JOURNEY TOWARDS THE (M)OTHER : MYTH, ORIGINS AND THE DAUGHTER’S DESIRE IN THE FICTION OF ANGELA CARTER Hope Jennings A Thesis Submitted for the Degree of PhD at the University of St. Andrews 2008 Full metadata for this item is available in the St Andrews Digital Research Repository at: https://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/ Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/10023/148 This item is protected by original copyright This item is licensed under a Creative Commons License Journey Towards the (M)other: myth, origins and the daughter’s desires in the fiction of Angela Carter Hope Jennings Ph.D. Thesis September 2006 Jennings i Abstract This study examines Angela Carter’s demythologising of origin myths and will investigate the extent to which her fictions offer viable alternatives that allow for productive representations of women and gender relations outside patriarchal paradigms. In the first half of the thesis (Chapters 1-3), I will primarily focus on how several of Carter’s earlier texts deconstruct existing mythical spaces, particularly the biblical creation story in Genesis. The Genesis myth is central to socio-historical constructions of gendered identities, and in itself, central to Carter’s imagination. She repeatedly returns to this myth in her challenging of the ways in which patriarchal narratives construct violent relations between self and other, specifically where ‘woman’ is situated as the repressed other of male desires and fears. Alongside her demythologising of Genesis, Carter deconstructs Freudian myths of sexual maturation, exposing where these also set up a relationship of antagonism or enmity between the sexes. Although Chapter One will explore how Carter attempts to revise these origin myths from a positive stance, Two and Three will focus on the inherent difficulties faced by the female subject in her struggle against patriarchal myths and their violent oppression of female autonomy. The second half of the thesis (Chapters 4-6) will shift to an investigation of how Carter’s later texts set up both possibilities and challenges for women when attempting to construct their own narratives of origin. Through her problematising of matriarchal myths and feminist fantasies of self-creation, Carter emphasises the need for confronting limitations rather than celebrating transgressions as entirely liberating. The thesis will conclude, however, with an examination of where Carter’s own attempts at remythologising opens up an alternative space, or ‘elsewhere’, of feminine desires that allows for a refiguring of the female subject as well as more reciprocal relations between the sexes. Jennings ii Declarations I, Hope Jennings, hereby certify that this thesis, which is approximately 80,000 words in length, has been written by me, that it is the record of work carried out by me and that it has not been submitted in any previous application for a higher degree. Date Signature of Candidate I was admitted as a research student in September, 2002 and as a candidate for the degree of Ph.D. in July, 2003; the higher study for which this is a record was carried out in the University of St. Andrews between 2002 and 2006. Date Signature of Candidate I hereby certify that the candidate has fulfilled the conditions of the Resolution and Regulations appropriate for the degree of Ph.D. in the University of St. Andrews and that the candidate is qualified to submit this thesis in application for that degree. Date Signature of Supervisor In submitting this thesis to the University of St. Andrews I understand that I am giving permission for it to be made available for use in accordance with the regulations of the University Library for the time being in force, subject to any copyright vested in the work not being affected thereby. I also understand that the title and abstract will be published, and that a copy of the work may be made and supplied to any bona fide library or research worker. Date Signature of Candidate Jennings iii Acknowledgements I would like to thank The Sperry Fund for awarding me a Beinecke Scholarship, which extensively contributed towards funding my postgraduate studies; and the Alumni Association of Hunter College, Inc. for providing me with a David and Sadie Klau Foundation Fellowship for postgraduate research. Thanks are in due order to Dr. Alan Hausman for the time and energy he has invested in my academic career, as well as his continuing encouragement and assistance, especially with all matters regarding Freud. I am very grateful to Dr. Gill Plain, whose feedback on early drafts was invaluable, and for consistently being available to offer advice and further opportunities (both academic and financial). My deepest gratitude to Professor Susan Sellers, for her patience, insight, generosity, and confidence in the outcome of this thesis. She has allowed me the freedom to explore some of the