A Wild Swan

Michael Cunningham’s short story collection A Wild Swan: And Other Tales (2015) is a collection of dark fairytale retellings. Critics praise Cunningham for exploring the often forgotten but terrifying consequences of spell casting, curse breaking, and true love. A Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, screenwriter, and nonfiction writer, Cunningham taught creative writing at Yale University and received a Master of Fine Arts degree from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. He is best known for his novel The Hours, which won the 1999 Pulitzer Prize and the 1999 PEN/Faulkner Award. He once produced a movie starring Glenn Close and Meryl Streep.

In A Wild Swan, Cunningham asks what happens when fairytales are over. Traditional fairytale endings tell us that the characters live happily ever after, but Cunningham doesn’t believe this is true. By exposing the dark realities behind fairytale endings, Cunningham asks readers to question when they lost their own childhood innocence and began looking at life through a cynical lens.

A Wild Swan begins with a short introduction, “Dis. Enchant,” in which Cunningham explains that most of us bring about our own destruction. We don’t need gods, vengeful spirits, and deadly wraiths to do it for us. We are all guilty of feeling jealous, and angry, and spiteful at times, and it is these very human qualities that make us unhappy. Fairytales warn of what happens when we let these feelings win, but Cunningham argues that they don’t go far enough. The ten stories in A Wild Swan explore these forgotten areas.



The first story, “A Wild Swan,” based on Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Wild Swans,” centers on a prince cursed to live as a swan by his vengeful stepmother. His sister breaks the curse on him, but she doesn’t break it completely, leaving him with a swan’s wing in place of his right arm. Ostracized by his family, he lives on the outskirts of society with only his wing for company.

“Crazy Old Lady” focuses on the witch from “Hansel and Gretel.” She isn’t an evil woman who wants to hurt children. Rather, she is a lonely woman who wants nothing more than for someone to visit her in the forest. She builds a candy house to lure people there, but she knows they only visit her house for the sweets. She becomes a miserable, bitter woman who hates everyone.

“Jacked” is about Jack from “Jack and the Beanstalk.” In Cunningham’s version, Jack is lazy and obsessed with getting rich. He climbs the beanstalk to steal from the giant and giantess constantly. He eventually steals a magic harp, ruining the giant’s life. The harp wants to go home, but it can’t. It is a dark story with explicit violence.



“Poisoned” explores what happens to Snow White and the prince after they get married. He has odd sexual habits and Snow White doesn’t know how to satisfy them. It is up to Snow White to make their marriage work—there is no such thing as happily ever after. “Her Hair,” a retelling of “Rapunzel,” also looks at relationship fetishes and the problems they cause.

A retelling of “The Monkey’s Paw” by W.W. Jacobs, “A Monkey’s Paw” asks what would happen if someone brought their dead son back to life. Although he is rotting and broken, the family keeps him around. Everyone becomes increasingly unhappy with the arrangement, and the boy knows he will never fit in with society.

“Little Man” retells “Rumpelstiltskin” from the imp’s perspective. Desperately wanting a child of his own, he chooses the miller’s daughter. Critics claim that it is one of the few fairytale retellings that paint Rumpelstiltskin in a sympathetic and likable light. In the end, he gets what he wanted.



“Steadfast; Tin” centers on “Steadfast Tin Soldier” by Hans Christian Andersen. Like “A Wild Swan,” it focuses on disability and how we respond to it. The response in this story, however, is more positive. The main character lost his bottom leg, and when he shows his future wife, she doesn’t run from him. They spend many happy years together.

“Beasts,” a story based on “Beauty and the Beast,” asks us to consider why someone cursed the beast in the first place. He isn’t a nice man, and someone cursed him to protect society. Unhappy with the beast, it is only a matter of time before Belle goes looking for new diversions. The story is violent and includes depictions of sexual assault and rape.

The final story, “Ever/After,” confirms that there is no such thing as the fairytale version of “happily ever after” in real life. However, that doesn’t mean it is impossible to find happiness. Real families and real relationships are not perfect as they are depicted in some stories, but that is what makes them beautiful and real.