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.

3 Table of Contents 1. Introduction ...... 5 2. Monstrosity and the Grotesque ...... 8 2.1 Angela Carter. A British Postmodern and Feminist Writer ...... 8 2.2 Monstrosity as a Myth ...... 15 2.3 Bakhtin’s Carnival and Grotesque Bodies ...... 18 3. Nights at the Circus ...... 21 3. 1 Fevvers ...... 23 3.2 The Male Monsters – Buffo and Walser ...... 31 4. Wise Children ...... 34 4.1 Dora, the Seductress ...... 36 4.2 Grandmother Chance – The Ghost in the Closet ...... 42 5. The Magic Toyshop ...... 45 5.1 The Monstrous Uncle Philip ...... 46 5.2 The Monstrous Toyshop and the Mechanical Monster ...... 52 6. The Conclusion ...... 55 7. Bibliography ...... 60 8. Resumes ...... 63 8.1 English Resume ...... 63 8.2 České resumé ...... 65

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

4 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.

5 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 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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7 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

8 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 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

9 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 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.

10 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 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.

11 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 State, is preserved in her later writing as

an assault on the confining codes of „femininity.‟ (Jordan 119)

Although Carter was a self-proclaimed feminist, she had chosen a different approach to femininity, and its liberation, thus her demonstration of feminism differs from the common assumption.

When referring to authors, genres and literary techniques that had influenced her writing it is impossible to omit fairy tales and the myth. Carter edited two books of fairy tales for Virago Books, wrote a couple of children‟s books, and published a collection of subverted fairy tales The Bloody Chamber

12 and Other Stories. Considering its origin, it is hard to define the fairy tale genre.

The name comes from a literal translation of the French term „contes de fees‟- fairy tale. However, a fairy tale need not involve fairies or any fantastic creatures and as Marina Warner proposes “more than the presence of fairies, the moral function, the imagined antiquity and oral anonymity of the ultimate source, and the happy ending …, [and] metamorphosis define the genre” (1994, XVI).

According to many critics, fairy tales and mythology and their archetypes are omnipresent in our culture, because they “are often our first experience of literature and film,” and thus their reinterpretations differ depending on a person‟s cultural background (Robinson 224). Carter in her writing often deconstructs the female archetypes of fairy tales and explores their journeys to

“a future domestic happiness” (228). To reach it the heroine “must be willing to self-sacrifice” whatever is needed, “and avoid instinctual warnings of overt dangers” (228). Carter deconstructs these journeys using metaphors and metamorphosis. Although this thesis does not deal with fairy tales as such, neither with those subverted by Angela Carter, the deconstruction of the fairy tale genre and its archetypes can be found in Nights at the Circus, Wise

Children and The Magic Toyshop, the novels this thesis explores. Warner claims that Carter in these novels

conjures gleefully with fairy tale motifs: changelings and winged beings,

muted heroines, beastly metamorphoses, arduous journeys and

improbable encounters, magical rediscoveries and happy endings … In

the contexts of fairy tale narrator‟s Carter was deeply fascinated with

female impersonation, as a literary device, as a social instrument of

disruption, as an erotic provocation, with bravura, she made theatrical

13 burlesque and music-hall travesties into a high style; her own prose [is]

glitteringly, self-mockingly hybrid, contrived and slangy at once,

mandarin and vulgar, romantic and cynical. (1994, 194)

Carter combines fairy tale and the myth elements and subverts them to portray monstrosity in the characters of the latter mentioned novels.

In an interview with Anna Katsavos Carter defines the myth according

Roland Barthes and claims it consists of “ideas, images, stories that we tend to take on trust without thinking what they really mean.” In another interview, with Bailey for the BBC, she is asked about fairy tales and she says: “Fairytales aren‟t about fairies as such, they‟re about demons, about people behaving in nasty ways, sometimes in nice ways.” Marina Warner in her Reith Lectures explains that

the word „myth‟, from Greek, means a form of speech, while the word

„monster‟ is derived in the opinion of one Latin grammarian, from

monestrum, via moneo, and encloses the notions of advising, of

reminding and above all of warning. But moneo, in the word monstrum

has come under the influence of terises the form of speech myth often

takes: a myth shows something, it‟s a story spoken to a purpose, it issues

a warning, it gives an account which advises and tells often by bringing

into play showings of fantastical shape and invention - monsters. Myths

define enemies and aliens and in conjuring them up they say who we are

and what we want, they tell stories to impose structure and order. Like

fiction, they can tell the truth even while they‟re making it all up. (MM

19)

14 Although no particular distinction between fairy tale and the myth has been drawn and, currently, the terms are rather synonymous, Sellers states, that there is an important difference in their historical evolution and she

“[continues] to see a happy ending as the peculiar province of fairy tale” (16). On the other hand the element of monstrosity connotates more with the myth genre. Carter combines both of them, along with the elements and genres discussed above; and as a result, creates for herself a unique style. Hence, if the word postmodernism hasn‟t been around “someone would have to invent it for

Angela Carter,” since her writing has a “considerable amount of gut” (Jouve

149). Angela Carter is a great example why postmodernism is so hard to define.

2.2 Monstrosity as a Myth

Monstrosity has been a significant element in literature and culture since ancient times. However, its perception has been changing, the female monstrosity has retained its menacing nature. The western culture has always dealt with chimeras, vampires, witches, and their viciousness. It is interesting to look at the way the postmodern world perceives monstrosity, as monsters are considered to be part of mythology, fairy tale, fantasy, horror and video games.

Reading Angela Carter‟s work one realizes that monsters are omnipresent, may be disguised in everyday objects, stories or the characters‟ dreams and fantasies.

Carter through intertextuality stresses the importance of monsters in the western culture and its understanding of female sexuality.

Marina Warner in her lectures Managing Monsters explores the history of monstrosity in the western culture and the development of people‟s perception of the she-monster. She claims that the myth has been a part of our

15 everyday contemporary lives since “a myth is a kind of story told in public which people tell one another; they wear an air of ancient wisdom, but that is the part of their seductive charm” (MM 13). She opens her lectures by discussing the way we perceive dinosaurs – the prehistoric inhabitants of the Earth – and how our ideas about their character and behaviour are rather presumptuous. “The dinosaurs are presented as authentic forerunners in time, scientifically accurate but at the same time their character has evolved to embody contemporary fantasies” (2). They represent the living the myth among us, as their portrayal is scientifically accurate, but they embody contemporary views and myths, especially regarding our idea about the female dinosaurs – velociraptor. Warner argues that “dinosaurs, even called monsters seems benign giants, but today” owing to Michel Crichton‟s Jurassic Park, and later adapted by Spielberg,

“they‟ve become cunning, voracious, nippy - and female” (2). In Jurassic Park the feared monsters are not the male dinosaurs but for the first time they are the cunning female ones.

Since ancient times it has been the female freedom and intelligence that has produced more fear in people rather than man‟s muscles and rage. Men, being rulers, gods and thus oppressors in a way have always raised and retained fear in people hence the he-monster is more legible and obvious, thus expected.

“Male beasts don‟t posses the same degree of duplicity: you can tell you‟re dealing with the devil on the whole,” in contrast with the female disguised and unexpected monstrosity (5). Although it is convenient to portray the difference in the female and male monstrosity on the dinosaurs and velociraptors, “the she-monster‟s hardly a new phenomenon” (4). The history of human storytelling abounds with heroes fighting the untamed female nature, from the Greek sirens and harpies, medieval witches, to Victorian vampirical duchesses. This projects

16 into the popular culture – comic books, horror film and even popular music stars like Madonna, Lady Gaga or Mylie Cyrus seem to be obsessed with the idea of a she-monster. Modern myths still approach the enigma of sexual difference using very old simple formulae - and if the girls are getting tough the tough are getting tougher” (24). There is quite a bit of violence and abuse present in the musical videos of the contemporary pop-icons. The heroines (usually the singers themselves) of these videos struggle with home violence, alcoholism and other elements of male archetypical powers.

The myths about cunning she monsters originate from people‟s observation of the wild nature, where the females are more dangerous when they are looking after their offspring. Women as well as their animal counterparts have needed to be fierce to protect their children. Their fierceness and the fact that at the same time, they are expected to be subtle and beautiful are contradictions, which round them off as vicious she-monsters. Although it is usually just the fierceness that triggers fear in people, the she-monsters usually have somewhat altered bodies – from warts on the witches nose, the pale skin of a vampire to wings that grow from Fevvers‟ shoulders. Warner claims that

Myths of female aberration predispose the mind to believe in these

monstrous crimes; in even more sinister fashion, they offer imaginary

models for action - the new witch craft movement models its rituals on

inquisitorial manuals which synthesised the most grotesque and fearful

phantasmagoria. (MM 7- 8)

The female she monsters have always been hunted if they did not conform to the supposed social norms; whether they are witches, whores, feminists or single mothers, their independence has always triggered fear and thus violence on them. As I have stated above, the Western society has always dealt with

17 monstrous of various kinds and “the appearance of monster is intrinsic to at least one kind of fundamental mythological story - the story of origins. Dragons serpents and beasts multiply in the genealogies of the gods and the origins of the created world;” As much as do angels in the Christian point of view, however

Fevvers, has rather gone wild from such presumption and more than admiration raises curiosity and disbelief (19).

Warner in her lectures draws a difference between the perception and portrayal of male and female monstrosity and she claims that difference is that male are more culture coded whereas females are nature coded (2). According to her male beasts are more straightforward as they don‟t posses “the same degree of duplicity: you can tell you‟re dealing with the devil on the whole” (5), which supports my theory that man are monstrous in the way they use violence and oppression to gain power (in Carter‟s stories usually over the female characters), whereas females are driven to monstrous behaviour to gain their sovereignty.

