Abstract
Similarly to the fairy-tale web, legend webs constitute shared worldviews and self-reflexive critiques of worldviews for tellers, writers, auditors, and readers of legends and legend-based narratives as found in literature and mediated narrative. This article examines Karen Joy Fowler’s engagement in legend webs in her novels Sarah Canary, The Sweetheart Season, and Sister Noon. Fowler incorporates numerous historical and contemporary legends, sometimes including supernatural motifs, highlighting the operation of ostension (acting on belief in legend) as a form of epistemological inquiry and societal critique. Legend webs create an aesthetics of curiosity, parody, and doubt.
Recommended Citation
Attebery, Jennifer Eastman. "Legend Webs: Karen Joy Fowler’s Ostensive Critique of American Society." Marvels & Tales 36.2 (2023). Web. <https://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/marvels/vol36/iss2/2>.
