Department of English and American Studies Monstrosity in Angela

65 Pages·2014·0.7 MB·English

Masaryk University
Faculty of Arts

Department of English
and American Studies

English Language and Literature

Veronika Bleson

Monstrosity in Angela Carter’s Work
Master’s Diploma Thesis

Supervisor: prof. Mgr. Milada Franková, CSc. M.A.

2014
I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently,
using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography.

……………………………………………..
Author’s signature

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I would like to thank
professor Milada Franková for her kind supervision
and valuable advice, Anna Kérchy for introducing me to Angela Carter,
my friends Soňa and Sofie, and my husband for their love and support.
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 5
2. Monstrosity and the Grotesque .................................................................................... 7
2.1 Angela Carter. A British Postmodern and Feminist Writer ................................. 7
2.2 Monstrosity as a Myth ..................................................................................................... 13
2.3 Bakhtin’s Carnival and Grotesque Bodies ............................................................... 16
3. Nights at the Circus ..................................................................................................... 18
3. 1 Fevvers ................................................................................................................................ 20
3.2 The Male Monsters – Buffo and Walser .................................................................... 27
4. Wise Children ................................................................................................................ 30
4.1 Dora, the Seductress........................................................................................................ 32
4.2 Grandmother Chance – The Ghost in the Closet .................................................... 37
5. The Magic Toyshop ..................................................................................................... 40
5.1 The Monstrous Uncle Philip ......................................................................................... 41
5.2 The Monstrous Toyshop and the Mechanical Monster ....................................... 46
6. The Conclusion ............................................................................................................. 49
7. Bibliography .................................................................................................................. 53
8. Resumes ......................................................................................................................... 55
8.1 English Resume ................................................................................................................. 55
8.2 České resumé ..................................................................................................................... 56

List of used abbreviations:
MM – Managing Monsters: Six Myths of Our Time: 1994 Reith Lectures
MT – The Magic Toyshop
NC – Nights at the Circus
WC – Wise Children

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1. Introduction

Subversion of fairy tales and Carter's take on mythology have triggered my interest
more than by scholars often explored feminism in her work. Thus I am not going to look
at her novels only from the feminist theory point of view, but rather challenge the gender
issues of the characters in the novels. I have decided to narrow my focus on the
monstrosity of the characters, both in character and physical. The monsters and their
monstrosity, in general, in fairy tales and myths are the driving aspect of the stories, as the
monsters must be leashed so they do not destroy either themselves or their surrounding.
Carter employs this fact in her postmodern novels and makes the characters monsters
physically, e.g. Fevvers in Nights at the Circus, or mentally as Uncle Philip in The Magic
Toyshop. One of the greatest inspiration for my research has been Marina Warner and her
critical works: Managing Monsters: Six Myths of Our Time and From the Beast to the Blond: On
Fairy Tales and Their Tellers; and Anna Kérchy’s Body Texts in the Novels of Angela Carter:
Writing from a Corporeographic Point of View, in which she explores Nights at the Circus and Wise
Children. I will use Warner’s and Kérchy’s theoretical texts as my main secondary sources to
support my thesis.
In my thesis I will explore and analyse what role the monstrosity has in the
development of the plot and how Carter uses the monstrosity to challenge the gender
issues and sexuality of the characters in Nights at the Circus (1984), Wise Children (1991) and
The Magic Toyshop (1967). I argue that the portrayal of monstrosity differs with the
characters’ gender and that Carter subverts the traditional approach and perception of
monsters and monstrosity in myths and fairy tales.
In the first chapter I am going to discuss Angela Carters significance as a British,
postmodern, feminist and magic realist writer, her inspiration and the elements she
employs in her writing, with regard to the thesis. Furthermore, I am going to discuss the
myth and monstrosity, how it is regarded in the contemporary society and how it
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challenges our understanding of the female versus male sexuality and gender issues.
Mainly, I am going to focus on Marina Warner’s critical lectures on monstrosity. In the
second chapter, I am going to discuss Carter’s novel Nights at the Circus. Mainly, I am going
to focus on the central character Fevvers, a winged giantess, who represents Carter’s
portrayal of physical monstrosity and who, despite her monstrosity, is very sexual. I am also
going to look at Buffo, the Clown of the Clowns, who, according to Anna Kérchy
represents Fevvers’ evil twin; however, in contrast with Fevvers’ sexual monstrosity, he
represents a male violent monstrosity. In the third chapter, I am going to discuss Wise
Children, a story of two twin seductresses. I am going to focus on the Dora, one of the twin
sisters and a narrator of the story, and her incestuous relationship with her Uncle Peregrine.
I am going to look at what role make-up plays in the twins seducing and carnivalesque
monstrosity. Further I am going to examine the role of Grandmother Chance in the twins
rediscovering themselves. In the fourth chapter, I am going to discuss Magic Toyshop, a story
of a girl’s maturation. Mainly I am going to focus on the central villain of the story – Uncle
Philip, an archetype of a violent male usurper. Since the novel is written in third person
narrative from Melanie’s point of view, it crucial to analyse the significance she plays in
Uncle Philip’s monstrosity. Further I am going to look at the role of Philip’s monstrous
mechanicals in the development of the story. In the last chapter I am going to draw a
conclusion and summarize my findings.

