Mulbriety of the Women in Kelly Barnhill's “Girl Who Drank The Moon” Reinterpreting Feminist Agency Through Myth, Magic and Power

Kelly Barnhill’s, “ The Girl Who Drank the Moon” (2016) offers a fresh perspective on what magical
realism is, centering its world around four women: Xan, the witch who is oxymoronically kind-hearted, Adara,
the confined mother, Luna, ‘enmagicked’ with the power of moon and Ethyne, the embodiment of courage.
Barnhill's mastery in handling the muliebrity of these characters interweave them throughout the entire work.
This article navigates the paradigm of muliebrity utilising the archetypes pertaining to these four women,
while investigating how the feminine character is forged while navigating through the tresses of fear, loss,
myth, memory and experience. Building on the feminist theories given by the likes of Simone de Beauvoir,
Sandra Gilbert, Hélène Cixous, Susan Gubar, this study posits that every female character present in the novel
has a unique appeal of gendered identity and together they form a complex, zealous, resilient and parental arch
of womanhood. The novel, on its entirety focuses on the adaptability and conviction that's unique to
muliebrity, as it tries to shatter that narrative of equating muliebrity to fraility.