6,540 research outputs found
Journey towards the mother : myth, origins and the daughter's desire in the fiction of Angela Carter
No full textThis study examines Angela Carter’s demythologising of origin myths and will
investigate the extent to which her fictions offer viable alternatives that allow for
productive representations of women and gender relations outside patriarchal paradigms.
In the first half of the thesis (Chapters 1-3), I will primarily focus on how several of
Carter’s earlier texts deconstruct existing mythical spaces, particularly the biblical
creation story in Genesis. The Genesis myth is central to socio-historical constructions of
gendered identities, and in itself, central to Carter’s imagination. She repeatedly returns
to this myth in her challenging of the ways in which patriarchal narratives construct
violent relations between self and other, specifically where ‘woman’ is situated as the
repressed other of male desires and fears. Alongside her demythologising of Genesis,
Carter deconstructs Freudian myths of sexual maturation, exposing where these also set
up a relationship of antagonism or enmity between the sexes. Although Chapter One will
explore how Carter attempts to revise these origin myths from a positive stance, Two and
Three will focus on the inherent difficulties faced by the female subject in her struggle
against patriarchal myths and their violent oppression of female autonomy. The second
half of the thesis (Chapters 4-6) will shift to an investigation of how Carter’s later texts
set up both possibilities and challenges for women when attempting to construct their
own narratives of origin. Through her problematising of matriarchal myths and feminist
fantasies of self-creation, Carter emphasises the need for confronting limitations rather
than celebrating transgressions as entirely liberating. The thesis will conclude, however,
with an examination of where Carter’s own attempts at remythologising opens up an
alternative space, or ‘elsewhere’, of feminine desires that allows for a refiguring of the
female subject as well as more reciprocal relations between the sexes
Introduction: Angela Carter and Japan—A global perspective
No full textSince her premature death in 1992, Angela Carter has become recognized as one of the most important writers in the English language, with numerous edited collections, theater adaptations, documentaries, and The Bloody Chamber now on the A-Level syllabus cementing her legacy as the “white witch of English Literature” (Day 3). However, while her work has attracted both significant academic interest and popular acclaim, there is a danger that her radical feminist politics have been simplified and even sanitized in the rush to canonize her as a fairy godmother figure, locating her only in a Western literary tradition. What this special issue demonstrates is the importance of not underestimating the impact of Carter’s formative experiences in Japan on her feminist and political consciousness as a writer. The BBC documentary Angela Carter: Of Wolves and Women (produced by Jude Ho, 2018) concurs: “while Carter’s early work drew on her creepily claustrophobic childhood and miserable early marriage, it was her experience of living in Japan in the 1970s that liberated both her writing and her sexuality” (BBC). Yet the impact of Carter’s transformative experience in Japan has been critically overlooked. This special issue addresses this imbalance by bringing together a range of new readings and perspectives on the influence of her life in Japan on her writing and its politics
Manifestations of the grotesque in Angela Carter's love and wise children
No full textDissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Centro de Comunicação e ExpressãoEsta dissertação tem como objetivo investigar o emprego do grotesco, segundo as teorias de Wolfgang Kayser e Mikhail Bakhtin, em dois romances de Angela Carter: Love (1971) e Wise Children (1991). O primeiro capítulo caracteriza o "grotesco trágico", de acordo com a definição proposta por Wolfgang Kayser, bem como o "grotesco cômico", a partir do estudo de Mikhail Bakhtin. A seguir, analisa-se Love, tendo como foco de análise a trágica perspectiva de vida da protagonista do romance, a partir da descrição detalhada de seu comportamento. Neste capítulo, fica claro que o tipo de grotesco utilizado prioriza o grotesco romântico, ou trágico, assim descrito por Kayser, através da paródia do tema do amor romântico/trágico que está comprometido com o texto autenticamente "Romântico" de Edgar A. Poe. No terceiro capítulo apresenta-se a análise de Wise Children identificando-se o tom cômico empregado pelo narrador com o "grotesco cômico", assim descrito por Bakthin, focalizando-se basicamente em dois aspectos: o riso, e a velhice. A partir daí, sugere-se que houve uma modificação no emprego do grotesco cômico, ou seja, em Carter o uso do grotesco cômico reflete a ambigüidade inerente ao seu tempo, e não mais a certeza de transformação presente na interpretação Bakhtiniana do grotesco. Na conclusão, chama-se atenção para o fato de que uso dos dois tipos de grotesco identificados por Kayser e Bakhtin sofrem modificações, em Carter, que servem para demonstrar as mudancas sofridas pelo emprego contemporâneo do grotesco na narrativa
An Hour with English novelist Angela Carter
No full textAn Hour with English novelist Angela Carter, chaired by Fiona Kidman. Carter reads her short story "The Kitchen Child" (23'00") followed by discussion with Kidman, and audience questions (cut short). Radio New Zealand recording, Writers and Readers Week, Wellington 14/03/1990
Ludics and Laughter as Feminist Aesthetic: Angela Carter at Play
No full textAngela Carter’s provocations to laughter and her enchantment with ludic narrative strategies are two key aspects of her aesthetic practice, neither of which has been the focus of sustained study. Ludics and Laughter as Feminist Aesthetic: Angela Carter at Play responds to this lacuna in Carter criticism. This international collection of eleven essays from acclaimed Carter scholars and emerging voices in the field of Carter studies seeks to reclaim play as a serious undertaking for feminist writing and scholarship and to foreground laughter as a potent affect. While Carter’s work turned to comedy in the later years, from the first publication in 1966 until her last in 1992, her fiction, poetry and journalism engaged in sharp social and cultural critique; she habitually engaged this critique through ludic structures and wickedly funny narratives that challenged conventional norms and ways of thinking. Contributors explore the diverse ways in which Carter compelled a complex and often uneasy laughter by means of a controversial aesthetic that merges a persistently ludic sensibility with a biting intransigent wit. This volume draws on theories of play, surrealism, feminism, as well as studies of feminist humour and Carter’s own journals and diaries to reveal the ways in which her work moves readers towards the unexpected. This volume will be of relevance both to scholars of Carter’s work and of feminist humour more generally; as well, it will be of interest to students and general readers of Carter's fiction, journalism and poetry
Food and eating in fiction since 1950 with particular reference to the writing of Angela Carter, Doris Lessing, Michele Roberts and Alice Thomas Ellis.