She also claims that “feminism could not proceed without facing women‟s crimes as well as their wrongs - the ills they did as well as those done to them, meaning that women have not always fought fair, and have been cunning; however, their deeds have been reactions to what has been done to them (8).

Although the heroines of Nights at the Circus, Wise Children and The Magic

Toyshop do not share the same motivation and they cannot be referred to as feminists on the whole (maybe except for Lizzie), they use their cunning spirits to reach their goals.

2.3 Bakhtin’s Carnival and Grotesque Bodies

According to Dictionary.com carnival is “a show or display arranged as an amusement … a festive occasion or period marked by merrymaking.” Carter

18 incorporates such show or a display of supposed merrymaking in her novels where it functions as a setting for the catharsis of the stories. For example, her last novel Wise Children closes with a grand party to celebrate a one hundredth birthday of a theatre and film star Melchior Hazard. In Nights at the Circus the circus and various brothels represent Carter‟s use of carnivalesque. The carnivalesque setting along with the characters embody the “exaggeration, hyperbolism, excessiveness [which] are generally considered fundamental attributes of the grotesque style” (Bakhtin 303). The combination of carnivalesque, grotesque bodies and the myth help Carter create her own world of magic realism.

In Bakhtin‟s theory of carnivalesque the central element is the grotesque body, which

is a body in the act of becoming. It is never finished, never completed: it

is continually built, created, and builds and creates another body.

Moreover, the body swallows the world and is itself swallowed by the

world … Eating, drinking, defecation and other elimination (sweating,

blowing of the nose, sneezing), as well as copulation, pregnancy,

dismemberment, swallowing up by another body – all these acts are

performed on the confines of the body and the outer world, or on the

confines of the old and new body. In all these events the beginning and

end of life are closely linked and interwoven. (317)

Carter‟s characters embody the inappropriate, grotesque bodies and their seemingly incorrect behaviour and as such become the drivers of the stories.

The subjects of the thesis, the winged giantess Fevvers, her midget foster- mother Lizzie in Nights at the Circus, the twin seductresses and their incestuous family, and chauvinistic usurper Uncle Philip and his bizarre world of

19 mechanical toys analysis; have different background and motivations, however they share the grotesque and together they create Carter‟s sophisticated, magical and carnivalesque world.

20 3. Nights at the Circus

One of Carter‟s later novels, Night at the Circus, acknowledged as a fine example of her magic realism, is set in Europe at the dawn of the nineteenth century. Fevvers‟ slogan “Is she fact or is she fiction?,” which introduces us to the story of Nights at the Circus, is an allusion to the story which though having real settings and allusions to the real world, is interwoven with mysterious and magical characters and events (7). It follows a story of an American journalist,

Walser, who in London interviews an aerialist, Fevvers, and accompanies her on her adventures in St. Petersburg and across Siberia in order to write a story about her. Since the narrative is nonlinear and kaleidoscopic rather than chronological, it portrays life stories of a great number of characters; curiously enough, due to the novel‟s narrative style it is more informative on the life stories of several minor characters than on Fevvers or Walser. The usually third person omnipresent narrator seems to be presenting only Walser‟s perspective on the events, combined with Lizzie‟s and Fevvers‟ first person narrative in dialogues, which offer no more information than newspaper articles; and as such cannot be trusted. She thus creates a magical atmosphere filled with the supernatural. Carter constructs her magical realism through the kaleidoscopic narration, the circus and Siberian folklore setting and the impalpable notion of time (Franková 55).

The magical atmosphere of the circus and brothel setting makes it natural for various kinds of monsters, like giants, imps, freaks and savages, to appear. In Nights at the Circus monstrosity is portrayed on many levels – from the obvious – physical, bizarre bodies to the ambiguous and hidden inner magic. Kérchy argues that

21 the Carterian bodies are excessive. They revel (though always with a

touch of self-irony) in gluttony, vanity or debauchery, and are portrayed

submerged in troubling materiality during copulation, pregnancy, aging,

devouring, digesting, disgorging, decaying, dismemberment, or

disintegration. They are heterogeneous, mingling sublime, and abject,

hilarious, horrific, pretended simulacrum and material reality. They are

open, ever-changing and unfinished … in the constant transitory state of

„becoming a woman‟. (34)

However, the Carterian bodies are not the only illustration of monstrosity,

Carter also depicts the uncanny and inner nature of the characters. Her characters always posses duplicity in a sense that their monstrosity is not only outer but also inner driven, usually by their sexual desires.

The circus environment is filled with a fantastical atmosphere of mortal danger and chaotic clown dances, which start quietly “as the dance of the rude mechanicals in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, then soon their measures [go] sour, [turn] cruel, [turn] into a dreadful libel upon the whole notion of dancing”

(NC 123). The clown dances and miming performances, led by Buffo the Great, filled with beastly, obscene violence, are based on Shakespearean plays, and portray the violence of male monstrosity (124). According to Walser the “Circus itself, constructed to house permanent displays of the triumphs of man‟s will over gravity and over rationality …,” which reminds of men perpetual endeavour to rule the world with violence (105). However violence and chaos on their own cannot subdue the world – it needs science. This is apparent to the Colonel, the

Circus‟ owner, and thus he hires the Professor to help him through his diagrams, which Walser “[cannot] make any sense of”, to overcome the circus audience with the power of science (108).

22 The notion of time throughout the novel is vague, starting with Walser hearing the clock in Fevvers‟ parlour strike midnight three times. Walser recognises that something is not exactly the way it is suppose to be, although

“the time outside still [corresponds] to … the stopped gilt clock, inside;” he knows it is not possible. Carter uses the vague notion of time to enhance the mysterious atmosphere and support the fact that the two women cannot be trusted. In the envoi of the story Walser learns that Fevvers and Lizzie played a trick on Walser with Ma Nelson‟s clock and “for the duration of their story they

[maintained] the illusion that time is suspended” (Finney). Thus Carter creates an illusion of that the story within its time framework cannot be trusted.

3. 1 Fevvers

Fevvers, the central character, is a winged woman, an aerialist, a giantess, referred to as the Cockney Venus, whose baffling past is in contrast with her public appearance. She displays all, yet hides everything. She does not represent the classical Carterian she-monster from fairy tales; she is not a wicked witch with a wart. She is very sexual, which might be caused by being brought up by a brothel mama and her concubines, and Walser‟s admiration of her changes to confusion, and attraction to repulsion. To Walser and thus to the reader there is an uncanny, yet erotic, quality about her. He does not consider her pretty, yet he feels a strong, unexplainable attraction towards her. Walser, “a little unfinished,” intelligent and, especially “a good reporter” (NC 10), who is driven by reason “which can be awake and beget monsters. Extreme fantastical, and insubstantial as they are, they materialise real desires and fears; they embody meaning at a deep, psychic level (MM 20). They represent the binary

23 oppositions, which drive the story – the mysterious, sexually driven she- monster and her rather inexperienced and sense driven companion.

Fevvers‟ deformed giant body resembles one of a bird or the prehistorical velociraptor. She “emblematizes change and womanly revolt through embodying the carnivalesque grotesque celebrated by Bakhtin” (Kérchy 153).

She represents, in her monstrosity, the changing perception of women and their sexuality, though then possible only in brothels and circuses. From her youth she has been chosen to welcome customers to Ma Nelson‟s upscale brothel at first as a cupid, later as The Winged Victory; Madam Schreck puts her on display in her “museum of woman monsters” (NC 55), in St. Petersburg she is nearly sacrificed on the altar of Rosentcreutz‟s monstrous desire, and deep in

Siberia her legend precedes her when the savages expect her to be the one to help them. It is her appearance that allows her to travel, meet and be desired by the most important, however, it also exposes her and makes her vulnerable.

Fevvers‟ wings are not the only uncommon thing about her, she is also quite big for a normal woman, and therefore referred to as a giantess. Like birds‟ her torso is much larger than her lower limbs, however, they

don‟t tally with [her] upper part of [her] body from the point of view of

pure aesthetics … Were [she] to be the true copy of Venus, one built on

[her] scale ought to have legs like tree trunks … these flimsy little

underpinnings of [hers] have more than once buckled up under the top-

heavy distribution of weight upon [her] torso … [they] ain‟t fitted out

like neither bird nor woman down below. (41)

Her disproportional torso, which is probably meant to serve as a support for her large wings creates a common female problem as her clothes must be mended to fit “her altered figure” (27). She represents a strange mixture of a bird and

24 female characters, similarly to mythological harpies, who, however, resemble more birds than women. Harpies are also referred to as lovely-haired creatures.

In Western culture hair has represented female untameable sexuality, and thus a virtuous women should conceal it, although Fevvers‟ hair is not her most withstanding feature, it sparks Walser‟s desire for her.

The maid [unties] the blue ribbon that kept in check the simmering wake

of the young woman‟s hair, which she [has laid] over her left arm as if

displaying a length of carpet and [has started] to belabour vigorously. It

[is] a sufficiently startling head of hair, yellow and inexhaustible as sand,

thick as cream, sizzling and whispering under the brush. Fevvers‟ head

[goes] back, her eyes half closed, she [sighs] with pleasure. Lizzie might

have been grooming a palomino; yet Fevvers [is] a humped-back horse.

(19)

The process of combing Fevvers‟ hair appears, for a moment, erotic to Walser, however, he quickly realises that she is rather a monster than a beauty and compares her to a deformed animal to banish his thoughts. “She was always the cripple” (19) even though she fascinated people. Fevvers‟ hair, along with her eyes, possesses an uncanny quality, which attracts Walser to her. During the interview she gulps wine and champagne, and flirtatiously gazes at him, as if she knew these were her only qualities to make him believe her story and seduce him

Walser felt the strangest sensation, as if these eyes of the aerialiste were

a pair of sets of Chinese boxes, as if each opened into a world into a world

into a world, an infinite plurality of worlds, and these unguessable depths

exercised the strongest possible attraction, so that he felt himself

trembling as if he, too, stood on an unknown threshold. (30)

25 The possibility that her eyes might open a Pandora box, arouse simultaneously excitement and fear, because “when evil comes in female guise, [one has] to beware” (MM 5). Walser senses that Fevvers might hide something dangerous and notes that there is “something fishy about the Cockney Venus” (NC 8).

