This paper is a feminist study of two tales from Moroccan oral literature, collected by myself from my maternal grandmother and aunt. Moroccan wonder tales (fairy tales) constitute incredibly rich data to investigate, as they are told by women, to women, describe the lives of women, and give the critic a privileged access to the female unconscious, condition, culture and dreams of transgressions. The analysis of these two tales requires an eclectic theoretical framework to demonstrate the complexity and ambivalence of the female discourse in women's tales of wonder, as both an outspoken assertion of dominant patriarchal values, and a subtle subversion of it.
Last modified: 7 May 2001