On The Subversion Of Angela Carter's Female Characters In Her New Fairy Tales

Angela Carter is widely regarded as a writer in"the demothologising business". Angela Carter's newly revised The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories is bold and undoubtedly unique which fosters multiple readings. Carter's fairy tales have attracted an ever-increasing number of scholars to analyze them from the aspects of gothic, magical realism, feminism, postmodernism, etc respectively, who generally believe that the female characters in her works are either victims under patriarchal society or radical women's rights advocators. However, this thesis holds that what Carter seeks is not to place women above men but the equality between them, which expresses her idea of a harmonious co-existence between men and women. Therefore, the seeking of women rights in her stories is not radical but rational. By using deconstructionism, this thesis interprets how Carter subverts man's assumed superiority over woman and seeks the equality between them.French critic Derrida put forward deconstructionism to criticize the logocentrism in western and suggested breaking the domination of one over the other. By employing the theory of deconstructionism, this thesis focuses on Carter's subversive writing of the traditional fairy tales to analyze how Carter deconstructs binary oppositions and creates equality between men and women. Her ideas of rational seeking equality between men and women are reflected in her using of female narrators, displaying women's powerfulness and men's tenderness, women's seeking equality with men, expressing of women's sexual desire and their conducts of saving themselves. Being the narrators in Carter's works, females are strong enough to make their own voices heard and are capable enough to save themselves as well as men. Some women in her reversed stories are bold enough to express their sexual desires and are brave enough to take advantage of their body to conquer men and fight against the patriarchal society that treats them as commodity.Through analyzing how Carter deconstructs conventional works, the author further explores Carter's fighting for women's rights. By using the old bottle to hold new wine, Carter uses a commonly accepted literary form to explore the solution to the conflicting bisexual relationship and women's subordinate status in the patriarchal society. Angela Carter tries to achieve equality and harmony between man and woman, not one being superior to the other.