Hi everyone,
For a project I'm working on, I am looking for good examples of art that depicts women transforming into animals. It could be an empowering metamorphosis or a tragic one.
Think Nightbitch (in literature) or The Fly (in movies).
Please share anything! Obscure or not, niche or mainstream, gross or poetic I want to hear it all!
Extra points for books that have a focus on insects!
Thanks in advance everyone!
by Potential-You7576
5 Comments
The main character in _Shark Heart_ is a man transforming into a shark, but there is also a significant (and imo more touching) subplot about a mother turning into a Komodo dragon.
One of my favorite examples is “The Tiger’s Bride” in Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber. It’s an empowering metamorphosis in a retelling of the Beauty and the Beast fairy tale.
When Women Were Dragons is a novel about an epidemic of women transforming into dragons.
Wild Seed by Octavia Butler. It is part of a larger series but I think it also works well as a standalone series. The protagonist is an Igbo woman who is a shapeshifter and transforms into many different kinds of animals throughout the book.
Also, this one is a throwback but if you are also including children’s books then the Animorphs is an obvious series and includes multiple examples of turning into insects. One book has as a plot point a girl becoming a caterpillar and going through metamorphosis into a butterfly.
Not novels, but I can think of two short stories:
Fen by Daisy Johnson – a girl’s sister transforms into an eel. From the collection of the same name.
Mantis by Julia Armfield – an insect transformation from the collection Salt Slow.