#Stayhome, Don’t Go Out! Reading “Fair, Brown, and Trembling” in the Time of Covid-19

As Dorothy Gale says in 'The Wizard of Oz' (1939), the film adaptation of L. Frank Baum’s novel: “There’s no place like home”, a way of saying that home is the best place to be. However, it is known that home is not the best place for anyone to be, because it is the main place where domestic violence – “the commonest form of violence against women” (Terry, 2007) – occurs. Starting from this consideration, inspired by recent historical events, the coronavirus outbreak and the consequent lockdown, by analysing the Irish fairy tale 'Fair, Brown, and Trembling' the present study aims to answer the question: Is home a safe place for every woman? After a brief introduction on domestic violence and its surge during the pandemic, this paper will firstly examine the first transcription of the fairy tale – published by Jeremiah Curtin in 'Myths and Folk-Lore of Ireland' (1890) – with a focus on Trembling, the Irish Cinderella, who is forced to stay at home by her jealous sisters. On the other hand, the second part will be dedicated to the analysis of the feminist adaptation of this tale, 'Sister Fair' – written by Deirdre Sullivan and included in 'Tangleweed and Brine' (2017) –, in order to show that home is not a safe place for any of the three sisters. Particularly, the act of treating women as objects in a patriarchal society will be investigated. Therefore, by comparing an old fairy tale and its dark retelling with everyday life stories of the twenty-first century, this study hopes to provide a chance to reflect on the fact that many women “are often in great danger in the place where they should be safest: within their families” (Kapoor, 2000), be they princesses locked in their houses by jealous sisters and mean fathers, or women “confined, full-time, with their abusers” (O’Halloran, 2020) at home in the time of Covid-19.