Construction Of Feminist Narrative Authority In Angela Carter's Nights At The Circus

Angela Carter is one of the most outstanding British female writers in the 20~thh century.And she is also well-known as a feminist,whose feminist standpoints as well as deep concern for women expressed in her works are always the focuses of critics.Her masterpiece,Nights at the Circus,is one of the most brilliant works in contemporary literature,in which the feminist elements involved have been much reviewed.However,although there are a number of unique narrative techniques in Nights at the Circus,there are just a few systematic analyses on it,not to mention the study from the feminist narratology perspective which is a combination of feminist criticism and classical narratology.Therefore,based on feminist narratology theory,this thesis attempts to have a textual analysis of the novel,focusing on how the author subverts the male authority in order to construct her own feminist narrative authority and how the author demonstrates her feminist consciousness through the unique narrative techniques.This thesis consists of three parts:introduction,main body and conclusion.The introduction gives a brief account of Carter's life story,literature review of Nights at the Circus and a brief introduction of feminist narratology.The main body is divided into three chapters:The first chapter mainly discusses how Carter uses three types of narrative voices to subvert the patriarchal discourse and express her strong feminist consciousness,including her challenge to traditional femininity defined by patriarchal and resist male gender authority through authorial voice;her expression of women's strong self-awareness and construction of female gender subjectivity through endowing Fevvers with strong power of discourse under personal voice;and her accusation against patriarchal oppression on women and appeal to unite female community for opposition to patriarchal politics through collective voice.The second chapter focuses on how Carter skillfully utilizes alternate narrative points of view to describe the magical experiences of Fevvers and the other members of the circus.She exhibits the image of“New Woman”Fevvers with overturning femininity from the third-person limited point of view of Walser;she narrates the circus member Mignon's miserable stories and her rebirth from the third-person omniscient point of view;and through the free shift of Fevvers'point of view and the third-person omniscient point of view,she tells the readers how Fevvers survives by her own efforts in Siberian wilderness and then grows into a more mature and strong new woman,and how hero Walser realizes self-reflection to reaccept Fevvers truly and equally.Through the alternation of various narrative points of view,Carter shapes such distinctive female subjects as Fevvers and Mignon to resist the traditional narrative mode regarding the male as the narrative subject and construct her own feminist narrative authority,meanwhile,to convey her wish of establishing equal and harmonious heterosexual relationship.The third chapter analyzes how Carter establishes her feminist narrative authority through different modes of narrative speech.This chapter mainly discusses how she employs the direct speech to demonstrate Fevvers'profound knowledge,rational mind and advanced feminist consciousness,and how she makes use of free indirect speech to make a natural integration between Countess P.'s consciousness and the narrator's discourse,while producing a strong ironic effect when there is a divergence between them.Carter satirizes that Countess P.becomes a female accomplice of patriarchy unconsciously and expresses her distinctive female thoughts to the readers,that women who want to achieve freedom and liberation should firstly improve their own feminist consciousness,which successfully strengthens her own feminist narrative authority.The last chapter summarizes that Angela Carter participates in and subverts the patriarchal discourse system through such uses of narrative strategies as different narrative voices,narrative points of view and modes of narrative speech,by which she successfully constructs feminist narrative authority,and expresses her advanced feminist consciousness of establishing equal and harmonious heterosexual relationship.