Constructing A Separatist Utopia

Angela Carter was one of the most pivotal female writers of the 20 th century.Focusing on her two novels The Passion of New Eve and Nights at the Circus as well as one short story ?The Bloody Chamber?,this thesis aims to explore Carter‘s dialectical standpoints about radical thoughts of separatism in the 1970 s and 1980 s and her visions about feminist utopia,combing with relative theories about separatist utopia.Different from previous studies about Carter,this thesis pay more attention to the critical practice of separatism in the works and three distinctive attempts of constructing feminist utopia,trying to interpret Carter‘s opposition to gender dualism and suggestion of establishing harmony between men and women.More specifically,the thesis focuses on the separating processes to build a utopia and discusses three different women communities,manifesting multifaceted feminist ideas of Carter—her criticism of dualism and essentialism and her calling for love and symbiosis.The body part of the thesis is divided into three chapters which represent the whole separating process from the awakening of women‘s consciousness,the active revolt and the establishment of women‘s communities.The first chapter analyzes the awakening.Female characters obtain their consciousness with two stimulations—the experiential persuasion of female elders and the oppression by men.After their epiphany,they turn to asking for help,escaping or seducing to protect themselves while these mild and submissive approaches fail to help them out.When the conflicts intensify,women take more active approaches to revolt.The second chapter discusses three methods of women‘s active revolt including vindictive asexualization,killing of husbands and resolute massive fleeing,all of which bring successful and temporary freedom and emancipation.The third chapter analyzes different women‘s communities established on the basis of the previous three methods.In The Passion of New Eve,a matriarchal community is constructed but it finally turns out to be a dystopia.A widowed community is established in ?The Bloody Chamber? but it eventually tends to become a failure of circular tragedies.Finally,after the previous attempts,Carter set up a syncretic and diverse community in dynamic evolution,implying her negative attitudes towards violent revolt,her appeal of the awakening of men‘s consciousness and her proposition of symbiosis.To conclude,with the above analyses,this thesis deems that the two novels and one story have composed a trilogy of constructing a separatist utopia,which reflects Carter‘s visions on feminist utopia and her worries and concerns about the undermined problems,demonstrates her opposition to the absolute antagonism between sexes,and conveys her calling for love and symbiosis of men and women.