Black’s characters, Kaye especially, show that there is more to life than the commercial aspects of the American dream. Fairy tales “suggest that there are other views of human life besides those of the shopping mall and the corporation” (Lurie, Don’t Tell the Grown-ups xi). Placing this plot in a fairy tale setting helps Black’s readers process the inherent lesson that it is okay to be different. Her alienation is a feeling to which most young adult readers would relate. In these novels, Kaye is a changeling, a pixie left in the place of a human child. These tales suit her young adult audience, especially those who are working on developing their own identity. She does not just create her own fairy tales she creates a unique story out of reutilized elements. Black does this well, often utilizing some components of older tales and weaving a new story from them, as is the case with Tithe and Ironside. A reutilized fairy tale is “one which retains its basic components according to the Aarne-Thompson classification, but revises the action to suit it to another audience” (Thury and Devinney 670). Many of these are reutilized from older tales. Modern authors like Holly Black have written their own versions of fairy tales, often for a young adult audience. This imagination extends into modern times. There is also overlap between myths and fairy tales, the prime example being the story of Cupid and Psyche. Myths and folk tales often go hand in hand, as folk tales also belong to the oral tradition. In its strictest sense, mythology refers to the “sacred stories handed down as part of religions, as well as the narratives that explain and define the great acts of nations and peoples” (Thury and Devinney 4). Mythology tells the stories of gods and heroes. Tales of wonder, feats, and heroic deeds have always captured the imagination of their audience.
The Modern Fairy Tale: a study of Holly Black’s Tithe and Ironside
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