Postmodern Pathologies: Living with Disbelief in The Fictions of Angela Carter AU interest in diseuse and death is only another expression of interest in life. --Thomas Mann Jennifer J. Gustar A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctorate Graduate Department of English University of Toronto O Copyright by Jennifer Joyce Gustar 1997 Bibliothéque nationale du Canada Acquisitions and Acquisitions et Bibliographic Services services bibliographiques 395 Wellington Street 395. rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A ON4 OttawaON KIAON4 canada CaMda The author hm granted a non- L'auteur a accordé une licence non exclusive licence dlowing the exclusive permettant à la National Library of Canada to Bibliothèque nationale du Canada de reproduce, loan, distribute or sell reproduire, prêter, distribuer ou copies of this thesis in microform, vendre des copies de cette thèse sous paper or electronic formats. la forme de microfiche/film, de reproduction sur papier ou sur format électronique. The author retains ownership of the L'auteur conserve la propriété du copyright in ths thesis. Neither the droit d'auteur qui protège cette thèse. thesis nor substantial extracts fiom it Ni la thèse ni des extraits substantiels may be printed or otheMrise de celle-ci ne doivent être imprimés reproduced without the author's ou autrement reproduits sans son permission. autorisation. ABSTRACT Postrnodem Pathologies: Living with Disbelief in the Fictions of Angela Carter Jennifer Joyce Gustar PhD Degree-June 1997 Graduate English Department University of Toronto This study of the narrative techniques employed in Angela Carter's novels, The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman and Nights at the Cireur. demonsirates that for Carter, at least, the postmodem project and the feminist one share concerns regarding the formation of subjectivities, the roles of narrative, and the possibilities for a politics of positioning in a postmodem climate of disbelief in master-narratives. The Introduction defines and examines the concepts that are centrai to locating my subject. A brief synopsis of postrnodemisrn is provided as well as a more extensive discussion of one particularly problematic master-narrative. the Oedipal paradigm. Drawing on the theones of Freud, Teresa de Lauretis. Hélène Cixous, and others, I demonstrate that Oedipal textuality is cornplicitous with a certain sexuality, one that privileges the male as the active agent of culhue and desire, and can be associated with narrative sadism. Part 1 shows thaf in nie Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hofian, Carter forestalls the death required by narrative. Through repetition, parody, ailegory and semantic play, Carter manages to perpetuate disbelief in the Oedipal paradigm through a postmodem strategy of installing that very paradigrn. Part II provides a reading of Carter's Nights ut the Circus that offers alternatives to received traditions of narrative. The metaphors of the confidence trick and of comic contagion provide means of speculating on alternatives to a narrative that is intrinsically sadistic. The possibility of revisioning Oedipal texhiality is Merexplored through the figure of Cassandra, who is inherently doubled in that she represents both the traditional silencing of Woman, because she is unheard (an Oedipal dynamic), at the same time as she prefigures the power of the seeress (a Cassandrian dynamic). The ultimate purpose of this study is to demonstrate that Carter's texts offer us strategies for living with the disbelief in metanarratives that characterizes the postmodern age. These strategies suggest possibilities, if not for derailing the Oedipal textual dynamic, then, for providing it with an altogether different mission. iii Acknowledgements 1 would like to thank my thesis supervisor, Dr. Linda Hutcheon, for her guidance, humour. support and belief. throughout the witing of this dissertation. She has always allowed for my own spirit of disbelief. Her work on postmodemism and her example of committed scholarship have inspired my research. writing and teaching. 1 would also like to thank my thesis cornmittee, Melba Cuddy-Keane, John Baird. Kay Armitage. and. particularly, the Extemal Examiner Alison Lee, for their perceptive and provocative insights. Much of my gratitude is owed to Angela Carter, her example and her writing. Although I never met her. 1 will miss her and will chensh the work that has survived her. Further. Teresa de Lauretis has awakened in me the knowledge that no narrative is innocent, while Doma Haraway has suggested ways of dealing with this loss of innocence. Sally Robinson's work assured me 1 was not alone in my thinking. Of course. there are rnany other writers and researchers whose names are acknowledged throughout my text and to whom 1 owe so much. Further, I would like to thank the Graduate English Department at the University of