairy godperson, that Garner created

to be a male.

The prince in the story was created nameless.

Garner also did not give description about the

appearance of the prince. When he first met

Cinderella, Garner gave description about him and

other male characters by using words with negative

connotations such as “envy”, “sex-crazed males”,

“human animals”, “vicious display of testosterone”,

“combatants”, “macho dance of destruction” and “the

combatants”. Those descriptions show the common

nature of male characteristics, which often are

described as hunters whose main concern is about sex

and competition. The choice of words gives a

negative representation of males, as they were

described to base their action to lust, thus they were

allegorically described as animals.

One positive adjective “perfect” was used when

the prince said “our perfect genes” (Garner, 1994,

p.34). That noun phrase was used to refer to the

offspring of Cinderella and the prince if they are

married. Thus, the use of the word “perfect” implies

that perfection can be achieved when there is a union

between a male of high status and a female.

Another interesting thing is that Garner made the

character of the fairy godperson different from other

male characters. This character was the only character

with detailed description of the physical appearance.

The godperson was described as “dressed in loose-

fitting, all-cotton clothes and wearing a wide

brimmed hat” who looks like “a Southern lawyer”

and “a bandleader”. Those descriptions hinted that the

fairy godperson is a black person.

Snow White

The following table illustrates the noun phrases used

to portray female characters in the second story,

namely Snow White and The Queen. Garner’s

frequent use of proper noun to refer to the heroine

throughout the story denotes the centrality of the

female protagonist. In other instances, gender-

specific, common nouns such as “girl” and “princess”

were used to point out Snow White’s identity as a

high-born young lady.

Table 4: Noun phrases referring to female characters.

Character Noun Phrase

“Snow White” (19 times as Subject)

“Snow White” (4 times as Object)

the frightened Snow White

“Snow White, indicative of the

discriminatory notions of associating

pleasant or attractive qualities with light,

and unpleasant or unattractive qualities

with darkness”

“the girl”

“a girl in a comma”

“the girl who was now actually a young

wommon”

“a female around for comparison”

“her daughter-of-step”

“a young princess who was not at all

unpleasant to look at and had a

temperament that many found to be more

leasant than most other

le's”

“a flighty woman resting peacefully one

minute, up and screaming the next”

“our house guest”

“her rival in beauty”

“an object, just a yardstick for your egos

and penises”

“that

oun

er one”

“an unwitting if fortunate target for this

type of colorist thinking”

The Queen

“the queen”

“his

ueen”

“my queen”

“the queen in disguise”

“a woman”

“this other woman”

“this economically marginalized woman”

“a woman of unreliable income”

“a chronologically gifted woman with a

asket in her han

”

“another wommon”

“my mother-of-step the queen”

“her new mothe

-of-ste

”

“someone who was morally out of the

mainstrea

”

At the start of the story, the choice of words

detailing these referents represented the author’s

viewpoint about feminity. Long noun phrases

abounded with adjectives were commonly used to

highlight the nature of the female subject. Examples

of these long noun phrases include:

ICE-HUMS 2021 - International Conference on Emerging Issues in Humanity Studies and Social Sciences

(4) “a young princess who was not at all

unpleasant to look at and had a temperament

that many found to be more pleasant than most

other people's” (Garner, 1994, p. 50)

(5) “Snow White, indicative of the

discriminatory notions of associating pleasant

or attractive qualities with light, and

unpleasant or unattractive qualities with

darkness” (Garner, 1994, p. 50)

(6) “the girl who was now actually a young

wommon” (Garner, 1994, p. 52)