most insane and impractical ideas, and her steady encouragement has helped guide me through both the personal and creative chaos of the past four years. I am also very appreciative of the administrative staff in the School of English, without whose practical assistance no research student could survive! Thanks as well to Student Support Services for helping me out of all those unexpected financial binds. Much thanks to my oldest, enduring family of friends back in the States: Midge and Chris McClosky, Christine and Geof Bowie, Laura Limonic, and Jimmy Crane (especially for taking in and loving Leo/Leah the transsexual cat). A heap of thanks and love to Elizabeth Bowie, for sharing survival tricks of whiskey and wine, all in a haze of photography, stories, and Cinderella fantasies. I am so grateful for having met some new enduring friends while at St. Andrews, too many to mention, but a special shout out to Karen Hayward, Jen Hess-Mouat, Sarah Taylor, and Rachel Marsh, to whom I am most indebted for innumerable reasons. Without you girls I would have been entirely helpless, especially after the infamous incident of the broken ankle! Thanks to Wil Moss for the new home, where most importantly I was able to find the space and quiet to finish writing this thesis. Last but not at all least, thanks to my much loved and much missed younger brothers, Joel, Jeremy and Seth; and to Stuart Cripps and Carolyn Jennings, for being married, respectively, to my mom and dad and thus becoming co-parents to me, with all the dedication and frustration that relationship implies. I am eternally grateful to my father, Randall, and my mother, Deborah, for their eternally unconditional gift of love, faith, and emotional, psychological, and financial support. This is suitably enough dedicated to both of you, because you have been the most peculiar and complex unit to have shaped my life, giving me far more than I could ever return. Jennings iv List of Contents Introduction: Journey Towards the (M)other…………………....1-22 Part One: Escaping Eden Chapter I: The Word, the Flesh, and the Fall…………………...24-46 Chapter II:A Monstrous God…………………………………....47-73 Chapter III: Eve at the End of the World……………………….74-103 Part Two: Elsewhere Chapter IV: Return to the Womb………………………………105-136 Chapter V: The New Woman…………………………………...137-171 Chapter VI: Family Romances…………………………………172-201 Conclusion: Further Departures…………………………….....202-210 Bibliography……………………………………………………...211-214 Jennings v Abbreviations All references to the following primary texts by Angela Carter will be cited parenthetically as follows: HF: ‘Penetrating to the Heart of the Forest’ HV: Heroes and Villains ML: ‘The Mother Lode’ MT: The Magic Toyshop NC: Nights at the Circus NE: The Passion of New Eve PW: ‘Peter and the Wolf’ SW: The Sadeian Woman WC: Wise Children Introduction: JOURNEY TOWARDS THE (M)OTHER For the yearning to believe in a point of origin, in a universe with a beginning, middle, and end, which functions in accordance with clear rules and predictable outcomes is as strong as the impossibility of its discovery…[.]We refuse to despair, desperately hoping instead that there is a secret origin, a secret design that will be revealed to us on arrival, although the journey may be arduous and the waiting long. ~ Maria Aristodemou1 As the above epigraph indicates, the notion of an origin holds a prevalent place in the human imagination, functioning as a narrative vehicle for conceptualising where we come from, often with the aim of understanding the present, and by extension, possible futures. However, the search for origins will always remain a tentative proposition, at best. Just as we are incapable of recalling our own processes of gestation and birth, we are also without the socio-historical means for remembering with certainty the birth of civilisation. Because there is no absolute form of knowledge surrounding what we consider to be the ‘prehistory’ of human cultures and languages, then origin narratives take on the cultural currency of myths. Origin myths are primarily intended to fill a gap or absence in our desire for self-knowledge, and like any myth, they reflect upon lived conditions or realities, and are thus inevitably invested with ideological interests. If we accept the premise that there is no ‘true’ origin to be discovered in the distant past, but is rather a notion that coexists with the concerns of our immediate present, then confronting how we construct our origins becomes a necessary task. In other words, by approaching origin narratives as products of current discourses and power structures we might begin to challenge the ways in which they significantly contribute to the construction of identities, whether they be psychological, cultural or geopolitical. 1 Maria Aristodemou, Law and Literature: Journeys from Her to Eternity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 235, 240.