UNICORN STORIES IN TRACY CHEVALIER AND PHILIPPA GREGORY’S NOVELS

Unicorn Stories in Tracy Chevalier’s and Philippa Gregory’s Novels. Unicorns have been described as mythological creatures that only the chosen ones could encounter. In the novels The Lady and the Unicorn by Tracy Chevalier and The Lady of the Rivers by Philippa Gregory, one such mythical beast evinces certain features that reflect on some of the characters in the novels. The paper discusses the image and symbolism of the mythological beast and analyses the depiction of the animal in the two novels written by the respective British authors. The stories told of the unicorn in the two books are to be compared and completed by texts from various other sources, in an attempt to get a fair picture of the way in which the two novels explore the legend of the respective magical creature, and transform it into feminist narratives.