These long noun phrases associated with Snow

White were found in the first two pages of the story

where the author introduced the main female

character to the readers. As seen in the examples, the

placement of adjectival clauses after the head nouns

assists in highlighting distinct attributes of the

heroine. Specifically, the structure of the noun phrase

in example (4) consists of three elements, namely pre-

modifier “a” (determiner) and “young” (adjective),

head noun “princess” (gender-specific, common

noun) and a clausal post-modifier “who was not at all

unpleasant to look at and had a temperament that

many found to be more pleasant than most other

people's” (relative clause). What is interesting to see

is that when marking the characteristics of Snow

White, Garner preferred elaborate descriptors, rather

than simple ones. Instead of using a single adjective

(e.g. “beautiful” or “pretty”), in describing Snow

White’s physical appearance for instance, Garner

used a double negative construction “was not at all

unpleasant to look at”, whereas in specifying Snow

White’s personality, Garner chose a noun phrase “a

temperament that many found to be more pleasant

than most other people's”. This complex description

emphasized the heroine’s superior moral virtues and

extraordinary beauty, while also indicating the

author’s intention to preserve the original depiction of

Snow White.

In example (5), however, through an adjectival

post-modifier the author criticized the name “Snow

White”, which in the original version metaphorically

represented the character’s fair complexion and pure

heart (Felecan, 2012, p. 279). The noun phrase that

Garner used to refer to the name “Snow White” is

characterised by synonyms and antonyms

(“pleasant”, “attractive”, “unpleasant”,

“unattractive”, “light”, “darkness). It can be argued

that such process of post-modification using a set of

words with close lexical relations is in a sense

analogous to the simplistic, dichotomous black-and-

white thinking that the author deemed

“discriminatory”.

With regard to subject-object position in a clause,

it was observed that Snow White as the heroine was

positioned as a subject more often than an object. She

takes the subject position 19 times and the object

position 4 times. It is also important to note that while

the portrayal of Snow White is in line with the

original version, Garner’s feminist concern was

somehow made apparent through the terms of address

used by male characters (The Seven Giants and the

Prince) to refer to Snow White:

(7) “a female around for comparison” (Garner,

1994, p. 58)

(8) “a flighty woman resting peacefully one

minute, up and screaming the next” (Garner,

1994, p. 53)

(9) “that younger one”

(Garner, 1994, p. 64)

The above noun phrases are examples of terms of

address used by The Seven Giants and the Prince to

make reference to Snow White. In most cases, male

characters in the story made use of general feminine

nouns such as “female”, “woman” and indefinite

noun such as “one” when addressing female

characters.

From the choice of words, it is clear that male

characters in the story tended to prejudice and

trivialise female presence. In example (7), the word

“female” is post-modified by the phrase “around for

comparison”, giving additional information about

The Seven Giants’ perception towards Snow White as

an object to measure men’s competence. Similarly, as

evident in example (8), The Seven Giants conveyed

the stereotypical view of women as an emotionally-

unstable being through the use of the adjective

“flighty” as a pre-modifier and the participial phrase

“resting peacefully one minute, up and screaming the

next as a post-modifier” (Garner, 1994, p. 64).

The way of naming and describing as explained

above suggested a satirical point-of-view regarding

masculine forces and stereotypes about womanhood.

Realizing the misogynistic attitudes of The Seven

Giants, in the middle of the story Snow White

asserted that she is not “an object, a yardstick for your

egos and penises” (Garner, 1994, p. 58). Through this

noun phrase, the author gave Snow White a voice to

revolt against exploitation and objectification. The

choice of the word “yardstick”, which was post-

modified by the prepositional phrase containing an

overt reference to male genital reinforced the author’s

negative outlook on masculinity.

The second female character, The Queen, was

almost always referred to by Garner as simply “The

Queen”, with little modification apart from the use of

article “the” or possessive pronouns “my” and “his”

preceding the head noun. Nevertheless, when The

The Representation of Gender in Garner’s Politically Correct Bedtime Stories: A Critical Stylistic Analysis

Queen was in disguise, a number of richly modified

noun phrases were used to refer to her. Phrases such

as “economically marginalized” and “unreliable

income” function as post-modifiers of the head noun

“woman”, implying the character’s low economic

status. Furthermore, in describing the character’s age

and appearance, Garner chose the word

“chronologically gifted”, which is a politically-

correct term for “old” (Buzarna-Tihenea, 2019). The

usage of these mild, descriptive expressions in place

of words or phrases that might otherwise be seen as

derogatory can be regarded a form of euphemism (Al-

Khasawneh, 2018).

