The words that remain: Two theories of performance and the question of identity in contemporary variations of “Sleeping Beauty”

How do recent variations of the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale reflect concerns of gender, sexuality, and belonging in the late 20^th Century? This thesis grows out of the body of literary fairy tales that has been produced in the last forty years and considers that body's response to the folkloric tradition, the influence of the Walt Disney Corporation, and critical academic examination of the functions, meanings, and socializing effects of fairy tales. It integrates two distinct disciplinary trajectories, the Brechtian dramatic theories of verfremdung (alienation) and the gest, and the current emphasis within Folklore Studies on texts as performances, and applies them to literary works in order to explore identity through the primary foci of gender and sexuality (and to a lesser degree of ethnicity, community, and connection to the past) and thereby construct meanings relevant to contemporary popular culture.