Walser constantly observes the uncanny qualities of “Fevvers‟ hysteric

[and] infantile body” as she amazes him and awakens curiosity in him (Kérchy

9). The first time they encounter her “notorious and much-debated wings, the source of her fame, [are] stowed away for the night under the soiled quilting of her baby-blue satin dressing gown” (NC 7 – 8). The wings are concealed as her two precious creatures which she does not want to show him yet. They are “an uncomfortable-looking pair of bulges,” which as if independent of Fevvers‟ body

“[shudder] the surface of the taut fabric from time to time as if desirous of breaking loose” (7 – 8). However, the time spent drinking in her parlour and trying to absorb as much of Fevvers‟ and her story, makes Walser realize that “a redoubtable corset of this kind called an Iron Maiden [has poked out] of the empty coalscuttle like the pink husk of giant prawn emerging from its den, trailing long laces like several sets of legs” (9). Suddenly, everything surrounding Fevvers in her dressing room seems mysterious and uncanny.

Her wings, which are the most unusual feature about her leave Walser in doubt, as he soon realizes that it is not the reality of her having wings which is impossible, but the fact that she has wings growing from her back between her shoulderblades and arms and thus as an Indian goddess, she possess six limbs.

Walser reasons the looks of her body as if reciting from a biology schoolbook:

“The wings of the birds are nothing more than the forelegs, or, as we should say, the arms, and the skeleton of a wing does indeed show elbows, wrists and fingers, all complete … Put it in another way: would you believe a lady with four

26 arms, all perfect like a Hindu goddess, hinged on either side of those shoulders of a voluptuous stevedore” (15). His doubts correspond with her slogan: Is she fact or is she a fiction, which reappears throughout the story. It is a central question of the story that Walser asks, whether a normal woman shall pretend she is a monster to earn herself fame, or if, “in the implausible event” that such a thing as a genuine bird woman existed, she has to “pretend she [is] an artificial one” (NC 17). Yet later Walter realises, though he still thinks of her as of a freak and “a marvellous monster,” that as a woman, she “owes it to herself to remain a woman … it is her human duty” (161). It is the moment of Fevvers‟ weakness, when Walser realizes that Fevvers is a human, though quite monstrous with

“her face thickly coated with rouge and powder and [showing] her white, … big and carnivorous [teeth] as those of Red Riding Hood‟s grandmother;” he also becomes aware of the fact he has fallen in love with her (18). From a sexual subject of pure desire dreams when he meditates “upon the erotic possibilities of her ability to hover and the problematic of his paunch vis-a-vis the missionary position,” she turns into a woman with damaged body (18). Yet he still needs to learn her real name – the secret, which is still yet to be revealed to him.

Fevvers, the name the aerialist goes by, is, as we learn, not her deeply guarded Christian name, as Walser learns later in the story. Nonetheless, naming her Fevvers after her feathered wings seems as natural as naming a horse star after the star marking on its head. Fevvers tells Walser that “when

[she] was a baby, you could have distinguished [her] in a crowd of foundlings only by this little bit of down, of yellow fluff, on [her] back, on top of both [her] shoulderblades. Just like the fluff on a chick, it was. [...] sweetly sleeping among a litter of broken eggshells, [Lizzie] who stumbled over this abandoned creature

27 clasped [her] at that moment in her arms out of the abundant goodness of her heart and took” her inside Ma Nelsons‟ whore house, where one the concubines spoke in her cockney English: “Looks like the little thing‟s going to sprout

Fevvers!” (NC 12). And so as an animal offspring she earned a name.

Although it is quite clear how she has earned her name, her origin is concealed with mystery. Nor Walser neither the reader ever learn who are her natural parents as she claims to be “hatched” like a bird (21). “Who laid [her] is as much a mystery to [her],” as it is to her audience and “the nature of [her] conception, [her] father and [her] mother [are] both utterly unknown to [her], and some would say, unknown to nature, what‟s more” ( 21). However none of this can be trusted as it is told by Fevvers, in first person dialogue narrative, and thus it makes her story of her origin questionable. She assures Walser it “is the whole truth and nothing but, sir.” She makes him feel exclusive as she confesses that “never [has she] told it to a living man before.” (21) She again confesses exclusively to Walser when she talks about dying her wings to “simulate more perfectly the tropic bird.” (25) She is constantly trying to make him feel he is her confidant, nonetheless, the more she tries the more she makes him think of her concealed and perhaps non existent umbilical, which he considers to be the only proof to her story. His reason tells him that only her body can prove her words.

When Fevvers describes how she spread her wings for the first time,

Kérchy claims that “Fevvers is playing on the subversive potential of the

“pregnant body‟s stereotypical „female grotesquerie,‟ metaphorically giving birth to herself again and again anew ripping her chemise is extremely erotic; yet her rebirth,” is combined with death” of Lizzie‟s the femininity (156). At the awakening of Fevvers‟ sexuality she realizes that “if [she] has wings, [she] must fly” (NC 25), although this seems as an obvious presupposition, when she tries

28 for the first time she cannot even hover and ends up just jumping and thumping. Such experience makes her think it is also a space she needs to fly, so the air can support her and that cannot be done in a room. So she decides to try and jump out of her attic window – which is rather a fly or die experiment. As she is preparing to jump out and to spread her wings and fly, she freaks out in fear of “the proof of [her] own singularity” (34) – the proof of being different.

This experience resembles a girl fearing the first time she bleeds, as such moment symbolizes an irreversible change. Lizzie, her foster mother, who cannot wait for her to gather her wits pushes her and thus

the transparent arms of the wind receive the virgin … as [she hurdls] past

the windows of the attic in which [she passes] the precious white nights

of girlhood, so the wind [comes up] beneath [her] outspread wings and,

with a jolt, [she finds herself] hanging in the mid-air and the garden [lies]

beneath [her] like the board of a marvellous game and [stays] where [she

is]. The earth did not rise up to meet me. I was secure in the arms of my

invisible lover. (34)

When Fevvers talks about the wind that keeps her from falling on the ground she refers to him as to a male, as to a lover and thus her first flight symbolizes the loss of her innocence. “While [she] depended from him, numb with amazement, he, as if affronted by [her] passivity, started to let [her] slip through his fingers…” (34). Then she realizes she cannot be passive as the wind will not hold her and “[she kicks] up with [her] heels… and then, with long, increasingly confident strokes, [she parts] them and [brings] them back together,” finding the right way to do it (35).

Fevvers‟ is “a self-ironic, self-made woman,” who creates, with Lizzie‟s help, her own myth. Nothing that is told by her neither Lizzie, nor the 3rd

29 person narrative about her and her life can be trusted (Kérchy 163). We learn a lot about her physical appearance, her deeds and experience, however, there is not much we learn about her character, thoughts and desires. With her wings she is “recycling Leda and her divine Swan, as well as the Lowly pigeon” – she is full of contrast – a monstrous woman with no past desired by the most powerful

(163). “Her flight relies on myths and gossip, art and craft” as even Walser doubts her abilities and searches for flaws in her magic (163). She is dependent on “the established knowledge of library books, on Baudelaire‟s metaphor on the albatross-artist, just as much as on Lizzie‟s innovative, pragmatic calculations” and supposed magic (163). Everything about Fevvers‟ is excessive, her flirtatiousness, her theatrical dresses, costumes, “impenetrable make-up,” her parrot-like dyed wings or her hair dyed too blond and her bussom too big – her femininity is overwhelming (NC 123).

It is Lizzie, Fevvers‟ foster mother, who helps her to create a fable about her. She is also a kind of a she-monster as she is “a tiny, wizened, gnome-like apparition” who might be between thirty and fifty; her

snapping, black eyes, sallow skin, an incipient moustache on the upper

lip and a close-cropped frizzle of tri-coloured hair – bright grey at the

roots, stark grey in between, burnt with henna at the tips. The shoulders

of her skimpy, decent, black dress were white with dandruff. She had a

brisk air of bristle, like a terrier bitch. There was ex-whore written all

over her. (NC 13)

However, her monstrosity from Fevvers‟ differs. She does not use her sexuality to manipulate Walser, but a kind of magic with which she manipulates time and thus action around her. She also uses her powerful story-telling abilities to manipulate Walser in believing what she wants him to believe. Although Walser

30 is aware of her biased motherly view, he has no one else to hear Fevvers‟ story, but Fevvers herself.

3.2 The Male Monsters – Buffo and Walser

Anna Kérchy in her Body Texts suggests that Fevvers and Buffo, although they “never appear together, never meet face to face throughout the novel” are doppelgangers as they “embody opposing facets of a single plural Janus face, two different sides of the same coin” (198). Buffo the Great, “terrible, hilarious, appalling and devastating Clown of the Clowns,” has started his circus career as an acrobat and later has fallen, like an angel, among the sad clowns (NC 116).

He compares the clowns‟ jobs to the ones of whores, since they are

the whore‟s of mirth, for like a whore, [they] know what [they] are; [they]

know [they] are mere hirelings hard at work and yet those who hire

[them] see [them] as beings perpetually at play. [Their] work is [the

customers‟] pleasure; too, so there is always an abyss between [the

customers‟] notion of [their] work as play, and theirs, of [customers‟]

leisure as [their] labour. (119)

The clowns, similarly to whores, are admired and despised, sought after and deprecated. Fevvers thus, too, is a source of admiration, however she is feared for her supernatural looks and abilities.