Other characters in the story call The Queen

“woman” or “mother-of-step”. In the same manner as

the story of Cinderella, the existence of a stepmother

became a symbolic instantiation of destructive

feminine forces as she was overwhelmed by contempt

and jealousy. Upon hearing that Snow White was still

alive, The Queen was described as “someone who

was morally out of the mainstream”. In this noun

phrase, the author adopted a gender neutral, indefinite

pronoun “someone”, elaborated by a relative clause

which served to give an impression of a figure whose

wickedness had gone beyond average.

Among all male characters in the story, there was

only one character who was described in a positive

manner, namely the woodsperson. The phrase “the

royal woodsperson” was used to highlight the

character’s entity as a working man who serves the

royal (The Queen). Aligned with the original version,

the woodsperson served as a protective figure who

feels sympathy for Snow White, and thus he set her

free from the queen’s murder attempt. Interestingly,

however, Garner chose the word “woodsperson” to

refer to this character, instead of “huntsman”, as it

appeared in the original story, presumably because

the author preferred using gender-neutral term by

avoiding the words ending in –man (table 5).

In the Grimm’s version of the tale, after fleeing

from the evil queen and having her life spared by the

hunter, Snow White was again saved by the seven

dwarfs. It is useful to look at the way Garner ridiculed

manliness in the story of Snow White, particularly by

portraying the dwarfs as oppressive patriarchal

figures. Example (10) and (11) show the physical

description of these characters.

(10) “the seven little men” (Garner, 1994, p. 57)

(11) “seven bearded, vertically challenged men”

(Garner, 1994, p. 53)

Table 5: Noun phrases related to male characters.

Character Noun Phrase

The

woodsperson

“the royal woodsperson”

The Seven

Towering

Giants

“m

men”

“true men”

“the seven little men”

“seven bearded, vertically

challen

ed men”

“the giants”

“The Seven Towering Giants”

“m

fellow

iants”

“giants among the men of the

fores

”

“my brothers”

“dedicated stewards of the earth”

“the ones who are trespassing”

The leader of

the Seven

“Towering

Giants”

“the leade

”

“their leade

”

“the leader of the Seven Towering

Giants”

“one of the men”

“one of the men, who had flaming

red hair and a nonhuman animal

skin on his head”

The Prince

“the prince”

“a prince from a nearby kingdom,

who had come on this male

retreat to find a cure for his

impotence (or, as he preferred to

call it, his involuntary suspension

from phallocentric activit

)”

“a man shootin

blanks”

“a cute

ut harmless tennis pro”

Both noun phrases above use similar construction

in chracterising the dwarfs. The word “men”

functions as a head noun, which is pre-modified by

adjectives phrases containing information about the

appearance of the dwarfs. In modifying the noun in

example (11), Garner chose the phrase “vertically

challenged”, which is a politically-correct term for

someone who is not tall in height. The choice of this

idiom helped create a humorous effect regarding the

dwarfs’ physical description. Although the dwarfs

were physically not grown up enough, what made

them distinct from the original version was that in this

story their attitudes towards female characters were

indicative of authoritative masculine power,

misogyny and haughtiness instead of helpful and

welcoming nature.

