Lucy Fraser’s The Pleasures of Metamorphosis examines a wide variety of Japanese and English language versions of Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Little Mermaid.” Fraser’s approach is to provide close readings of these texts using pleasure as a “framework” (2), describing how the authors depict the pleasures experienced by the characters in their texts, but also how authors (meta)textually comment upon these pleasures, thus subverting, questioning, and adding to a wider sense of what is meant by the pleasures received from fairy tales, as well as questioning how these pleasures might be received by both characters and audiences alike. In doing so, Fraser’s argument addresses important issues related to how and to what degree fairy tale pleasures, especially those experienced by children, “can be mobilized to affirm particular notions of gender” (11). However, Fraser complicates this notion by questioning how much children are actually uncritically receptive of attempts to influence them through the pleasures of a fairy tale text. Her overall argument thus contributes an interesting critical argument in the ongoing debate as to the degree that child audiences are prone to be influenced by fairy tales in their understanding and application of the social construction of gender.
Structurally, Fraser “trace[s] a prehistory and history of ‘The Little Mermaid’ in Japanese and English” (16), providing a cross-cultural historical survey of mermaid folk beliefs, examining specific texts with publication dates ranging from 1891 to 2008. Her reasoning for the inclusion of Japanese texts is not to make “generalizing comparisons of the Japanese and English stories as a whole or attempt . . . to identify particular cultural elements that the tales might represent,” approaches that she fears would serve to “perpetuate Orientalist critiques that view the West as subject and the East as other” (185), but rather “to avoid a Western-centric view by incorporating Japanese theoretical frameworks” (3), primarily borrowing theory from shojo or girl studies. Fraser chooses her texts, not as “representatives of particular cultures, nor as sensational examples of ‘difference,’” but because “in combination with each other, they have something to say about the reconstruction of gender from Andersen’s fairy tale” (14).
Fraser’s discussion elucidates why Andersen’s “The Little Mermaid” seems built to inspire textual adaptations, propelled as it is by intertwining “conflicts and oppositions” (25) related to cultural expectations of gender, desire, the body, and femininity, all of which contribute to the tale’s tragic conclusion, as well as the “radical” nature of its “depiction of a young girl as the active, desiring, controlling artist figure” (29). Defining the process of textual metamorphosis as the “conscious transformation of fairy tales--the act of rereading and retelling to create something new” (8), Fraser’s analysis “focuses on the ways transformations respond to and reshape the complex images of gender presented in the tale” (1). In addition to a strong analysis of Andersen’s tale, the book ambitiously examines a plethora of print and filmic transformative adaptations, revisions, parodies, and subversions of Andersen’s tale, ranging from texts by authors such as Tanizaki Jun’ichiro and Oscar Wilde, to perhaps lesser known figures (at least to many English-speaking readers) such as Nonaka Hiiragi. Fraser’s explications of these texts emphasize how the processes of transformation as related to gender issues are pleasurable in ways that are variously submissive, enlightening, empowering, subversive, and resistant. Fraser’s disciplined analysis keeps her theory on point, as each of the tales that she examines is given a very close, extended reading, with this scrutiny intrinsically tied into how the texts work distinctively as fairy tales, which prevents her conception of pleasure from becoming too vague, despite its inclusive range.
In covering such a broad swath of reactions, the pleasures that Fraser describes range across a variety of intense emotions, some of which may not be immediately recognizable as generically pleasurable. Observes Fraser, Andersen’s tale is “more of a tale of desire and pain than one of pleasure” (38), and if there is a prevailing thematic motif in many of these transformations of Andersen’s tale it is this. For example, as she describes the emotional responses of some of the characters, they “share with Andersen’s mermaid a dedication to their own extreme pain and suffering and the inevitable release it builds to. Their pain is a physical expression of a kind of immersive, vicarious pleasure in intense emotional experience that they offer to the reader” (124). At times, reading the summaries and explications of these tales can be somewhat overwhelming, as the emphasis on suffering can seem like a vein of tragedy, in which human (and mermaid!) relations as related to sex, gender, and desire will inevitably lead to suffering. However, tragic catharsis is also a kind of pleasure.
