Angela Carter’s work is a collage of discourses and genres tackling such issues as identity construction, marginality, myth as foundation of ideology, fluidity of boundaries. Her playful intertextual allusions to literature, psychology, politics and popular culture are infused with irony and wit, and the challenge of finding a critical framework complex and accurate enough by which to study her work has remained, since no classification seems to do her justice.
My solution in this study is to move away from the urge to approach her works according to literary frames, to a discussion informed by a different metaphor, denoting enigmatic spaces, conterdiscourses, borders of otherness – heterotopia.
My looking-glass examines five novels out of nine, five short stories out of thirty-five, as well as Carter’s two film adaptations. I have condensed her rich patchwork of stories, characters and techniques into a term extricated from its medical and geographical roots, befitting the rich intertextuality of her themes, her interest in boundaries between fact and fiction, margins and centres, or the interplay between sacred and profane. The concept of heterotopia emphasizes the ambiguity, as well as the dialogic interaction of Carter’s often discordant discourses. The spectacular and the pragmatic threads of her texts, framed by extreme seriousness and witty humour, have delighted and offended readers, consequently maintaining Carter’s literary and cinematic montage at the top of the literary canon, as the present study will show.
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION
CONVERGING ECHOES
1.1. INTRODUCING ANGELA CARTER
1.2. DEFINING HETEROTOPIA
HETEROTOPIAN ZONES- INNER DEPTHS OF OUTER SPACES
2.1. DISMANTLING CATACOMBS
2.1.1. THE CASTLE
2.1.2. THE PRISON
2.1.3. THE CAVE/THE WOMB
2.2. MAZES OF THE OUTSIDE
2.2.1. THE FOREST
2.2.2. THE DESERT
2.2.3. THE CITY
HETEROTOPIA – REACHING FOR THE OTHER
3.1. DUPLICITOUS DOLLS
3.2. INNOCENT PREDATORS
3.3. CANNIBALS
3.4. DESIRED OTHERS
HETEROTOPIA - DYNAMICS OF PERFORMANCE
4.1. SCENES OF DISSEMBLANCE
4.2. TWISTS OF PASSION
4.3. SONGS AND DANCES
HETEROTOPIA - THE WARP AND WEFT OF STORYTELLING
5.1. THE ‘CONFIDENCE TRICK’
5.2. EMBROIDERING GENEALOGIES
5.3. CINEMATIC SPINNERS
CONCLUSION
Research Objectives and Themes
The primary objective of this thesis is to provide a critical framework for analyzing Angela Carter's diverse body of work—including novels, short stories, and screen adaptations—by employing the concept of "heterotopia" as a spatial and metaphorical lens. By moving away from conventional literary classification, the study explores how Carter’s fiction constructs enigmatic spaces, counter-discourses, and borders of otherness that mirror complex stages of identity formation and social resistance.
- The intersection of feminism and postmodernism in Carter's subversive narrative strategies.
- The construction of "heterotopian" zones such as castles, prisons, and cities as sites of social confinement and liberation.
- The performative nature of gender and the body as a site of negotiation within patriarchal structures.
- The role of intertextuality, storytelling, and cinematic artifice in breaking traditional narrative frames.
- A critical exploration of desire, cannibalism, and the uncanny within the context of the postmodern subject.
Book Excerpt
2. 1.3. THE CAVE/THE WOMB
The cave is most often associated with the female space. It also evokes the topos of the journey into the labyrinth, carrying ambiguous meanings, sometimes seen as the entrance to hell, other times representing a soul’s return to life. For Plato’s cave dweller in The Republic it is a space of imprisonment, as he can only see shadows; Freud regarded it as a womb-like enclosure, so that a woman may at some point become “a prisoner of her own nature”, according to Gilbert and Gubar (1979:94); Simone de Beauvoir (1989) viewed the cave as a metaphor of the social imprisonment of women.
