The Flow Of Human And Non-human Status In The Bloody Chamber And Other Stories

In The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories,Angela Carter constructs a unique kind of posthumanism from a feminist perspective.On the one hand,she dissolves the human subject position from an anthropocentric perspective;on the other hand,she reconstructs the human subject position in the flow of humans and non-humans.Thus,Angela Carter’s posthumanist perspective can be understood in both positive and negative ways.However,the feminist perspective has always been the anchor point of her argumentation.This paper takes Carter’s feminist perspective and places her in the context of twentieth-century British literary history to understand the characteristics of this posthumanism.This paper argues that Carter’s posthumanism is characterized by ecofeminism,which is more concerned with the reconfiguration of human and animal status and demands the breaking down of the boundaries between humanity and animality.Among her contemporaries,Carter’s focus is clearly more on the flow of human and nonhuman status than on the tragic picture of human domination by technology.This is because Angela Carter’s view that posthumanism has gendered attributes,that masculinist posthumanism has violent qualities,and that feminist-led posthumanism can construct a harmonious relationship between humans and nonhumans,is markedly different from much of her contemporaneous posthumanist writing.While Angela Carter’s posthumanist writing takes a feminist perspective,posthumanism in turn pushes her to deconstruct traditional feminist perspectives and combine them with Sadeanism to arrive at a fluid view of gender.Carter believes that there is more than one future for posthumanist society,so she also expresses her concerns in The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories.She often makes multiple adaptations around a particular traditional legendary story,with different styles and endings.These different creations also signify different posthumanist directions,showing Angela Carter’s deep thinking about posthumanism.This exploration of the diversity of posthumanism is rare among other writers of her time.This paper argues that Angela Carter’s thinking about feminism also drives her posthumanist creations,as she critiques the violent qualities of feminist political practices,and this critique led her to think about the differences between feminism and masculinity from a deeper perspective,and thus towards posthumanism.