Despite Buffo and Fevvers‟ similarities, their monstrosity differs.

Contrary to Fevvers he provokes no sexual desire but fear. He is depicted as an ugly destroyed and almost inhuman person. He arouses fear, disgust and pity in people with his “white face and the inch-wide rings of rouge round his eyes, and his four-cornered mouth, like a bow tie” (116). He is, like Fevvers, a big man in an oversized suit to enhance hi hilariousness. In his extensiveness he trips over

31 things around him and destroys everything he touches. He is a male monster, a violent one, though unintentionally. During his performance everything around him collapses “as if a grenade exploded” (117). Kérchy claims he is “a chimeric emblem of perversion, corruption, and chaos,” he thus is rather than Fevvers‟ twin, an evil-twin of hers – her “darker double” (200). He is an illustration of

Fevvers were she to be male.

Buffo represents cruelty and violence in the story; similarly to Fevvers, who in her monstrosity is a portrayal of cunning female sexuality, enhanced. He never manages to evoke a pure merriment in people, though they laugh, but blames it on his audience as he believes “they don‟t laugh in heaven” either (NC

120). He questions his job when he asks: “And who shall make the clown laugh

(121);” and knows well that “despair is the constant companion of the Clown”

(119). The source of Buffo‟s violence is in his despair and disappointment of not fulfilling his career objective – making people laugh mirthfully. On his last performance, in delirium he, with “a horrible grimace” attempts to stab the

Human Chicken – Walser – to death; he circles him as a beast circles its prey and he is stoppable only by a bucket of water (119). Following this unfortunate theatre of cruelty Buffo is in his madness dragged out and banished from the circus.

Walser on the other hand is Buffo‟s and Fevvers‟ opposite – an inexperienced journalist, however a good reporter … and a connoisseur of the tall tale (11). He is sort of manipulated into sitting and listening to what the two woman have to say for long hours as they keep pouring him wine, order food and they pay no attention to his resentment. He later accompanies them to St.

Petersburg seemingly for no reason, just to write a tale about entitled: “The

Great Humbugs of the World,” joins the circus crew, to be almost stabbed to

32 death, and than to save himself becomes a shaman in a remote Siberian village

(11). Walser

[has] not experienced his experience as experience; sandpaper his

outsides as experience might, his inwardness [is] left untouched. In all

his young life, he [has] not felt so much as one single quiver of

introspection. If he [is] afraid of nothing, it [is] not because he [is] brave;

like the boy in the fairy story who does not know how to shiver, Walser

[does] not know how to be afraid. So his habitual disengagement was

involuntary; it is not the result of judgement, since judgement involves

the positives and negatives of belief. (NC 10)

The whole of the tale that happens to him happens not because he has pursued it but because of pure happiness. As he has no fear he possesses no monstrosity in him – he is the good guy, a young handsome good guy who “[is] strong, [is] versatile, and thus he is dragged along (101). By Fevvers he is at first considered harmless, uninteresting and “unhatched,” however when she later discovers him in the midst of Siberia “she [sees] he [is] not the man he [was] or [will] be again”

(290). Walser here represents an opposite to Fevvers – her complete opposite – a handsome, uninteresting man from a good family, who through her monstrous sexuality helps him discover himself.

33 4. Wise Children

Angela Carter wrote her last book, Wise Children, when she already knew she was dying of cancer and as such it is a salute to the British literary world. It is written in first person narrative; narrated by Dora Chance, one of the famous dancing twins, and as such she cannot be trusted. She narrates the story one and half century history of the theatrical Hazard family and “deliberately teases the reader” (Kérchy 216). The framework setting of the novel is London – the birthplace and home to the two sisters. Dora believes that London is not one city but two and that they were born on the wrong side – the claim that the South side is “the bastard side of Old Father Thames,” directs the reader to a notion that the story is not about a high class theatre performers, but about two low- end dancers, whose story resembles that of the circus aerialist Fevvers – admired and despised at the same time (WC 1). She reveals their “wrong- sidedness” immediately so that it is clear they belong among those of working class, and so that later there is no confusion when they appear among those from the upper class. She speaks to us in “a carnivalesque voice that overturns hierarchies, relativizes differences, and celebrates solidarity by challenging patriarchally canonized narrative traditions, autobiographical or historiographical conventions, and engendered phallogocentric representations of his-stories” (Kérchy 216). In her narrative she flirts and seduces the reader as she flirts and seduces numerous men.

The carnivalesque in the story appears on numerous occasions, however, it graduates at the grand party to celebrate Melchior Hazard‟s, Dora and Nora‟s father‟s, birthday. The party is hosted in the posh Hazard house in Regent‟s

Park, which

34 [boasts] a ball room and that ballroom [is] a sight to see … Red marble

columns with gold tops [hold] up the ceiling, which [is] plastered with

acanthus wreaths, pineapples, harps, palm frond, bunches of grapes, and

lurking cherubs. There [is] a ten-gallon wedding cake in the shape of a

chandelier hanging by a chain, winking, blinking and sending out

rainbows and it [is] lit with real candles. There [are] lit candles

everywhere … filling the air with the smell of hot wax, warming [them] all

up … [and] there [is] lilac everywhere. In bowls, in jars, in cornucopias.

White lilac, the evening floral theme. (WC 198)

Uncle Peregrine‟s arrival is quite epic, too, as he arrives with “tremendous knocking at the front door,” surprising everybody by not being supposedly dead

(206). He does not announce his arrival to “upstage his own brother” (207) and

“in on the wind that [comes] with Perry [blow] dozens and dozens of butterflies, red ones, yellow ones, brown and amber ones … settling on women‟s bare shoulders, men‟s bald spots.” With that he creates a feeling of the magical in the room reminding of the fairies dances in Shakespeare‟s A Midsummer’s Night

Dream. After having an incestuous sex with Dora, he claims “life is a carnival”

(222). Incest appears on several occasion in the story as Dora has sex with her uncle and her legal father twice, in fact, she looses her virginity to him, Saskia is a relationship with her half-brother Tristam, Peregrine and Melchior share their wives as much as Dora and Nora share their lovers. It is even suggested and later denied that Dora and Nora are biological daughters of Peregrine and their

Grandmother Chance, which Peregrine rejects it claiming that “[he]‟s got some standards” (222)! The story abounds with twins, hypersexual twins who share their partners and children. Dora compares herself to Uncle Perry, she believes he has always loved them and could see under the layers of their make-up, and

35 “although promiscuous, he also [is] faithful, and, where he [loves], he never

[alters], nor [sees] any alteration. And then [she wonders], [is she] built the same way, too?” (208). She then realizes she observes him in sexual way and refers to him as to an object of “his desire,” however also a father and the only one who could understand them (208). The abundance of twins in the Hazard family hints at Carter‟s fascination with Shakespeare, however, her twins actually do something in contrast with the Shakespearean static ones. They challenge the family‟s already complicated, intertwining and incestuous relationships and as such help creating the carnivalesque in the novel.

4.1 Dora, the Seductress

Wise Children is a story of two strong females, who embody the art of seduction. According to Kérchy,

strength of the feminine that of seduction, heralding a parallel universe

that can no longer be interpreted in terms of psychic relation of

repression, the conscious/unconscious divide, or diacritical oppositions,

but in terms of play, challenges, the strategy of appearances, and of a

seductive reversibility, where the “the feminine is not what opposes the

masculine, but what seduces the masculine.” (Baudrillard quoted in

Kérchy, 232)

Although they are both experienced seductresses, their approach is rather different. Dora seduces men, not, necessary, to get something in return from them, but for the enjoyment of the game. Nora simply falls in love. Their game of seducing is not a game of power; they do not do it to overrule the men, they do it because they can and because they love it. Their sexuality, according to

Kérchy, “[seems] to point beyond the restrictive, simplistic post-freudian

36 understanding of pleasure, confined to the realm of the sexual” (218). – To them men are not about the sexual act itself but about the act of seducing.

The narrator of the story is Dora, the older twin, and although most of the story is told from her perspective and we learn more about her than her twin sister Nora, she constantly speaks in first person plural narrative and thus refers to them as we. Although they are two – they represent one and vice versa. They were born during the First World War in Brixton to their just seventeen-year- old mother, who died in the process of their birth, whom the twins know nothing about, and thus she is disregarded in the story as meaningless to the family; especially, by Grandmother Chance. In contrast with their mother‟s insignificance, their birth is described in extent, as there is something magical about their birth as while they were born “the bombs stopped and the kids came out to play again. The sun shone and the kids were singing” (WC 26). And though their mother dies as they are born, their grandmother describes it as a very happy and magical moment. They are Melchior‟s biological, though, “his never-by-him officially recognised daughters, with whom, by a bizarre coincidence,” they share the date of their birthday, as well as with his twin brother Peregrine, and supposedly with Shakespeare, who, similarly to their twin father‟s, plays a great significance in their lives (5).

The Chance sisters, twin seductresses, together live quite a lonely life, since “at their age, Nora and [Dora] have got more friends among the dead than with the living. [They] often go visiting in cemeteries to trim the grass over the friends of our youth” (19). They are full of contrasts and contradictions as they embody both the hyper-feminine and the male will of doing what they want.

