| dc.description.abstract | In her last two novels, Nights at the Circus and Wiise
Children, Angela Carter examines some of the complex factors
involved in the construction of identity, both within the
fictional world, and for readers in their interaction with the world of the fiction. Of these factors, gender is of primary importance. The thesis shows that identity is a
product of the interaction between individuals and their
audience, informed by the multiple contexts surrounding
them. Individuals create identities through performance and
are simultaneously created by the reception/perception of
their performances.
The thesis also argues that the relationship between
performer and audience is similar in many ways to the
relationship between the texts and their readers. Through a
number of different techniques. Carter's novels make readers
aware of the ways in which the story is told, and draw them
into an active relationship with the texts. In these ways.
Carter's novels question authority and destabilize meaning,
both through narrative technique, and the questions about
the nature of identity posed by the fictional characters.
The first chapter examines identity in Nights at the
Circus, particularly the ways in which Fevvers disrupts the
category of Woman and resists having her identity reduced to appearance only. The second chapter looks at the narrative,
examining the rhetorical strategies used by both Fewe r s and
Carter to keep readers actively engaged with the text.
The third chapter turns to Wise Children and the way in
which Dora comes to understand herself in relation to her
status as a twin and her position within her various
families. The final chapter demonstrates that Dora blurs
genre boundaries and distinctions between high and low
cultute in order to give voice to her biological and
artistic illegitimacy. | |
