The Spatialized Power In The Magic Toyshop

Angela Carter was born in Eastbourne in 1940. She is one of the most creative and controversial contemporary writers. She is also the feminist writer in the 20 th century with the obvious originality. Carter has key influence on the contemporary Britain women's writing. Elaine Showalter saw her as worship of Britain men. Within her writing career for over 20 years, Carter devoted herself to deconstructing the definition of women's nature in patriarchal myth. In her many works, Carter overturned mechanical female image under traditional patriarchy shackle, shaped female images expressing their opinions whose discourse power was deprived by male writers, which helped restore female true and complete visage.The thesis is going to make a tentative exploration of the spatialized power in Carter's The Magic Toyshop from the perspective of Michel Foucault's “space-power” theory. The word “power” is central to Michel Foucault's philosophical thinking concerning the relations between individuals, groups, institutions and the society. From his book Discipline and Punish, he conveys his fundamental idea about power, which in practice is the relations between the individual and the society, especially its institutions. In Michel Foucault's studies of power, there is another important word “space” that can not be ignored to understand his theories related to power. The “space” is the key for Michel Foucault's methodology and analysis of power. Through “space”, Michel Foucault could analyse “power”, and the mechanism of “power”.The novel is set in a toyshop which is a dark cavern of a shop and it is crowded with a rocking horse and stiffed-limbed puppets. The shop is owned by Uncle Philip, an important character in the novel. The novel presents what happens in the house to several main characters, Melanie, Finn, Francie, Jonathon and Aunt Margaret. The conflicts in the novel mainly happen between Uncle Philip, the representative of the patriarchy power, and other characters. The research of the spatialized power are to be conducted in three aspects as follows: the physical establishment of the patriarchal power; the power intrusion into characters in the space; the relations of characters influenced by the patriarchal power.Chapter one focuses on the physical construction of spatialized patriarchy. The space theory mentioned by Foucault in his works is employed to analyze the enclosed physical space of the novel, the forbidden district and the overseeing gaze of the physical space as well.Chapter two discusses the mental spaces under the spatialized patriarchy. Moving to the toy shop, under the supervision of the Father Uncle Philip, Jonathon devotes himself into the model boats. He doesn't say anything but “good night” every day. He indulges himself into illusory ocean space. Another character Francie hates his brother-in-law Philip. But he doesn't dare to against Philip. Facing the constant Philip's patriarchal power, Francie fights the oppressive reality by indulging in playing the fiddle. So both of them could continue to live through the alienated imaginary spaces.Chapter three explores the power relations by looking at the interpersonal relationships among characters in the enclosed space. In the little social space-the magic toyshop, the aphasic Aunt Margaret's discipline is superficial. She makes her own voices through the writing on the blackboard. The heroine Melanie eventually escapes from Uncle Philip who wants Melanie to be one of Flowers' to revenge Melanie's dead father. The oppressive patriarchy leads to the resistance of the insulted and oppressed families.In Conclusion, the thesis restates the general idea of each chapter and expounds the domain of further study. The Magic Toyshop shows the fighting between the marginalized groups, such as women, orphans and the patriarchy over power. This thesis attempts to discuss the characters' awareness of patriarchal power and resistance in the novel The Magic Toyshop to review the themes of Carter's works.