ICE-HUMS 2021 - International Conference on Emerging Issues in Humanity Studies and Social Sciences

(12) “giants among the men of the forest”

(Garner, 1994, p. 56)

(13) “The Seven Towering Giants” (Garner,

1994, p. 56)

Examples (12) and (13) show how the dwarfs,

whose small stature made them physically inferior,

regarded themselves as “giants”. The word “giants”

is the antonym of dwarfs, and in this case, a word of

contrasting meaning was used, not as a descriptive

attribute of physical appearance, but rather as a

marker of the characters’ perceived influence. When

introducing themselves to Snow White, for instance,

the giants stated “We are towering in spirit and so are

giants among the men of the forest.” (p. 56),

indicating their excessive pride, confidence and

influence. To intensify the impression of immense

authority, the author also picked the word “towering”

to modify the word “giants”. The word “giants”,

certainly means creatures of great size, and therefore,

adding “towering” is unnecessary for context. This

literary device can be termed as “pleonasm” or

redundancy in expressing a certain message

(Lehmann, 2005). In brief, the use of redundant

phrase “Seven Towering Giants” served as a tool for

emphasis. In Grimm’s fairy tale, the dwarfs were

anonymous characters with no recognisable leader.

Each of them was simply referred to as “the first”,

“the second”, “the third” and so forth and for the most

part, one dwarf would speak on behalf of the others

or vice versa. In Garner’s version, one of the dwarfs

seemed to continuously represent the voice of the

group.

(14) “the leader of the giants” (Garner, 1994, p.

64)

(15) “one of the men, who had flaming red hair

and a nonhuman animal skin on his head”

(Garner, 1994, p. 55).

As shown in Example (14), this character was

considered as the leader of the seven giants. In the

story, this character frequently acted out his

leadership agency through his speeches and his

masculine appearance. For instance, through the use

of a relative clause following the noun phrase in

Example (15), he was physically described as having

the attributes of a hunter or someone who enjoyed

animal products.

It is important to note that the original story of

Snow White implied an awakening journey of an

innocent female who was continually saved by male

figures as she escaped from home, released by a

huntsman, took shelter in dwarfs’ house and was

eventually rescued by a prince. The Prince in

Garner’s version of Snow White was the other male

character through which the author conveyed his

critique against male authority. Examples below

denote the most important noun phrases referring to

the Prince:

(16) “a prince from a nearby kingdom, who had

come on this male retreat to find a cure for his

impotence (or, as he preferred to call it, his

involuntary suspension from phallocentric

activity).” (Garner, 1994, p. 63)

(17) “a man shooting blanks” (Garner, 1994,p. 65)

(18) “a cute but harmless tennis pro” (Garner,

1994, p. 67)

The noun phrase in Example (16) is accompanied

by an adjective clause containing ideas about men’s

sexuality. In this clause, the Prince was explained as

having a sexual problem, creating an impression of a

“failed”, “helpless” and “powerless” man who lacks

strength and vigour. Another example of the author’s

attempt to ridicule male’s authority can be seen in

Example (18), in which at the end of the story, the

Prince ended up staying at Snow White and the

Queen’s spa centre “a cute but harmless tennis pro”.

The adjectives in this noun phrase (“cute” and

“harmless”) were not commonly used to describe men

in traditional fairy tales since they are not indicative

of great characters. By choosing these particular

words, the Prince’s masculine force was made less

important, and thus it fulfilled Garner’s feminist

agenda.

This section discusses the findings of the study.

After analyzing the data using naming and describing

as tools, the findings can be grouped into the

following themes: contradicting the stereotypes of

traditional views, highlighting the visibility and

empowerment of women, and highlighting

undesirable male qualities.

First, in his stories of Cinderella and Snow White,

Garner reached his goal to be politically correct by

contradicting stereotypes of traditional views.

Regarding naming, it appears that Garner used

pseudo-generics in both Cinderella and Snow White

stories. For example, in Cinderella, he changed

Godmother into Godperson and in Snow White, he

used “woodsperson” instead of “huntsman”. As

mentioned earlier, pseudo-generics involve the

elimination of linguistic items that carry a masculine

bias and replacing them with neutral items (Loureiro-

Porto & Hiltunen, 2020). Thus, Garner’s use of

pseudo-generics supported the view of feminist

linguistics to promote gender-neutrality to lessen the

presence of sexism in language (Loureiro-Porto &

Hiltunen, 2020). Also, Garner used a generic term to

address female characters. He used the words

wommon and womyn to talk about the singular and

The Representation of Gender in Garner’s Politically Correct Bedtime Stories: A Critical Stylistic Analysis

plural form of a female. The terms “wommon” and

“womyn” were what feminists in the 1970s used to

replace the word “woman” and “women”, in order to

omit the appearance of “man” and “men” in the words

(Totibadze, 2019). In addition to that, women’s

biological ability to get pregnant and give birth

naturally which are valued by feminists as a female

power were also addressed in the story.