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2. Monstrosity and the Grotesque
2.1 Angela Carter. A British Postmodern and Feminist Writer

After dying of cancer, aged 51, in 1992 Angela Carter was pronounced by The Times
one of the best post-war British writers and “became the most read author on English
university campuses” (Peach, 1). Although she is not much recognized by the general
public, as she is rather demanding on her reader, she is highly acknowledged by the
academic world for her unique writing style and the way she reflects her postmodern and
feminist views in her work. Her writing comprises a diverse incorporation of different
genres and thus considering it postmodern fantastic or magic realism may seem rather a
simplification. During her life Carter wrote nine novels and “although most of them are
relatively short they’re crammed with an extraordinary range of ideas, themes and images”
(2): Shadow Dance (1966), The Magic Toyshop (1967), Several Perceptions (1968), Heroes and
Villains (1969), Love (1971), The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman (1972), The Passion of
the New Eve (1977), Nights at the Circus (1984) and Wise Children (1991). Besides the listed
novels she wrote three pieces of nonfiction and several collections of short stories
including the masterpiece The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories (1979). This collection of
subverted fairy tales became her best known work also because of Neil Jordan’s film
adaptation of ‘Company of Wolves.’ Being a postmodern writer, Carter touched upon
many topics and interwove many genres, however the most significant and recurring issues
are the gender, sexuality and the myth, exploration of the human mind and sexuality, and
examination of male towards female sexual behaviour and vice versa. Although her work
needs to be discussed within a particular framework, applying conventional labels must be
done with care as her non-realistic conventional writing explores the ‘actualities’ in which
many of us live (3).
Carter reclaimed many elements of the fairy tale genre, as I have stated in my
bachelor thesis (Šimunková 7), and “rediscovered its imaginative potential, especially for
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the feminist author” (73). It is most obvious in the short stories collection The Bloody
Chamber and Other Stories, however, the fairy tale inspiration can be found in all of her novels
as she “[recognised] fairy tales as a reactionary form that inscribed a misogynist ideology”
(74). Within her subversion of fairy tales she incorporated several techniques and styles and
thus her writing could be framed as postmodern, feminist, intertextual, subversive, utopian,
Gothic, mythical, magical, bizarre, and surrealistic. These influences can be traced to her life
and scholarly experience. As Jeff Vandermeer proposes, Carter’s writing was first of all
strongly influenced by the fact that “all of her immediate female relatives were strong
women of striking candour and pragmatism. And yet, paradoxically, Carter fought to
overcome teenage anorexia caused by low self-esteem”. Such influence can be seen in
Carter’s recurring study of the mother figure and studies of the female sexuality. Her
studies of English literature at Bristol University were a turning point in her career, there
she “became familiar with European Art, the French Symbolists and Dadaists [and who
became] an obvious influence on her writings;” above all, one of her inspirations, the
French fin de siècle movement (Peach 18). Through all her work, there are apparent allusions
to the work of Shakespeare, to whom she was drawn while she studied English literature.
Later in her work she “became more conversant with European critical theorists especially
the poststructuralists and the feminist psychoanalysis” (18). Her approach to myths of
sexuality had changed throughout her writing career
Angela Carter’s style of writing cannot be compared to any of the contemporary
authors. Although, some critics suggest her inspiration by the highly appraised Latino
writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez whose name is synonymous to magic realism, Angela Carter
herself in a BBC interview stated that magic realism coming from South America “has got
no meaning in relation to Europe.” Both Marquez and Rushdie draw on their cultural and
traditional background – Colombian folklore and Indian shamanism, thus their magic
realism relies on an existing magic; however, in an interview with John Haffenden Carter
