The One and The Other: Existentialist Feminism in Robert Munsch's The Paper Bag Princess

Abstract

This study analyzes the reversal of traditional gender roles in Munch and Matchenko’s picturebook titled The Paper Bag Princess (1980). By using Barthes’ Semiotics and Beauvoir’s concepts of the Other and the One, the researcher investigates the picturebook to examine how the author and the illustrator portrayed the female character as the dominant one. Both verbal texts and visuals are scrutinized by using Hall’s Representation. Findings revealed that with reversed gender roles, this picturebook is able to show the differences in Princess Elizabeth’s strong character compared to other picturebooks. The author and the illustrator make Princess Elizabeth, the main character, conduct the behavior reversal to the traditional princesses, which implies that she broke the gender stereotypes. This study concludes that The Paper Bag Princess deconstructed the idea of the dichotomy of feminine and masculine gender roles.