Traumatised villainess: reimagining European fairy tale villains in contemporary North American young adult (YA) trauma fiction for adolescent girl readers

Trauma seems to be ubiquitous in both our reality and our fictions. However, multiple competing ideas about what trauma is complicate our understanding and depictions of it. This study examines contemporary North American Young Adult (YA) retellings of fairy tales through the lenses of literary trauma theory and feminism to analyse depictions of trauma and villainy. The analysis is informed by developments in literary trauma theory, feminism, and psychology, which illuminate how these novels retell and reshape fairy tale villainy. The primary texts for this study are Sarah Henning’s Sea Witch, Melissa Bashardoust’s Girls Made of Snow and Glass, and Jennifer Donnelly’s Stepsister. All the novels reimagine canonical European fairy tales from the original tales’ villains’ perspectives, and all include depictions of psychological and/or physical wounding that results in later destructive or maladaptive behaviour. The texts emphasise pathways to healing that reflect Root and Brown’s feminist theory of trauma treatment. However, despite these novels’ efforts to reimagine the histories and interiorities of originally flat fairy tale villains to re-evaluate what was previously labelled as villainy and revisit female villains from a feminist perspective, their engagement with trauma and villainy is limited. These texts display a continuing discomfort with female anger and refusal to grapple with those who commit atrocities. Though some texts extend their consideration of these topics, mainstream YA novels such as the primary texts in this study are limited in their handling of villainy, even in novels marketed specifically as providing explicability for fairy tale villainesses.