No full textPhDEating is a fundamental activity. What people eat, how and with whom, what
they feel about food, what they do or do not want to eat and why - even who
they eat - are of crucial significance in any reading of human behaviour.
In this thesis, I consider the diverse and complex uses of food and eating
in fiction since 1950, especially that written by women. I argue both that food
and eating carry much of the meaning of a novel or story and that the acts of
cooking, feeding and eating depicted are inseparable from issues of power and
control: individually, interpersonally, culturally, politically.
My discussion centres on the writing of Angela Carter, Doris Lessing,
Michele Roberts and Alice Thomas Ellis. Drawing on psychoanalytic theory,
sociology, anthropology, Foucault, Bakhtin and others, the thesis aims to
construct an interdisciplinary perspective which both resists reductive
interpretations and emphasises the centrality, complexity and diversity of food
and eating in literature in our culture.
I begin with an examination of the ambiguities of maternal feeding and
nurturing, moving on to explore the links between appetite, eating and sexuality.
I explore cannibalism and vampirism as manifestations of oppression, but also as
indicating insatiable emptiness and transgressive appetite. The body itself is
crucial, and my argument considers the paradox of not eating as
control/enslavement, also tracing self-starvation as a positive route towards
wholeness and connection. The last part of my argument focuses on social
eating, examining conventions, rituals and food itself in connection with power
relations, and finally considers how we might truly speak of food and eating in
the context of society as a whole
Anagrams of Desire: Angela Carter's Writing for Radio, Film and Television
No full textThis book is the first volume to give critical attention to Carter's writings for media, including five radio plays, two film adaptations, an original television documentary and a number of unrealised scripts for stage and screen, examining these texts together for the first time and offering them a more central position in the Carter canon. It draws on exclusive interviews with the directors and producers with whom Carter collaborated. The book has been cited by John Ellis at Royal Holloway University [http://www.rhul.ac.uk/media-arts/staff/ellis3.htm] and is quoted extensively in Sarah Gamble (2005), A Literary Life (Palgrave Macmillan) in which she acknowledges Crofts as the only writer to have published on Carter's poem 'Unicorn' and the TV documentary The Holy Family Album. In recognition of this work, Crofts was invited to contribute a chapter to Rebecca Munford (ed.) (2006), Revisiting Angela Carter and to be a keynote speaker at 'Demythologising the Demythologiser', Angela Carter Symposium at Exeter University, Dec 2006. A further paper on The Holy Family Album was given at the BFI 'Channel 4: 25 Years Conference', Nov 2007
Rereading Angela Carter
No full textBook review of Sarah Gamble's monograph 'Angela Carter: a literary life'
Intersecting Axes: Narrative and Culture in Versions of the Lizzie Borden Story (A Performative Approach)
No full textThis thesis examines versions of the story of 32-year-old New Englander Lizzie Andrew Borden, famously accused of axe-murdering her stepmother Abby and father Andrew in 1892. Informed by narrative and feminist theories, INTERSECTING AXES draws upon interdisciplinary, contemporary re-workings of Judith Butler’s concept of “performativity” to explore the ways in which versions of the Lizzie Borden story negotiate such themes as repetition and difference, freedom and constraint, revision and reprisal, contingency and determinism, the specific and the universal. The project emphasizes and embraces the paradoxical sense in which interpretations are both enabled and constrained by the contextual situation of the interpreter and analyzes the relationship between individual versions and the cultural constructs they enact while purporting to describe.
Moving away from symptomatic reading and its psychoanalytic underpinnings to focus upon the interpretive frames by which our understandings of Lizzie Borden versions (and of narrative/cultural texts more broadly) are shaped, this project exposes the complex performative processes whereby meaning is created. The chapters of this thesis offer contextual readings of a short story by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, a ballet by Agnes de Mille, a made-for-television by Paul Wendkos, and a short story by Angela Carter to argue for the theoretical, political, narratological, cultural, and interpretive benefits of approaching the relationship between texts and contexts through a uniquely contemporary concept of performativity, bringing a valuable new perspective to current debates about the intersection of narrative and culture
Angela Carter: New Critical Readings
No full textBringing together leading international scholars of contemporary fiction and modern women writers, this book provides authoritative new critical readings of Angela Carter's work from a variety of innovative theoretical and disciplinary approaches. Angela Carter: New Critical Readings both evaluates Carter's legacy as feminist provocateur and postmodern stylist, and broaches new ground in considering Carter as, variously, a poet and a 'naturalist'. Including coverage of Carter's earliest writings and her journalism as well as her more widely studied novels, short stories and dramatic works, the book covers such topics as rescripting the canon, surrealism, and Carter's poetics
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