“They combine their hyper-feminine looks with they conventionally masculinized activity … their wilful leadership to enact foremothers of the

37 feminist heroine who does, shows, looks and sees what/as she wills” (Kérchy

219). Similarly to Fevvers they are monstrous because they are strong and they get what they want, the men they want. They represent old ladies, former stars and seductresses, and at the same time sexually active wise old children. Kérchy explains that

the twinned septuagenarian hag-seductresses‟, Dora and Nora Chance‟s

flirtatious, fibbing, forgetful text full of „reader teasers‟ mimes their

winking, swinging, coquette body. The heroines‟ narrative styles

respectively embody the eating discharging body, the laughing body, or

the sexualized female body. (9)

When Dora introduces them, she creates a contrast as she claims “[they don‟t] share” their room, because “[they]‟ve always respected one another‟s privacy”

(WC 2). The fact that they do not share their room but lovers illustrates how unimportant the role of men in their lives is, which reflects Virginia Woolf‟s theory that to gain independence a woman needs a room of her own. Dora also does not share their Uncle Peregrine, at least not sexually – in that way his importance in their lives is reserved for her. Kérchy refers to them as femme vital, in the sense, that they have nothing to do with the classic film noir‟s femme fatale figures, a lethal belle with dominatrix sexual agency and an appetite for power, driving men into danger. (219) – they more like Wonder

Women – they are a representation of excess – “the Chance seductresses are marked by „surplus,‟ being over-decorated by hyper-feminine, fetishizable props, accessories, which are stylized, staged, and revaluated duplicated on/by their twin selves” – the source of their monstrosity lies in their excessive stylization and sex for pure enjoyment with whomever they desire (220).

38 On their seventeenth birthday Dora asks her sister to give her her boyfriend as a birthday present, just to see if he will “be able to tell the difference” (WC 83). After a bit of hesitation, Nora agrees and they exchange their clothes and perfume, as those are the only things that make any difference between them – their bodies are identical. Through the it they can become one and strengthen their sisterly union. Interestingly, Dora feels “voluptuous” in

Nora‟s character, knowing she wants him more than anything, as “his sweet face and his silken floss of flaxen hair” is not hers and belongs to someone else, someone more experienced, whom she has observed “cry for love, … nearly bleed to death for love” and listened “shout out loud” for love (84). She feels that being Nora makes her more experienced and embody her sister‟s character and fool and “betray the innocent boy with [their] deception” (86). And although she promises Nora she would do it just this once, she encounters him again and seduces him, wishing this time she could confess she is not Nora but Dora, “who loves [him] only” (100). However, the building sets on fire and Dora quickly realizes that though she could wish for Nora‟s death and keep her young lover, she loves her sister best. “There [is] and orgiastic aspect to” the night she cheats her sister and her lover (103). “All around the blazing mansion, lit by the red and flickering flames [are milling] the lamenting revellers in togas, kilts, tights, breeches, hooped skirts, winding sheets, mini-crinolines, like guests at a masquerade who‟ve all have suddenly gone to hell” (103). In this carnival of disaster Dora realizes she cannot live without Nora and, also, her saviour Uncle

Perry.

Despite the fact that Dora seduces numerous men in her life the most important one to her remains Uncle Perry. He symbolizes something they have

39 never received from their father – his twin brother Melchior, who constantly ignores them and refuses to acknowledge them as his illegitimate daughters.

The legitimate/illegitimate dichotomy is undermined, while the

patriarch‟s privileged, central position as a phallic key, signifier, ultimate

author and orgin of the family sagais replaced by shifting, elusive,

putative fatherly positions, blurring the family tree and constantly

redefining kinship relations … (Kérchy 257)

As they benefit from the fathering care of Uncle Perry though they are biological offspring of Melchior. Uncle Perry represents her father, who cares, and also all her lovers. He becomes her last lover, in whom she unites all the previous as he frames her love life by being the first and the last one. However, him she approaches in a different ways than her other lovers, because with him she does not have to pretend she is someone else, neither Nora nor a successful singer and dancer. The interesting point is also that the moment when Dora and Perry have sexual intercourse is described from Nora‟s perspective. What happens inside the room is depicted from the outsider‟s point of view as she watches

the agitations of the steel bed [begin] to make the chandelier downstair

directly beneath it, shiver, so that the music of the lutes, now plucking

away at a selection of show tunes … [is] almost imperceptibly augmented

by the tinkle, tinkle, tinkle of all the little lustres as tiers of glass [begin]

to sway from side to side, sloping hot wax on the dancers below, first

slowly, then with more and more determined rhythm until they [shake]

like Josephine Baker‟s bottom. (WC 220)

It shows that Dora‟s relationship with Perry is too personal to share and she needs to use sister‟s words to describe the epic private moment.

40 Their make-up becomes the signifier of their carnivalesque monstrosity, as they never even leave their rooms without applying a layer of it. Kérchy argues that Dora and Nora‟s “make-up as a strategy of seduction is a multifaceted phenomenon, intertwining a grotesque corporeal revision and resistance against being enclosed within one single, homogenizing identity category” (222). They are never seen being themselves as they are either the other one doubled or hidden by a layer of make-up or both. Dora describes their everyday make-up habit in great extent, which signifies its importance. She says that

they always make an effort. [They] paint an inch thick. [They] put on

[their] faces before [they] come down for breakfast, the Max Factor

Pan-Stik, the false eyelashes with three coats of mascara, everything …

[they] use just a simple mushroom shadow for day plus a hint of tobacco

brown, to deepen the tone, and a charcoal eyeliner. [Their] fingernails

match [their] toenails match [their] lipstick match [their] rouge. (WC 6)

Their use of make-up is excessive, though, perfectly matching. Their usage of make-up resembles old tribe warriors going into battle, who use war paint to emphasize their fierceness and determination to win. However, make-up is only part of their battle costume. They spend hours preparing themselves for their seventy-fifth birthday. They put on their “best kimono … real silk, [Dora]‟s mauve with a plum-blossom design on the back, Nora‟s crimson with a chrysanthemum,” which they received from their beloved Uncle Perry (6).

Underneath they wear hip “camiknickers with a French lace trim, lilac satin for

[Dora], crushed rose crepe for [Nora]” (6). Although this might seem enough to wear for a party, they go to Grandmother‟s room to wear something special for the night as they feel that is the last chance to capture their biological father‟s

41 attention. Finally they decide to wear what they used to when they were stocking models in the sixties. And then again they remove their morning make-up and

[start] off from scratch. Foundation. Dark in the hollows of [their]

cheeks and at the temples, blended into a lighter tone everywhere else …

Two kinds of blusher, one to highlight the Hazard bones, another to give

[them] rosy cheeks. Nora likes to put the faintest dab on the end of her

nose … Three kinds of eyeshadow – dark blue, light blue blended together

on the eyelids with the little finger, then a frosting overall of silver. Then

[they] put on [their] two coats of mascara. Today for lipstick Rubies in

the Snow by Revlon.

It [takes] an age … [they paint] the faces that [they] always used to

have on to the faces they have now. (192)

They double themselves in the mirror as they try doubling their younger selves on to their old selves.

4.2 Grandmother Chance – The Ghost in the Closet

The Grandmother Chance is an omnipresent element in Dora‟s narrating, as she was the one who brought them up and thus is the most influential motherly figure in their lives. Dora throughout the story recollects

Grandmother‟s little peculiarities, however the one of the most influential habit they have inherited is her extensive usage of make-up.

She always put on so much Rachel powder she puffed out a fine cloud if

you patted her. She rouged big, round spots in the middle of her checks.

She used so much eyeblack that kiddies on electric Avenue used to give

her chorus of „Two Lovely Black Eyes‟ as she passed by. For all the thirty

42 years [Dora and Nora] knew her, thanks to peroxide, she was canary-

coloured blonde. She always pencilled in a big, black beauty spot below

the left-hand corner of her mouth. (27)

The twins make-up is thus a repetition and “an imitation of Grandmother‟s excessively stylized face, nonetheless, they seem to apply their make-up in a rather more sophisticated way (Kérchy 224).

In spite of her presence in Dora‟s narration she, actually, never is present physically but once when they decide to search her hardly-ever entered room to get some dress for the night. The room is “perishing cold … and gloaming,” however, Dora does not want to open the blindfolds on the windows as she is afraid the daylight might scare away something in the room, maybe “the smell of mothballs, boiled cabbage and gin hanging in the air,” or rather grandmother‟s ghost (186). Grandmother‟s presence becomes more intense on opening Grandmother‟s wardrobe, “which strangely resurrects not only

Grandmother‟s body and identity, but also Dora‟s and Nora‟s past selves and bodily performances” as they start arguing like little girls over the pieces of

Grandmother‟s wardrobe (Kérchy 282). There is an uncanny feeling about the wardrobe and then

a funny thing [happens]. Something [leaps]; [propels] itself, and

comes whizzing out like a flying saucer, slicing across the room as if

about to knock their heads off … It knocks against the opposite wall,

bounces down to the ground, flutters and is still.

It is her hat, her little toque, with the spotted veil, that spun out like

discus. As they nervously inspected it, there comes an avalanche of gloves

– all her gloves, all slithery leather thumbs and fingers, whirling around

as if inhabited by hands, pelting us, assaulting us, smacking our faces, so

43 that they clutch hands for protection and retreat like scared kids as more

and more of Grandmother‟s bits and pieces – oilcloth carriers, corsets,

bloomers like sails, stockings hissing like snakes – cascade out of the

wardrobe on top of them. They back off until their calves hit the side of

the bed with a shock of cold metal and then the wardrobe door closed of

its own accord upon its own emptiness with a ghastly creak, leaving them

looking at their cared faces looking back out of the dust. (WC 189 – 190)

Grandmother‟s intervention in their argument as they are trying to recollect their past properly, is ghostly as her clothes start cascading out ouf her wardrobe. When her gloves, mysteriously looking as if they were inhabited by her own hands, start smacking the girls faces, she, actually, tries to motherly cherish the girls and “challenge them with the aim of mockingly, caringly inviting them to revise” their memories of the past (Kérchy 285). She once again tries to cast her motherly influence upon the twins, who following the supernatural experience remember, who they are, and resolve the argument.