On the other hand, the cave draws one to its protective enclosure, it is a safe place, womb-like, the source of yearning and pleasure. The journey to the female depths becomes necessary for reaching a deeper understanding of the self. The womb is a liminal space, which must necessarily be crossed to come into the world; as in a rite of passage, this limen is ambiguous, it is neither life nor death. Abjection is the recurring, threatening sensation of an incurable instability of the self, that finds expression in the body, in the secretions which exceed it, in its crevices. Sites of expulsion and of incorporation, borderline sites of horror and pleasure, all stand for the critics definition of abjection:
“We may call it a border: abjection is above all ambiguity. Because, while releasing a hold, it does not radically cut off the subject from what threatens it - on the contrary, abjection acknowledges it to be in perpetual danger. But also, abjection itself is a compromise of judgment and affect, of condemnation and yearning, of signs and drives. Abjection preserves what existed in the archaism of pre-objectal relationship, in the immemorial violence with which the body becomes separated from another body in order to be - maintaining that night in which the outline of the signified vanishes and where only the imponderable affect is carried out” (Kristeva, 1982: 9-10).
Summary of Chapters
INTRODUCTION: Establishes the framework of heterotopia to study Angela Carter's work, rejecting traditional literary classification in favor of spatial metaphors.
CONVERGING ECHOES: Contextualizes Carter's writings within feminism and postmodernism, highlighting her subversive approach to genres and societal archetypes.
HETEROTOPIAN ZONES- INNER DEPTHS OF OUTER SPACES: Analyzes sites of confinement like castles, prisons, and caves as symbolic labyrinths where characters negotiate their subjectivity.
HETEROTOPIA – REACHING FOR THE OTHER: Examines how boundary negotiation and power relations function as heterotopic sites, focusing on desire and patriarchal ideology.
HETEROTOPIA - DYNAMICS OF PERFORMANCE: Investigates how performance and theatricality serve as strategies of resistance and identity formation, particularly in The Passion of New Eve and Wise Children.
HETEROTOPIA - THE WARP AND WEFT OF STORYTELLING: Explores the polyphonic nature of Carter's narratives, focusing on the intersection of fiction, film, and the destabilization of authoritative discourse.
CONCLUSION: Synthesizes the study's findings on the kinetic, fluid nature of Carter's work, which remains a cornerstone of postmodern feminist critique.
Keywords
Angela Carter, heterotopia, feminism, postmodernism, space, labyrinth, performativity, gender, abjection, desire, intertextuality, gothic, cannibalism, storytelling, masquerade.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the core focus of this research?
The work primarily focuses on re-evaluating Angela Carter’s oeuvre through the lens of Michel Foucault’s concept of "heterotopia," viewing her fiction as a series of physical, metaphorical, and literary spaces that challenge traditional social and patriarchal structures.
What are the primary thematic fields covered?
The central themes include identity construction, the fluidity of boundaries, the negotiation of desire, the subversion of patriarchal myths, and the intersection of postmodernist techniques with feminist politics.
What is the main goal or research question?
The research aims to prove that the complexity of Angela Carter’s narrative and cinematic investigations can be subsumed under the fluid concept of heterotopia, offering a fresh perspective on her subversiveness and her use of spatial metaphors.
Which scientific methods does the author employ?
The author uses a multidisciplinary approach, incorporating literary theory, cultural geography, film studies, psychoanalysis, and theories of space (such as those by Foucault, Lefebvre, and Soja) to analyze Carter’s texts.
What is treated in the main body?
The main body examines various "heterotopian zones"—such as castles, prisons, the forest, and the desert—and explores the dynamics of performance, the act of storytelling, and the interplay of gender, power, and desire in novels like The Passion of New Eve, Nights at the Circus, and Wise Children.
Which keywords characterize this work?
Key terms include heterotopia, gender performativity, the abject, gothic, and intertextuality, all of which frame the discussion of Carter’s unique positioning within postmodern and feminist literature.
How does the author interpret the motif of the labyrinth in Carter’s work?
The author interprets the labyrinth not just as an empirical space, but as a symbolic structure of the mind—a path to self-knowledge that reveals the arbitrary, constructed nature of myth and patriarchal domination.
What role does the mirror play in the characters’ experiences?
The mirror serves as a crucial spatial and psychological tool, representing both woman’s entrapment within the male gaze and an alchemical, cathartic space where the self can be reimagined and deconstructed.
- Citation du texte
- Eliza Claudia Filimon (Auteur), 2009, Worlds in Collision - Angela Carter's Heterotopia, Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/262543