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claims she had to herself create such a magical world through the literary European history
(quoted in Franková, 54). Also, since magic realism, in a broader sense an indefinable
‘mode of writing,’ is rich in themes and different authors employ a diverse number of
elements (including the fantastic, hybridity, or history and post-colonialism), and narrative
strategies, which makes giving Carter such a label even more difficult (7). Lorna Sage in her
introduction to a collection of essay Flesh and the Mirror states that “she [had] always taken
the line that fantasy was not the shadow-side of a binary opposition, but had a real life
history. Being was marinated in magic, and (conversely) imaginary monsters had no
separate sphere” (1). In Carter’s writing monstrosity, both obvious and disguised, is a
natural part of the stories, and though it appears in seemingly real worlds, especially in
Nights at the Circus, it reminds us of the omnipresent magical and fantastical in the reality.
Carter’s combining of reality and the magical makes labelling her work magical realism
natural.
Among many literary writers of the past that had influenced her writing, she greatly
admired Shakespeare and his work became her lifework inspiration. This influence is most
apparent in her last novel Wise Children, one of the subjects of this thesis, where the main
characters are identical female twins that were born on the wrong side of the river.
However, her inspiration by Shakespeare, and especially his A Midsummer Night’s Dream, can
be traced throughout her work. Paul Baily, in his introduction to the BBC interview with
Angela Carter, suggests “some knowledge of Shakespeare and particularly the plays of his
final years add to one’s appreciation of the book” (Carter, 1991). In the same interview
Angela Carter admits her admiration for Shakespeare and the great influence he was for her
while writing the book: “everywhere you look into Shakespeare there are twins, I’ve never
been able to understand his obsession with twins, dabbling … There are just twins all
through Shakespeare and they never actually do anything and they just stand there being
similar.” Similarly to Shakespeare she often uses metamorphoses, for example in Nights at
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the Circus or in her subverted fairy tales in Bloody Chamber and Other Stories. “Shakespeare’s
play itself is replete with instances of madness and metamorphosis changing either the
mind or the body of the character (never both!) …, [however], Carter draws on all aspects”
(Coelsh-Foisner 239). For Carter the state of mind and the body are always interconnected
and as the characters’ bodies change, their minds do as well. Sabine Coelsh-Foisner claims
“Carter gains such freedom by challenging mythic versions of femininity and masculinity –
as Shakespeare had already done – and weaves a pornographic fantasy out of her critique”
(238). She refers to Carter’s The Sadeian Woman and the Ideology of Pornography in which Carter
explores Sade’s approach to femininity and for which she was heavily criticised by feminist
critics, although she had pronounced herself a feminist.
Carter has been characterized as a one of the most significant feminist British post-
war authors. Her feminism revolves around the constant challenge of the stereotypical
accounts of the feminine subject and reinvention of the alternatives. She was not a feminist
in the sense it is commonly understood, in fact, she enraged many of the radical feminists
by her critical re-reading of Marquise de Sade in The Sadeian Woman, where she suggested
that women should pursue liberation themselves, even doing such work where they are
subordinates to men, e.g. prostitution; and thus claims Sade in his work had been a
determined supporter of the liberation of the female sex. Carter’s growing up among
strong-willed women later combined with her struggle with anorexia had an impact on her
later writing in which she challenges the generally appraised presumptions of women, as
one would say, from rather a male point of view, breaking down the contemporary
feminists’ beliefs.
She started out writing as a kind-of male impersonator with a strong streak of
misogyny which is very much of the period and which, since it’s directed against the
taste of proper little lady, the educated daughter of the bourgeoisie or the Welfare
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