Considering her naturalism it is interesting that her ghost resides in the wardobe and embodies the clothes. The ghostly motherly figure residing in Dora and Nora‟s house is a marker of Carter‟s magic realism.

44 5. The Magic Toyshop

The Magic Toyshop is Angela Carter‟s second novel and is thus quite different from Nights at The Circus and Wise Children. In opposition to the latter mention books, the storyline is written in a linear and third person narrative, from the perspective of the main female character and as such “is reminiscent of a fairy story” (Peach 73), also because she includes several “fairy tale motifs: the arduous journey [...], the dumb mute [...], metamorphoses

[Uncles evil is revealed gradually], and even the winged creature [the puppet]”

(74). It is a story of a girl‟s journey to maturation and independence, as she becomes aware of her own sexuality, while being oppressed by her monstrous uncle. Melanie, the heroine of the novel, is depicted as an archetype female character who is a virgin of fifteen, and who has just “discovered she [is] made of flesh and blood” (MT 1). She presents an opposite to Uncle Philip, who is an archetype of patriarchal usurper who abides free women. However, since the story is told from Melanie‟s perspective we never learn Uncle Philip‟s true feelings and motifs. He resembles Perrault‟s fairy tale character Bluebeard who cannot stand free women and has to tame, insult and abuse them using his mechanical toys. It is crucial to look at Melanie‟s character to understand the horrific impact Uncle Philip‟s monstrosity has on her and other characters of the story and what drives him to abide her. And it her perspective that the omniscient narrator presents. The story resembles the Little Red Riding Hood encountering Bluebeard and being saved by a rather rotted Prince Charming –

Finn, to ensure the fairy tale happy ending.

The story opens with Melanie exploring “[her] new found land,” her body, in front of the mirror in which she creates her own world, living and re- enacting events from adult books for women and French paintings. She

45 imagines “[posing] in attitudes … a la Toulouse Lautrec, [and] she [drags] her hair sluttishly across her face and [sits] down in a chair with her legs apart and a bowl of water and a towel at her feet” (1). Until she learns about her parents accidental death, her only fear is that if she “[eats] too much she [will] grow fat and nobody [will] ever love her and she [will] die virgin,” and as such she is a pretty stereotypical fifteen-year-old girl (3). Melanie, then is not exposed to any sort of patriarchal influence as her parent are often away on travels and she is taken care of by Mrs Rundle, the family maid, and thus when she and the children move to London to live with their relatives, she realizes she is “no longer a free agent” (31), and her “relation to male power is revealed to her, mediated by her tyrannical uncle” (Martin, 11). Upon her arrival to London is thus created a tension between her and the male characters occupying her new home, which becomes the driver of the story. Her newly found home, a flat above Uncle Philip‟s toyshop, is rather a shock for her being from a distinguished family. The men are horror for her, for she has never been so close to “men who smelt before. A ferocious, unwashed animal reek [comes] from them [Finn and Francie] both; in addition, Finn [stinks] of paint and turps on top of the poverty-stricken slum smell” (MT 36). Their encounter at the train station in London symbolises their different world and although it is melanie who has left the country for a town, these two brothers they “are country people” to her – uneducated, working class men (33).

5.1 The Monstrous Uncle Philip

Melanie is exposed to Uncle Philip‟s unlikeable character long before she is forced to move to London to stay with him. He seems vicious to her as he is the only one who does not smile at her parents wedding photograph – she feels

46 like he has “no space in her mother‟s happiness and she cannot understand how could he, being the only living mother‟s relative present at the wedding, be so ignorant of the festive atmosphere” and “[look] as if he [has] met an ancient mariner on the way to the wedding and been catapulted into a dimension where white roses and confetti [don‟t] matter anymore” (13). However, at that point she still hopes she will never encounter him in person. Thus it is rather unfortunate that he should be the person to guard her and her little siblings.

Carter introduces Uncle Philip at the beginning of the story so when Melanie is told that she and her brother and little sister are to move and live with him, the reader is aware that they will not be moving into a harmonic place. Melanie confesses that although she has never met Uncle Philip before, he already managed to frighten her when he sent her a gift for Christmas when she was just a little girl. The jack-in-the-box frightens her so much that she “[has] nightmares about it regularly into the New Year and, intermittently, until

Easter. Her mother [throws] the jack-in-the-box away. Her parents [agree] the gift [is] thoughtless and in bad taste” and they abate any further contact with him, including Christmas and other holiday cards (12). However, despite all her previous experience with him, she still hopes to find a good life in London, filled with theatre, dances and social life. Soon after their arrival she realizes that the reality fails all her thoughts of encouragement.

Uncle Philip is absent from home when they arrive in London – his frequent trips remind, once again, of Bluebeard, who, too, leaves his victims alone to so they feel comfortable and as at home. Melanie admits that she is starting to feel at home when she “[steals] something from the ladder” and for a moment she becomes unaware of the looming danger of Philip‟s presence (58-

59). This feeling is also supported by the fact that the other family member‟s

47 seem to exclude this monster from their family, when they claim that they are

“very close, the three of [them];” and thus provide her with a false sense of being safe in their company (37). For a long time in the novel, Philip is absent physically and Melanie is just confronted with several reminders of him, such as the strict house rules, his toyshop and once he returns home, before she, actually, meets him, she finds his false teeth grinning at her “like a disappeared

Cheshire cat, from a cloudy tumbler” or a pair of a angry beasts jaws ready to attack (56). Marina Warner claims that “in the old, familiar version, the intruder was a witch; a recurrent monster in such creepy tales. But she has now turned into a man, an ordinary family man, a neighbour who – and this is crucial - does not look dangerous” (MM 22). Such statement is applicable as he does not look like a monster and is perceived as quite a respectable man, even once referred to as “a perfect gentleman” (MT 29). However, when Melanie finally encounters him over a bowl of porridge at breakfast, her perception of him is quite in contrast with a perfect gentleman, as his eyes remind her “Medusa glances,” and he shocks her with his size and his “Mephistopheles mask” eyes of no colour,

“like rainy days” (72-73). She considers later whether “the strange fat man [is] an impostor, wearing Philip Flower‟s face and clothes but [being] not really him at all” (159). For a brief moment she doubts that anyone should send three children live with such a monster and thus this whole London episode should be an accident.

Nonetheless, more monstrous than his bushy appearance is Uncle

Philip‟s behaviour and treatment of the people that live under his roof – his representation of patriarchal power taken to extreme. He is violent and loud when he expresses his opinion and demands things to be his way. Everything in the house has to be according to him – the food portions for each member of the

48 family; the way they eat their food (neither too slow, nor too fast), what they wear and where they go. At first Melanie is told she should not wear trousers in the house in order to not provoke Uncle Philip because Uncle Philip cannot

“abide a woman in trousers” (62). She is also told not to wear make-up and

“only speak when [she is] spoken to” (63). Philip, by ordering women to wear skirts creates a vulnerable woman who is not equal to men and thus is not allowed to wear trousers – the symbol of manhood. Whereas banning her from wearing any make-up and speaking, he is eliminating any demonstration of her female self since he not only despises women in trousers, he despises them as such. He is crude and violent in everything he does around the house, like cutting a goose “so savagely he [seems] to want to kill it all over again, perhaps feeling the butcher [was] incompetent in the first place and Aunt Margaret [did not cook] it in a hot enough oven to finish it off” (160). Following this seen he takes a big portion and feasts himself resembling Henry VIII, while everybody else is served “a mean portion of skin and bone,” thus showing his ruling over the house (160).

Thus there is not much of his monstrosity directly performed on Melanie by him personally, but through mediators – Philip and the mechanical swan.

Uncle Philip uses Melanie‟s sexual attraction towards Finn to control her.

Martin claims, “in his puppet workshop, Philip is archetypal male creator, whose representation of femininity deny women the ability to represent themselves” or serve other than his strictly required purposes (13). As mentioned above in her new home Melanie‟s representation of her self is recreated according to Uncle Philip‟s ideas and mediated through Finn‟s fantasies. Finn‟s task is to violate Melanie‟s subjectivity by enforcing his maleness upon her. According to Martin, “Melanie is constantly objectified by

49 male discourse, and her body appropriated by other people‟s fantasies. Her own pleasure is mediated by male fantasy, as she understands the body through artistic and literary representation of women” (16). One evening, Finn asks

Melanie to go out for a walk with him and Melanie, who has not been beyond the square near their house agrees, however, becomes puzzled when she realizes that Finn has combed his long hair out and scrubbed the usual paint from his hands. “Why [has] he bothered to make himself beautiful for me”, she wonders, quite in terror (MT 97). Her worries of Finn‟s intentions come true when he hugs her so she can [feel] the warm breath from his wild beast‟s mouth softly, against her cheek” (105). As he kisses her she feels very impersonal and wonders what his reasons for doing so could be. She distances herself from the situation when she imagines them perceived from another person‟s point of view that sees them as two lovers from a new-wave British film; this new perspective prevents her from coming under his male power. However, when he “[inserts] his tongue between her lips [... she convulses] with horror at this sensual and intimate connection, this rude encroachment on her physical privacy, this humiliation”

(106). At this point Uncle Philip through Finn accomplished the first step in

Melanie‟s exploitation.

Uncle Philip creates a new show in his scary theatre and asks her to play a part in it, although her already developing womanly body does not fully satisfy him. Martin claims, “since it is Uncle Philip that has engineered Melanie and

Finn‟s encounter, she is once again playing part in his fantasies” (14) and Finn is asked by Philip to practise with Melanie her part, Leda, in his new puppet show.

