On The Fantastic Images Subverting The Culturally Constructed Patriarchal Gender Roles

Angela Carter is one of the greatest contemporary writers, who are among the modern women writers finding the purely realistic literature unsatisfactory for transmitting their mindsets and worldviews. She is engaged in the shattering of male myths about femininity. In her numerous works, she presents archetypal virgins and monsters in quite different ways. By rejecting universal experience and equipping each with a reasonable and diversified life history, Carter gives a voice back to women who have been figured as objects in male literature without being allowed to tell their own stories.This thesis focuses on the masterpiece Nights at the Circus, which is one of the most fantastic novels of the twentieth century. The thesis sets out from the premise that the fantastic, in the hands of the women writers with feminist awareness, can be used as a tool to subvert patriarchal gender roles that are culturally constructed. The thesis aims to apply the transgressive function of the fantastic images to analyze the subversion of the culturally constructed patriarchal gender roles. This thesis identifies fantastic images in Nights at the Circus with its possible cultural implications so that the "un-seen" of the culture, a term suggested by Jackson, can be seen. The study asserts that through the efficient use of the fantastic mode in Nights at the Circus, Carter negates culturally dominant notions of reality, whereby they resist the cultural constructions of gender and challenge prevailing notions of identity.The theme of my thesis is concerned with the fantastic images in Nights at the Circus subverting the culturally constructed gender roles, so as to see the ways in which the rigid boundaries of the gender roles in patriarchy can be transgressed, thus comprehending Angela Carter's courage to challenge the western conception of traditional gender categories, and revealing Carter's feminist thought and the subversive characteristics of her worldview. The thesis analyses Angela Carter's use of "the fantastic" and argues that the fantastic functions as a liberating and subversive component of her text. Through the detailed analysis of the novel, the thesis argues that Carter employs the fantastic in such a transgressive way that her narratives subvert the gender roles assigned by the patriarchal order. To improve woman's position in the male-centered world, Carter empowers woman with the fantastic images which activate her positive participation in the course of the reconstruction. Meanwhile, she highlights Fevvers' refusal of patriarchy by the transgressive function of the fantastic images. In this way, woman can forcefully influence man and stimulate him towards his rebirth so that they can reach their ultimate goal of the reconstruction.The thesis consists of four parts. Chapter one is divided into three sections. The first section presents a review of the researches on Angela Carter. The second section introduces a brief introduction to Nights at the Circus and related literary comment on it. The third section sheds a glimpse to Angela Carter's contemplation on Fevvers and gender roles.Chapter two is devoted to the elaboration on the definition of the term "Fantastic", on the function of the fantastic images, and on the studies on gender roles and the features of patriarchal social structures. Three sections are included in this chapter. The first section concerns Todorov's and Jackson's definition of "the fantastic" .The second section illustrates the function of the fantastic images. The third section covers the studies on gender roles and the features of patriarchal social structures.The third chapter begins with the detailed analysis of the subversive potential of the fantastic images in Nights at the Circus deconstructing the culturally constructed patriarchal gender roles and subverting western binary logic. This chapter concentrates on the subversive nature of the fantastic images and displays women's rebellions against patriarchy so as to see the ways in which the rigid boundaries of the gender roles in patriarchy can be transgressed. Three sections are included in this chapter. The first section addresses an exploration of metamorphosis. The second section is an elaboration on the novel's central fantastic images—Fevvers' body and her wings. The fantastic images enable Carter to bypass and undermine the male-centered power, weaken conventional notions of gender construction, and posit other forms of power. The third section will be concerned with monstrous women as transformed female bodies, the image of "an army of lovers" and a vital image of carnivalistic laughter. They parody traditional notions of women and envisage the possibility of breaking up the rigid boundaries that are drawn around the female body.The last chapter is a conclusion of the whole thesis. This chapter concludes that Angela Carter reveals the limitations of the male gender roles assigned by patriarchy, negates culturally dominant notions of reality, whereby she resists the dominant cultural constructions of gender, and challenges the traditional appropriation of women's lives and histories endemic in Western, male-centered culture. Through the detailed analysis of the novel, the author pleasantly finds out that Carter's persistent contemplation of the reconstruction of the heterosexual relationship to enlighten her contemplation on fairer and more human terms. Carter has her particularly designed strategy to solve the problems imposed on man and woman by patriarchy. After taking these three steps: first, man's rebirth through refusing patriarchal ideology; second, the embryo of genuine heterosexual love; third, the reconstruction of the patriarchal heterosexual relationship, the only world that we ever know has no other way but advances towards a more harmonious and more enjoyable state. She then proposes that "love" is the crucial element of man and woman's enjoyable relationship. In order to nourish desirable and genuine heterosexual love, man has to abandon his deep-rooted patriarchal ideology and experience the rituals of rebirth. After that, the nature of contemporary heterosexual relationships can be changed in favor of woman, and then, man and woman can reconstruct the heterosexual relationships on just and human terms.