Wolf Siren by Beth O’Brien

We have author Beth O’Brien writing for us today about her book, Wolf Siren and it’s links to a well known fairytale. Beth speaks about her own visual impairment in relation to fairytales.

 

Why does Little Red Riding Hood not immediately realise that her grandmother has been replaced by a wolf? This was something I never questioned when I heard the story as a child. I simply accepted the unusual logic of a magic world where a talking wolf able to don a nightcap was right at home. But after to a lot of research into the representation of disability in fairy tales and fairy tale retellings, adult me began to question it, and based on my own experiences of being visually impaired, I thought I might be well placed to answer it, too!

Disabled characters are very common in fairy tales, and perhaps, especially blindness. Take, Cinderella’s stepsisters who are blinded by doves, or even Rapunzel’s prince who falls from a tower and somehow lands precisely on his eyeballs. Yet, as with those two examples, blindness is inflicted on a character as a punishment. In the case of the prince, who is considered a morally good character unjustly punished, he is later cured of his disability and goes on to live happily ever after. This association of blindness as a punishment for wickedness (and sightedness as a reward for goodness) was something I was very well aware of when writing Wolf Siren, and something I was determined to avoid.

What was more, my own experience did not fit into this all-or-nothing depiction of vision. In fact, most people who are blind or partially sighted have some form of usable vision, whether that be light, colour, and/or movement. But depictions in literature rarely convey this. So, I decided that my main character, Red, would see the world the same way I do, which means relying on colour, light, movement, memory and a large dose of educated guesswork to figure out what’s around her. And rather than relying on magical cures to fix her, I had a lot of fun creating a magical woodland that was able to lend her a helping hand (or branch) when needed. In that way, I tried to tap into the wonderous magic of fairy tales to turn a difficult environment into a place where she could feel free.

For me, Little Red Riding Hood was the perfect tale to explore visual impairment, because if you relied on expectation and guessing to fill in the blanks of what you see, would you expect to be confronted by a wolf wearing your grandmother’s clothes? Me neither!

 

Views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the Federation.