Women Who Open Doors: Bluebeard and Horror
Women in stories often get punished. In fairy tales, it’s often for greed or pettiness or vanity or a slew of other reasons. But the heroines of fairy tales also get punished.
Jack Zipes
E.T.A. Hoffmann’s Nutcracker in 2016
Recently I joke tweeted “What The Nutcracker’s Battle With the Rat King Taught Us About Trump Resistance,” as if I were writing that piece. I’m not. Last week, I traveled to Boston to watch my sister perform in her nineteenth year of Nutcracker, and the next day we sat in the Massachusetts State House, watching the state’s electors vote for Hillary Clinton. It seemed that Hoffmann’s tale had nothing to with 2016, and that issued a challenge.