Abstract
This article considers the interpretative challenge for fairy tales that is posed by animal studies, which focuses on the specificity of animals and their relation to humans. The animal-human hybridity that is central to metamorphosis tales is especially significant in this respect because it at least implicitly calls into question the autonomy that modern rationalism grants to humans. To illustrate this, the article examines Marie-Catherine d’Aulnoy’s “Babiole” and “Prince Wild Boar,” both of which highlight the protagonists’ struggle with nonhuman animality and its resolution. Two very different messages emerge from these two tales: in “Babiole” the heroine’s struggle with hybridity is resolved in favor of a hierarchical relationship where humans are distinct from animals; but in “Prince Wild Boar,” d’Aulnoy’s penultimate fairy tale, the conteuse predicates the happy ending on the persistence of the hero’s hybridity.
Recommended Citation
Seifert, Lewis C.. "Animal-Human Hybridity in d’Aulnoy’s “Babiole” and “Prince Wild Boar”." Marvels & Tales 25.2 (2011). Web. <https://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/marvels/vol25/iss2/4>.
