On The Posthumanist Views In Angela Carter's Science Fiction Writing

Angela Carter(1940-1992)is one of the most original contemporary British writers.Studies of her writing are still limited in perspective and quite imbalanced,pivoting on her radical feminism and postmodern writing style.The posthumanist views expressed in Carter 's writing,most palpably in her science fiction writing,have been largely neglected if ever touched upon.This paper attempts to analyze Carter's posthumanist views in her science fictions:Heroes and Villains(1969),The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman(1972),and The Passion of New Eve(1977).By exploring Carter's reflections on human social state,human subjectivity and human gender identity in these three novels,this paper argues that Angela Carter gives a radical critique of classical humanism's concepts on humanity in her science fiction writing.Her views of humanity as rooted in mutation,transgressions of boundaries and becoming rather than essentialism or isolation,have entered the realm of posthumanism.Posthumanism regards classical humanism as a hegemonic ideology in human society and a flawed concept of man.It aims at subverting humanist discourse from two main layers:the social layer and the layer of human subjectivity.Moreover,some female posthumanist scholars combine posthumanist thoughts in the study of gender issues,so as to debunk traditional gender essentialism and dualist gender categories,this idea forms a third layer of posthumanism.Angela Carter's science fiction writing embodies all three aspects of posthumanism;the three works analyzed here each highlights one of these aspects as the most outstanding.Chapter One studies Carter's posthumanist view on human society in Heroes and Villains.In its social discourse,humanism is characterized by the philosophy of teleology,which is substituted by posthumanism for a sense of uncertainty and mutation.In the novel human history and society are described in an abyssal rupture from the past,and exude multiple possibilities,which concur with what posthumanism advocates.Chapter Two explores Carter's posthumanist view on human subjectivity in The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman.Human subjectivity in posthumanist view is no longer autonomous or fixed,nor ruled by pure reason,but is changeable and complex.Accordingly,the characters' subject in the novel is mobile and interactive to outside forces;visual technology transforms the understanding of human subject even further.Chapter Three analyzes Carter's posthumanist view on gender identity in The Passion of New Eve.Posthumanism rejects the regulative gender identity under humanist logics of essentialism and binary opposition.The main characters of the novel transgress the boundary of male/female division,implying the possibility of multiple gender expressions under new technological situation,which.coincides with posthumanist ideas.Carter's works never leave humanist discourse behind and gleefully celebrate the end of Man(under humanism's definition).Rather,by reflecting on liberal humanism's ideas in a critical way,these three novels open up a dialogue between old and new understandings about human states,and envisage the coming of contemporary posthuman condition.