The Red Shoes: The Archers/J Arthur Rank, 1948 The other night, I was watching the classic 1948 film, The Red Shoes. When the film was over, I decided to read up on the original tale by Hans Christian Anderson, which brought me back to the subject of amputation in fairy tales. When I was writing my novel, Silver Hands (based on Grimm's fairy tale, The Handless Maiden) I had to think carefully about how I was going to approach amputation in my re-telling. I decided early on that, in my version, the hands were not going to grow back as they do in my source tale. The 2012 Paralympics made everyone in my country much more aware of the achievements of amputees. In real life, limbs do not grow back; what can grow, however, is confidence and new abilities. This was what I wanted to portray in Silver Hands. Margaret learns new skills in painting and calligraphy, ...
Comments
Post a Comment