Hansel and Gretel in the Twenty-First Century: On Travesties Updating Fairy Tales in Recent Polish Literature

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to present the phenomenon of the modernization of the fairy tale in contemporary Polish fiction. The theoretical frame of the article is Gérard Genette’s theory of intertextuality, and in particular the following two categories: travesty and diegetic modernization. The author focuses on the works linked to the same folk hypotext – ATU 327a, such as Hansel and Gretel. The three texts analysed in the paper were written by esteemed authors: Leszek K. Talko, Jacek Dukaj and Mariusz Sieniewicz. They addressed their works to diverse audiences: children, adults, and both. These methodological assumptions give an opportunity to show a wide spectrum of possibilities enabled by modernization. The style, the represented world, the plot and the interpretation of the fairy tale are the elements which could change when modernization occurs. The described technique of retelling aims is make the fairy tale more familiar to contemporary audiences, as well as to allow for critique of politics, society and literature. Its therapeutic function is important, too. In spite of the fact that the texts analysed herein lack the sense wonder characteristic of the traditional fairy tale, thereby reducing the distance from the reader, one can see that they rely on various ways of distancing the audience, which reduces the horror of the traditional fairy tale.