{"product_id":"when-toys-come-alive-narratives-of-animation-metamorphosis-and-development-9780300056457","title":"When Toys Come Alive: Narratives of Animation, Metamorphosis, and Development","description":"\u003cp\u003e • Author(s): Lois Rostow Kuznets\u003cbr\u003e • Publisher: Yale University Press\u003cbr\u003e • Publisher Imprint: Yale University Press\u003cbr\u003e • BISAC: General\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSince the eighteenth century, toys have had an important place in European and American stories written for children and adults, often taking on a secret, sensual, even carnivalesque life of their own. In this groundbreaking work, Lois Rostow Kuznets studies the role of toy characters in works ranging from older classics like \u003ci\u003ePinocchio\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eWinnie the Pooh\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eThe Velveteen Rabbit\u003c\/i\u003e, through modern texts like \u003ci\u003eThe Mouse and His Child\u003c\/i\u003e and the popular comic strip \u003ci\u003eCalvin and Hobbes\u003c\/i\u003e, to the latest science fiction featuring robots and cyborgs. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eUsing a variety of intertextual critical approaches, including feminist theory, neo-Freudian Winnicott play analysis, structuralism, and neo-Marxism, Kuznets focuses on how toy characters, like children's play, can be associated with deep human needs, desires, and fears. Anxiety about being \"real\"--an autonomous subject rather than an object--permeates many of the texts Kuznets analyzes. Toy fantasies also raise existential issues of power: what it means either to dominate or to be dominated by more powerful beings, and what dangers might lie in the transformation of a toy into a living being--an act of human creativity that represents a challenge to divine creation. Kuznets concludes that although many of these texts subvert conformity on an individual level, they also tend to evoke a romantic nostalgia that supports the underlying values and hierarchies of a patriarchal society.","brand":"Yale University Press","offers":[{"title":"Hardcover","offer_id":47591725924503,"sku":"9780300056457","price":7323.0,"currency_code":"INR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0666\/3471\/1191\/files\/9780300056457.webp?v=1774974304","url":"https:\/\/atlanticbooks.com\/products\/when-toys-come-alive-narratives-of-animation-metamorphosis-and-development-9780300056457","provider":"Atlantic Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}