An Analysis Of Angela Carter's Novels From The Perspective Of Ethical Literary Criticism

Angela Carter is a female writer who has the most distinct originality and breaks outmoded conventions in contemporary English literary circle.Characterized by magnificent and weird language and style,her works create a separate school and integrate various elements such as Gothic,Latin American magic realism,French surrealism,feminism,fairy tales,and science fictions.She is mentioned in the same breath as Márquez and Nabokov by critics,and acclaimed as “Sahlman Rushdie among female writers and British Italo Calvino”.Angela Carter,a novelist,playwright,journalist,and essayist,has achieved numerous awards,including James Tait Black Memorial Prize and Somerset Maugham Award,etc.Meantime,she was praised as one of the most outstanding writers of the twentieth Century by Time.Because of the late translation of Angela Carter's work and her writing style not being used to by our academia,research on her works in China is very much not up to pace.Carter's works,be it short novels or her most applauded long works like Night at the Circus or Wise Children,focus on mostly on the fate and future of women.Her works are filled with elements like sexuality,desires and identity.Regarding ethical literary criticism as an entry point,this paper aims to study the main works Carter created in her entire life in a macroscopic way,in combination with her own experience and the impact of the social customs on her,to analyze the profound ethical meaning.This paper is divided into four chapters.Chapter One introduces Angela Carter and her works and gives a statement on the current state of the research on her works at home and abroad.Chapter Two is the theoretical basis of this paper.It explains the theory—Ethical Literary Criticism used in this paper through the following aspects: ethics and morality,review and outlook of ethical literary criticism,and the definition of ethical literary criticism.Chapter Three is the main part of this paper.It takes Nights at the Circus,Wise Children and The Passion of New Eve as examples to analyze and interpret Carter's works from the aspects of bisexual ethics,family ethics and gender ethics from the perspective of ethical literary criticism.Chapter Four draws a conclusion.It summarizes the literary ethics analysis of Nights at the Circus,Wise Children and The Passion of New Eve and the profound meaning of bisexual ethics,family ethics and gender ethics to show the special literary value of her works and gain insight into their significance in reality.