In his room Finn re-enacts the monstrous swan and Melanie practices how to react to it. She practices expressions of fear and terror, which the swan would evoke in her. When Finn as a swan is supposed to bear Melanie to the ground,

50 they both stumble and they land on the ground in a tight embrace. Finn shows

“no hint of smile or inflection of tenderness which might mean she [will] be spared [... and which] she [is waiting] tensely for to happen” (149). The tension between them grows strong and Melanie awkwardly longs for Finn to take her with “his workman‟s hand, which [is] strong and cunning” (149), but yet again she is humiliated by his unexpected behaviour when, instead of performing her fantasies, he runs away and hides in a cupboard. However, Melanie in her naivety does not understand that Finn runs away to protect her and insists on finding out why he is running away from her. Finn‟s in a rather pitiful position when he claims that he has done it, as Philip “wanted [him] to fuck [her]” (151).

Although Finn admits that uncle Philip has never asked him to do so, he believes that Philip has set the scene “to change and destroy” her. Uncle Philip realizes that since Melanie is no longer a child and therefore he cannot destroy her with his monstrous puppets while casting her in his terrifying puppet shows, he needs to use Finn. He uses his age that is relatively close to Melanie, the fact that they fancy each other, and, of course, his male power over her, to subdue her and destroy her, so she learns where her place as a female in the house is.

The fact that she is not allowed speaking in front of Uncle Philip unless she is spoken to, because he likes “silent women” (63), becomes more terrifying in the context of aunt Margaret‟s dumbness. “Contemporary women writers have been attracted by the figure of the silent heroine who has not been enchanted, or taken a wow of silence, but just does not know how to speak or to laugh or to cry. Angela Carter picked up the ancient motif” in the novel (Warner

1994, 405), in which Aunt Margaret has been dumb since her wedding day, where it came on to her “like a curse”, as Aunt Margaret became overpowered by

Philip‟s patriarchal power (MT 37). The female silence in Philip‟s house

51 symbolizes the men‟s power over women, which is in the novel represented by

Philip‟s power over the entire house including the two brothers.

At Christmas Melanie wears trousers out of pure rebellion, showing her nice legs, and she gives Aunt Margaret her dress of pine green and also her consummation pearls to wear instead of “the tormenting silverware” – the choker (158). The absence of the choker frees the atmosphere in the house. With

Uncle Philip absent from home for lunch, Melanie and Finn find each other without enforcement and sexual tension. When Uncle Philip is gone and the choker is absent, to Melanie‟s terror, Aunt Margaret and Francie‟s carnivalesque, incestuous relationship is revealed. But it is the incest, which, later discovered by Uncle Philip, breaks his authority. The incest “in breaking the incest taboo, hits his patriarchal family structure at the very core” (Martin,

14). Marina Warner claims, “women are for the most part doing the best they can in the circumstances - and learning to survive as they go. Sometimes this entails choosing to keep the family away from the father” (MM 12). In Magic

Toyshop Aunt Margaret chooses to escape to her brother‟s arms, while Melanie, chooses to rebel and help Finn destroy Uncle Philip and thus find a new life for her family.

5.2 The Monstrous Toyshop and the Mechanical Monster

Uncle Philip‟s monstrosity is also projected into the house, which on many occasions can be compared to Bluebeard‟s castle with its dark, gloomy chambers, as it also serves as a confinement to its inhabitants that can be escaped only by death. There is a sort of secretive feeling about the house as

Melanie never learns who sleeps behind which door and Philip‟s theatre room located in the cellar resembles the thirteenth chamber in Bluebeard‟s castle, as it

52 is the place where she experiences Uncle Philip demonstrate his monstrosity.

Melanie finds most of the house depressing, dirty, poor and not taken care of.

Even the kitchen, which should recall family atmosphere, is “quite dark … [and] there [is] a smell of stale cigarette smoke and some unwashed cups …; [it is also] a brown room, like the shops and passages” without a homely atmosphere (58).

There is an abundance of bizarre objects, pictures and portraits of people and animals, Melanie feels like the house is

full of other people‟s unknown lives. A scorchmark on the cloth that [has]

had its own secret history, mysterious unopened mail behind a small

plaster model of an Alsatian dog on the mantelpiece … Over it [hangs] an

extra-ordinary painting … – a portrait of the white bull terrier … Beside

the portrait [is] a carved cuckoo clock with green ivy … (59-60)

The clock strikes, which startles Melanie, and the grotesque “cuckoo, stuffed with the sounding mechanism trapped, somehow, in its feathered breasts” (60).

They are one of Uncle Phil‟s uncanny mechanicals, like the jack-in-the-box, a less deliberate invention that anticipated Melanie‟s fate. Everything about the house for her is unexpected, and “nothing is ordinary,” including Philips‟ toyshop and mysterious theatre (60). The toyshop abounds with grotesque mechanicals made of wood or metal, like a couple of musical monkeys, which make Melanie feel “twinge and discomfort,” singing roses, “a tremendous stock of wild and scary masks, … lions, bears, devils, witches” (80). However, it is the theatre that scares her the most, as Finn shows her around, she can only repeat

“there is too much,” looking at all those men and women dwarfed by toys and puppets” carved and created by the Uncle (68).

The fact that Phil has never bothered to learn and remember Melanie‟s name shows that he does not believe in her subjectivity and that she is rather

53 another puppet to satisfy his dreadful desires. Melanie as she is experiencing a nervous breakdown from being under Uncle Phil (his monstrosity) and Finn‟s

(his sexuality) pressure, is trying to calm herself down thinking: “Oh, I must not be afraid of the swan. It is all charades” (162). She realizes that it [is] not precisely the swan which she [is] afraid of but of giving herself to the swan,” of losing herself, her dignity, and hopes for sovereignty.

The swan is

almost as tall as she, an egg-shaped sphere of plywood painted white and

coated with glued-on feathers …, its long neck made of rubber, since it

[bends] and [sways] with an unnerving life of its own. Its head and beak,

however, are carved with wood, with black glass eyes inset. The beak [is]

painted with gold paint. The wings [are] constructed on the principle of

the wings of model aeroplanes, but curved; arched struts of thin wood

with an overall covering of feathered paper. Its black legs [are] tucked up

beneath it. It [is] a grotesque parody of a swan … nothing like the wild

phallic bird of [Melanie‟s] imaginings. It [is] dumpy, home and eccentric.

(165)

Although the swan is nothing like she imagined and does not seem frightening at all, the atmosphere, the movement of the swan coordinated by Uncle Philip and the grotesque version of the Swan Lake music played on piano by Francie, make her feel nauseous. She imagines the swan being a the horse of Troy, filled with “an armed host of Uncle Philip‟s” and they “might rush out and savage her.

This possibility [seems] real and awful” to Melanie (166). She becomes confused and does not know whether she is Melanie or Leda, the character from the play.

The catharsis rises as Philip gets excited and the swan mounts Melanie and the swan serves as a tool for him to subdue her. He attempts to rape her through his

54 monstrous swan and Melanie looses herself, and her innocence, although metaphorically, is lost.

The swan becomes a symbol of Uncle Philip‟s fall. Finn “[chops] it into small pieces” at night following the horrific performance, because it “covered

[her] … it rode her” and he cannot bear that. He then buries it in the pleasure garden; in this act Melanie finds resembling symbolism to her accidentally destroying her mother‟s wedding dress soon after learning of her parents‟ death.

The comparison between these two events can be drawn as both identify a significant change in Melanie‟s life. However, the swan‟s burial is just a first sign of Uncle Philip‟s destruction to come, because “the final point to which time

[has flown]” is finding “his wife in her brother‟s arms” upon his arrival – this is

“the finishing-post of the steeple-chase in which they [have been running] in red colours” (196). Similarly to Wise Children, this story, too ends with a revealed incest following a carnivalesque party, here, though, less flamboyant.

6. The Conclusion

In the previous chapters I have discussed three novels by Angela Carter, which I have found suitable for analysing different portrayals of monstrosity, considering the gender and sexuality. In my thesis I have argued that Angela

Carter‟s portrayal of monstrosity differs with the characters‟ gender and that she subverts the traditional approach and perception of monsters and monstrosity in myths and fairy tales as she challenges the characters‟ gender issues and sexuality. The close reading of Carter‟s work has triggered a realization that monsters are omnipresent and may be disguised in everyday objects, stories or the characters‟ behaviour, dreams and fantasies. Carter, through intertextuality

55 in her novels, stresses the importance of monsters in the western culture and its understanding of the female sexuality. In this last chapter, I would like to draw the conclusion of the thesis and summarize my findings.

I have chosen to discuss the three novels, Nights at the Circus (1984),

Wise Children (1991) and The Magic Toyshop (1967), in particular, as they all share the underlying atmosphere of the carnivalesque grotesque, which helps portraying the character‟s monstrosity. To discuss the aspects of monstrosity, the myth, the grotesque and the carnivalesque a close reading of theoretical texts has been done. Marina Warner‟s theoretical text Managing Monsters: The

Six Myths of Our Time: The 1994 Reith Lectures explores the history of monstrosity in the western culture and the development of people‟s perception of the she-monster. The western culture has always dealt with chimeras, vampires, witches, and their viciousness and thus the myth of the female monstrosity has been a part of our everyday contemporary lives, however, its perception has been changed over times, as the mythical creatures have become embodied feminists, single mothers and sovereign women. Anna Kérchy‟s in

Body Texts in the Novels of Angela Carter: Writing from a Corporeographic

Point of View explores the Carterian grotesque bodies with regard to Bakhtin‟s carnivalesque grotesque in Nights at the Circus and Wise Children.