Garner also controverted the traditional view of

beauty in his description of beauty. For example, in

Cinderella, Cinderella and other females put away

“bodices, corsets, shoes, and every other confining

garment”, all of the attributes used to define their

beauty. Thus, the findings from this study are not in

line with the previous studies that traditional view of

feminine beauty dominates in fairy tales (Louie,

2001). In other words, fairy tales could be constructed

to show a politically correct way of describing beauty.

Second, to be politically correct, Garner

highlighted the visibility and empowerment of

women. In naming, he still used a proper noun for

Cinderella and Snow White and did not give any

proper name for other characters. When describing

his characters, he also gave a long description of

Cinderella and Snow White at the beginning of his

stories which was not present for other characters. In

other words, he wanted the female main characters to

be noticed more than other characters. He also

described Cinderella and Snow White as empowered

women who did not finally live happily ever after by

getting married to a prince. In almost all fairy tales,

the stories end with a marriage. In a traditional view

marriage was considered as one of the keys to lift

women’s position in society (Lee, 2020) and women

needed men to save them from difficult situation

(Buzarna-Tihenea, 2019). Also, women were usually

described as a house wife and not as the breadwinner.

Thus, by describing both Cinderella and Snow White

as business women who owed a shop and a spa

respectively instead of marrying a prince, Garner’s

stories eliminated typical gender roles that appear in

classical fairy and highlighted the empowerment of

women. Therefore, these findings are not in line with

other adaptations of fairy tales by Disney in which the

characters still got married to a prince despite of their

brave and independent characters (Buzarna-Tihenea,

2019).

Third, Garner highlighted undesirable qualities of

men. In Snow White he described the Prince as

“impotent”. The Prince also did not display typical

manly qualities. Garner also changed the description

of dwarfs who are nice and helpful into becomes male

giants who underestimate and ware disrespectful

toward women. Thus, by highlighting undesirable

flaws of men qualities when describing some of his

male characters, Garner contradicted the traditional

view that usually highlights women’s flaws of being

weak, submissive and dependent. These subversive

actions can reduce gender stereotyping related to

gender and social roles (Akram et al., 2020). The

findings on Garner’s description of male characters

are not in line with fairy tale’s male figures who are

usually portrayed as active, attractive, kind, simple,

and humble (Jorgensen, 2018).

4 CONCLUSIONS

All in all, findings of the study show that Garner has

constructed the stories of Cinderella and Snow White

in such a way to challenge the stereotyped

representation and hegemonic ideals of males and

females. He often used pseudo-generics in naming

and provided details by using adjectives or adjectival

phrases and clauses in describing. In putting forward

his politically correct ideology, he deleted marriage

as the happily ever after end of common fairy tales

and changed it into a new end description of

Cinderella and Snow White having their own

business. He also contradicted the concept of beauty

and highlighted undesirable qualities of men. Thus,

based on the names and description used in his

stories, Garner offered his ideology that females can

free themselves from the unrealistic standard of

beauty and it is possible to be subversive toward

traditional gender roles.

As mentioned earlier, Critical Stylistics contains

many other “tools”; however, it is not possible to

employ them all and present the result in only one

study that is restricted by time and in one paper that

has word limits. Thus, further study is recommended

to use other tools to get insights whether or not Garner

uses similar techniques to challenge the hegemony of

male and female ideals in his work.

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The Representation of Gender in Garner’s Politically Correct Bedtime Stories: A Critical Stylistic Analysis