On The Construction Of Female Subjectivity: A Feminist Narratological Study Of Wise Children

Angela Carter, as one of the greatest British female writers in the twentieth century, is distinguished by her unique style and originality in illustrating and contemplating female subjectivity. Wise Children is her final novel, and is regarded as her “finest” novel and her masterpiece. Since the publication of the novel, critics have studied the novel from such perspectives as feminism, intertextual theory, and carnival theory. However, there has been no serious study on the link between story and narrative form. This thesis attempts to apply feminist narratological theories to the examination of female subjectivity construction in the novelThe thesis consists of five chapters. The first chapter is an introduction to Angela Carter and Wise Children, the criticism of the novel in particular, the theoretical framework, the research questions, and the layout of the thesis. The second chapter deals with the narrative voices in the novel, and examines their functions in establishing female narrative authority. The third chapter focuses on the internal focalization in the novel, and analyzes the female focalizer’s views of gender stereotype and gender relationship. The fourth chapter discusses the narrative space in the novel, and analyzes the spatialization of the text and the construction of female space. The last chapter is the conclusion. It is found that the author challenges the patriarchal notion in content and form, and that female narrative authority and female subjectivity are constructed through narrative voice, focalization and narrative space.