Some of Fraser’s most compelling arguments are those related to audience receptivity and agency. The text is not based upon ethnographic evidence, however, but instead confines itself to textual readings, and so the reader response that is examined is sometimes that of the characters within these texts, including their fictional narrators, to mermaid tales. Fraser builds upon Linda Hutcheon’s conception of “‘knowing audiences’ who are familiar with the source text(s)” (12) they encounter. In some cases, such as in the “post-fairy tales” Fraser discusses in chapter 6, the characters are not only familiar with Andersen’s tale but also with its popular adaptations. Not surprisingly, the results of this consciousness can themselves be reflexively transformative, such as in the case of Max and Logan, the protagonists of the episode “Gill Girl” of the American TV series Dark Angel. “Throughout the whole episode, Max and other characters . . . demonstrate awareness of the different hypertexts of ‘The Little Mermaid’ and its transformative possibilities, expressing their preferences for particular versions” (162), even to the point of Max exposing herself to serious injury or death as she strives to free a mermaid, “explaining, ‘I’m going for the Disney version’” (163).
Fraser’s discussions of the pleasures of textual transformation are perhaps most fascinating in chapter 5, which examines not only the kinds of pleasures that “the transformations of ‘The Little Mermaid’ invite their readers and audiences to partake in” but also how the portrayals of these pleasures are “depict[ed]” (2) as being enjoyed by characters within the text itself. In fact, many of her most perceptive close readings are of the “images of characters”--especially girls--“enjoying pleasures that simulate reading or consumption of texts” (2). In her ensuing discussion of the representations of fictional girls within fairy tales as they themselves respond to fairy tales, Fraser adds a shojo studies perspective, arguing that “contrary to assumptions made about fairy tale texts for children, girls’ pleasures in mermaid stories and fairy tale transformations can be multiple, critical, and self-conscious” (38).
Fraser’s example of the girl protagonists in Elizabeth Allen Rosenbaum's 2006 film Aquamarine is especially effective. Fraser observes that the film’s depiction of “girl’s friendships [and] critical, pleasurable reading styles . . . were mostly overlooked by reviewers, who continue to rely on images of female reading as passive and indiscriminating” (148). While Fraser is forced to concede that her contention--that girls are more knowing and resistant readers than some critics may posit--is based only upon fictional representations of girls, she adds that “if girls really do absorb their reading material in passive, unquestioning ways, they would also absorb active and critical modes of reading that are presented to them in works such as these transformations of ‘The Little Mermaid.’ The images of girls reading and retelling in these tales themselves contradict many of the critics’ dismissal of them” (155-156), especially if many of the texts that Fraser examines are written by former girls, now women. (Although my personal addition to this conversation is purely anecdotal, I can affirm that my own daughters, currently ages 8, 12, and 14, are highly informed readers, displaying an almost encyclopedic knowledge of their favorite manga and anime texts, most of which are translations from the Japanese originals. Nor is their knowledge confined to trivia, but extends to their own critical interpretations of these narratives.) Ultimately, Fraser is asking for “a more involved approach to fairy tales than is implied by the debates about whether they are socializing devices or tools for gender rebellion” (187). Her discussions of the ways in which fairy tales offer pleasures of various kinds, and the degree to which child, especially girl, audiences are aware of the didactic lessons associated with these desires, as well as to what degree they accept or resist these messages, is a good place to begin anew the debate. Her suggestion that “images of masculinity and reading would also do well to be explored from a girl studies point of view” (148) is likewise a call for further research.
The Pleasures of Metamorphosis will prove interesting and helpful for scholars researching several areas, such as fairy tales, gender studies, children’s literature, Japanese studies, and comparative literature. As for its potential place in the classroom, given the density of Fraser’s application of theory to her close readings, the book may prove somewhat daunting to students in introductory courses, but would prove effective in upper level undergraduate seminars and graduate courses. One potentially problematic feature of the text for an English-speaking classroom is that several of the Japanese texts have not yet been translated into English (for the majority of the Japanese texts she examines, Fraser provides her own translations of the excerpts she discusses), and some students may find it difficult to engage with these texts solely on a second-hand basis, as most will be unable to read the primary texts. However, Fraser’s well-detailed summaries of each of the texts somewhat mitigates this concern.
Fraser’s cross-cultural examination of many of the textual transformations of Andersen’s “The Little Mermaid,” her theoretical focus on pleasure as applied to fairy tale texts, her expansive arguments on the influence of tales upon girls, and her application of sh?jo studies to close readings of fairy tale texts, all combine to make The Pleasures of Metamorphosis a highly worthwhile addition to several ongoing conversations in fairy tale and cultural studies.
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[Review length: 1670 words • Review posted on September 27, 2018]