The red queen : Margaret Drabble's (auto)biographical pastiche

Vol.37,No.2(2011)

Abstract
Margaret Drabble's 2004 novel The Red Queen transgresses the generic borderlines between autobiography, biography and fiction. Drabble rewrites the published memoires of an eighteenth-century Korean Crown Princess with the help of two volumes of her biography, where she is known as Lady Hong or Hyegyong. Alongside the Princess's first-person narrative voice, Drabble has created her ghost voice addressing twenty-first century readers and comparing the time past with the time present. The novelist balances her avowed right to interpret and fictionalise with an undoubted respect for the original memoires. The article considers Drabble's mix of autobiography, biography and fictional narrative to examine the way she has contrived the The Red Queen as a playful but serious and moving autobiographical pastiche.

Keywords:
Margaret Drabble; The Red Queen; fictionalised (auto)biography

Pages:
79–86
References

Anderson, Linda (2001) Autobiography. London and New York: Routledge.

Connor, Steven (1995) The English Novel in History 1950–1995. London: Routledge.

d'Heurie, Adma (2001) ' The Peppered Moth'. World Literature Today 75(3–4), 144–145. 28 June 2010. < http://lion.chadwyck.co.uk>. | DOI 10.2307/40156824

Drabble, Margaret (2005 [2004]) The Red Queen. London: Viking; Penguin Books.

King, Francis (2004) ' Madness and Death in Korea'. The Spectator. 21 August 2004. 27 August 2010. < http://www.spectator.co.uk>.

Lee, A. Robert (ed.) (1988) ' Introduction'. In: First Person Singular: Studies in American Autobiography. London: Vision Press. 7–14.

Maclure, Maggie (1993) ' Mundane Autobiography: Some Thoughts on Self-Talk in Research Contexts'. British Journal of Sociology of Education 14(4). 24 June 2010. < http://www.jstor.org>.

Samarasan, Preeta (2007) ' Putting Words in Other People's Mouths: On Empathy and Ventriloquism in Fiction'. Michigan Quarterly Review 46(1), 212–213. 28 June 2010. < http://lion.chadwyck.co.uk>.

Smee, Sebastian (2010) ' A Fragile Beauty'. The Spectator. 16 October 2010. 4 November 2010. .

Richardson, Brian (2006) Unnatural Voices: Extreme Narration in Modern and Contemporary Fiction. Columbus: Ohio State University Press.

Metrics

0

Crossref logo

12

Views

0

PDF views