Toronto for providing me with an environment that both taught me the tradition and allowed me to question it. I am also extremely grateful to the English department for granting me four years of financial assistance in the fom of a University of Toronto Open Fellowship. The members of the English Programme at the University of Northem British Columbia also deserve my thanks for encouraging my work and for employing me as an instmctor? thus enabling the completion of my dissertation. iv In terms of persona1 acknowledgements, there are many who have assisted me in the completion of this project. Most important is the support of my family: Ted and Lois Gustar. Xeather Gustar. Joyce Evans and Wilfied Doust. Brian Demi11 and Lucie Nathan provided the kind of support I could only expect from family. Without this family. 1 would have found the cornmitments required by this project much more onerous than 1 did. There are also fnends and colleagues who were extraordinarily generous with their ideas and who assisted me in developing a position from which to write. One of these is Evelyn Cobley. whose graduate course in literary theory at the University of Victoria and the fiendship that ensued were tuming points for me. tdngme toward doctoral snidies. Othee, such as Teresa Heffernan and Kim Robinson, offered intellecnial inspiration and debate. as well as unfailing encouragement during my studies at the University of Toronto. 1 am also indebted to a nurnber of new fiends, colleagues who assisted me in the final stages of writing. Lee Keener carefully read the manuscript. Julia Emberley consistently encouraged this project. Kathryn Taglia supported me above and beyond the cal1 of duty. Ross Leckie offered astute guidance and helped me establish myself in my profession. A final, but very important, thanks is due to Philip Higham who saw this project through to the end, with his own style of unflagging belief. To al1 of these people-&ends, farnily and colleagues--1 owe my thanks for their belief in the possibility of 'living with disbelief. Table of Contents A bstract Acknowledgements Table of Contents Introduction: Diagnosing the Disease: Oedipal Narrative Part I Remembering Desire: Narrative Sadism Chapter 1: Desire Between the Covers Chapter 2: Machinations of Desire: Those Infernal Plots Chapter 3: Remembering Desire Chapter 4: The Machine 1s Us Chapter 5: Epidemic Desire and Re-covering Part II Living with Disbelief: Re-covering Narratives Chapter 6: Comic Contagion: The Ludic Game 163 Chapter 7: Re-membering Narrative: The Confidence Trick 173 Chapter 8: Re-membering Cassandra: Oedipus Gets Hysterical 211 Conclusion Chapter 9: Narratives in Re-mission: The Fictions of Angela Carter 252 Works Cited 263 INTRODUCTION Diaposing the Dis-ease: Living with Disbelief "One can't believe impossible things." "1 daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. " When 1 was your age, 1 always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." --Lewis Carroll, Throzigh the Looking-Glass This is a work that addresses (is addressed to?)' a name, a title--Angela Carter. Angela, of course, evokes for us the narne of "angel" which Alan Bass tells us. in his "Glossary" to Demda's The Posr Card, is derived fiom the Greek angelos. meaning messenger (xv). Carter, then, is an angel and a messenger--a messenger who serves a hnction, much like that of her own creation. the angel-messenger in Nights at the Cirnis. Fewers, who heralds "the New Cenniry" (Nights 281). It is my hope. here, to illuminate the message of the messenger. In this work, I will explore the significance of titles. entitling (naming), entitlement, for contemporary continental theory has taught us that "naming a symptom does not deal with it" (Fleiger 5). As Hélène Cixous has shown, the idea of the name and the entitlement inscnbed in any naming necessarily lead us to 'See Derrida's "Sending: On Representation" and the conclusion of this introduction. 2 question the notions of ongin and ownership--what names belong to whom--and my text will partake of her insighü. Thus, my text will address the meaning of the narne, the significance of the title and the politics of entitlement. Mine will be a text rife with borrowings (some might prefer the term intertexts) and citations--as namings of the other. because, as Cixous observes, [t]o flyfsteal is wornan's gesture, to steal into lanpage to make it fly. We have al1 learned £Iight/theft, the art with many techniques, for al1 the centuries we have only had access to having by stealinglflying; we have lived in a flightkhefi. steaiing/flying, fmding the close, concealed ways-through of desire. Ir's not just luck if the word "voler" volleys between the "vol" of theft and the "vol" of flight- pleasuring in each and routing the sense police. It is not just luck: wornan partakes of bird and burglar. just as the burglar partakes of woman and bird: hesheits pass. hesheits fly by.