The magical atmosphere of the circus and brothel setting in Nights at the

Circus makes it natural for various kinds of monsters, like giants, imps, freaks and savages, to appear. Fevvers, the winged giantess, and her supernatural body, can be perceived as natural in the circus setting, outside of it she is considered a monster, with a monstrous body and excessive sexuality. In Wise

Children it is the theatrical background, the Hollywood, and the grand party to celebrate a centenary birthday, which are the underlying settings for the

56 carnivalesque. The novel‟s characters, Dora and Nora, and their monstrous, doubling, intertwining, and incestuous sexual relationships can be understood only in the carnivalesque context. Uncle Philip in The Magic Toyshop represents a different kind of monstrosity than those stated above; he is an archetype of patriarchal monster that abides free women and tries to subdue than with violence. His monstrosity is supported by the theatrical setting, which abounds with grotesque mechanical monsters. Monstrosity both physical and mental thrives in the Carterian carnivalesque setting and her characters tend to posses a certain amount of duplicity in a sense that their monstrosity is not only outer but also inner driven, usually by their sexual desires. Carter‟s characters embody the inappropriate, grotesque bodies and their seemingly incorrect behaviour and as such become the drivers of the stories.

The subjects of the thesis, the winged giantess Fevvers, her midget foster- mother Lizzie in Nights at the Circus, the twin seductresses and their incestuous family, and chauvinistic usurper Uncle Philip and his bizarre world of mechanical toys analysis; have different background and motivations, however they share the grotesque and together they create Carter‟s sophisticated, magical and carnivalesque world. Fevvers, although is not considered pretty, has an uncanny, yet erotic, sexual quality about her. Her grotesque body is doubted as neither humans nor birds posses six limbs as Fevvers, however, what cannot be doubted is her excessive sexuality, which attracts the readers and drives the story. She similarly to the twins, makes the reader feel exclusive as she shares her inner, sometimes sexual, secrets with Walser (and the reader) in first person dialogue narrative. She and the twin sisters have in common a strong, seductive, sexual appetite, which, however, they do not use to overrule the men; they do it out of pure enjoyment of seduction. Through their excessive sexuality they

57 embody Carter‟s subverted feminism in a sense that they use their sexuality to gain sovereignty. Their hyper-feminine sexual bodies are in contrast with a male will of doing what they want – they get what they want, the men they want and the sovereignty they desire. However, the difference in their monstrosity lies in their different physical appearance, and where Carter uses Fevvers‟ crippled body to portray the she-monster in her, the twins sisters are monstrous in their doubling and incestuous desires. Carter‟s portrayal of the she-monsters in these three characters corresponds with Warner‟s analysis of the shifting perception of the she-monster, as their monstrosity lies in their hypersexual femininity not in a wart on the witch‟s nose.

Another comparison can be drawn between the two monstrous, male characters – Uncle Philip (The Magic Toyshop) and Buffo, the Clown (Nights at the Circus). Uncle Philip, the man-next-door monster, who bears an uncanny resemblance to Perrault‟s Bluebeard, is violent and loud when he demands his way. However, does not perform directly much monstrosity on the fifteen-year- old virgin, Melanie, and uses mediators subdue her sexually. He uses her sexual attraction towards Finn to control her, and a monstrous mechanical swan to rape her and destroy her, during a Leda and the Swan allegory. Philip‟s reason for violence is not explained and thus is in contrast with Buffo‟s bizarrely cruel performances. His cruelty springs from a misery of a fallen artist, however, it is never addressed towards women but rather towards himself. Their carnivalesque monstrosity is portrayed through monstrous mechanical toys, and bizarre theatrical and circus performances.

In the discussed books Carter‟s portrayal of female monstrosity is done through their excessive sexuality and desire for sovereignty, whereas the male monstrosity is represented by destructive violence and seeking of power.

58

59 7. Bibliography

Primary Sources

Angela Carter. The Magic Toyshop. London: Virago P, 1981. Print.

---. Nights at the Circus. London: Picador, 1985. Print.

---. Wise Children. London: Vintage, 1992. Print.

Secondary Sources

Carter, Angela. “Third Ear”. Modern Writers: Interviews With Remarkable

Authors. By Paul

Bailey. BBC Radio 3, 25 Jun. 1991. Web. 6 March. 2014

Bakhtin, Mikhail. Rabelais and His World. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1984.

Print.

“Carnival.” Dictionary. Web. 19 Apr. 2014.

Coelsh-Foisner, Sabine. “From Shakespeare to Carter: Metamorphic Interplay in Angela

Carter‟s Pornographic Fantasy: “Overture and Incidental Music for A

Midsummer

Night’s Dream”. Postmodern Reinterpretations of Fairy Tales. ed. Anna

Kérchy.

Lewinston: The Edwin Mellen P, 2011. Print.

Finney, Brian. “Tall Tales and Brief Lives: Angela Carter's Nights at the Circus.”

Cal State

University Web Site. California State U Long Beach, 1998. Web. 16 Apr.

2014

Franková, Milada. Britské spisovatelky na konci tisíciletí. Brno: Masaryk U,

2004. Print.

60 Jordan, Elain. “The Dangers of Angela Carter.” New Feminist discourse:

Critical Essays

on Theories and Texts. Ed. Isobel Amstrong. London: Routledge, 1992.

Print.

Jouve, Nicole Ward. “Mother is a Figure of Speech…” Flesh and the Mirror:

Essays on the

Art of Angela Carter. Ed. Lorna Sage. London: Virago P, 1994. Print.

Kérchy Anna.

Body Texts in the Novels of Angela Carter: Writing From a

Corporeographic Point of

View. Lewiston: The Edwin Mellen P, 2008. Print.

Martin, Catherine. “Speech, Silence and Female Adolescence in Carson

McCullers‟ The

Hearts is a Lonely Hunter and Angela Carter‟s The Magic Toyshop.”

Journal of Women’s Studies 2009:11.3. ProQuest Central. Web. 3 Apr.

2014

Peach, Linden. Angela Carter. London: Macmillan P, 1998. Print.

Sage, Lorna, ed. Flesh and the Mirror: Essays on the Art of Angela Carter.

London: Virago

P, 1994. Print.

Sellers, Susan. Myth and Fairy Tale in Contemporary Women’s Fiction. New

York: Palgrave,

2001. Print.

Šimunková, Veronika. Reimagining the Fairy Tale in Angela Carter's Earlier

Fiction. Bc

Thesis. Brno: Masarykova U, 2011.

61 Robinson, Natalie. “Bela and her Beastly Choices: Exploring the Fairy Tale in the Twilight

Phenomenon.” Postmodern Reinterpretations of Fairy Tales. ed. Anna

Kérchy.

Lewinston: The Edwin Mellen P, 2011. Print.

Warner, Marina. From the Beast to the Blonde: On Fairy Tales and Their

Tellers. London:

Vintage, 1994. Print.

---. Managing Monsters: Six Myths of Our Time: The 1994 Reith Lectures.

London: Vintage, 1994. Print.

62 8. Resumes

8.1 English Resume

The main objective of this thesis is to discuss three novels by the British postmodern writer Angela Carter: Nights at the Circus (1984), Wise Children

(1991) and The Magic Toyshop (1967), which I have found suitable for analysing different portrayals of monstrosity, considering the gender and sexuality. The aim of the thesis is to discuss how Carter‟s portrayal of monstrosity differs with the characters‟ gender and how she subverts the traditional approach and perception of monsters and monstrosity in myths and fairy tales as she challenges the characters‟ gender issues and sexuality.

The thesis itself presents the reader with the background to Angela

Carter‟s writing, her life and her literary inspiration. It discusses the different elements of postmodern writing, especially the Bakhtinian carnivalesque, with regard to the discussed novels. It also deals with Carter‟s approach to feminism and the female sexuality in relation to Marina Warner‟s theoretical work:

Managing Monsters: The Six Myths of Our Time: The 1994 Reith Lectures, in which she discusses the myth and monstrosity with regard to contemporary society and how it challenges our understanding of female versus male sexuality and gender issues. The following chapter discusses the different portrayals of two characters‟ monstrosity – the winged giantess Fevver‟s and Buffo, the clown. The fourth chapter discusses the carnivalesque monstrosity of twinned sisters and their seduction game. The fifth chapter focuses on the Carter‟s portrayal of a male violent monstrosity. The last, concluding chapter summarizes and compares the different portrayals of monstrosity discussed in the previous four chapters.

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64 8.2 České resumé

Práce se soustředí na tři romány britské postmoderní spisovatelky Angely

Carter: Nights at the Circus (1984), Wise Children (1991) a The Magic Toyshop

(1967), které jsou nad míru vhodné k analýze líčení monstrozity, zejména v souvislosti s otázkami genderu a sexuality. Předkládaná práce řeší ztvárnění zrůdnosti nezávisle na pohlaví jednotlivých postav a podrývá tak tradiční přístup a vnímání monster a monstrozity i v mýtech a pohádkách prostřednictvím zpochybnění genderu a sexuality.

Práce nejprve zasvěcuje čtenáře do tvorby Angely Carter, jejího života a literární inspirace. Zabývá se prvky postmoderní tvorby, zejména pak uvedené romány zkoumá s přihlédnutím k Bakhtinovskému konceptu karnevalu. Dále se zabývá přístupem Angely Carter k feminismu a ženské sexualitě v souvislosti s teoretickou prací Mariny Warner Managing Monsters: The Six Myths of Our

Time: The 1994 Reith Lectures, která pojednává o mýtu a monstrozitě v souvislosti se současnou společností a o tom jak tyto zpochybňují naše chápání otázek mužské a ženské sexuality a genderu. Následující kapitola pojednává o ztvárněních monstrozity u dvou konkrétních postav – okřídlené obryně Fevvers a klauna Buffa. Čtvrtá kapitola se soustředí na karnevalovou obludnost dvojčat a na jejich vzájemné svádění, pátá se pak zabývá autorčiným ztvárněním monstrozity mužského násilí. Poslední kapitola shrnuje a porovnává různá líčení monstrozity popsané v předchozích čtyřech kapitolách.

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