A Study Of Desire In Angela Carter’s Literary Works In Her Transition Period

Angela Carter,a renowned contemporary British authoress,has a rich array of publications across various fields including novels,poetry,fairy tales,translations and plays.Her works are known for their rich intertextuality and surrealistic fantasy.Carter incorporates her own life experiences and her views on the plight of women into her works,which can be characterized by their bold and expressive style,leaving readers with clear and strong inclinations.The nature of Carter’s literary creations changes with different stages of her life,being closely linked to her experiences and changing ideas.In 1969,Carter went to Japan and intermittently lived there for over two years,a time known by scholars as a turning point in Carter’s literary career.The main works written during this period were The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman and the collection of short stories,Fireworks:Nine Profane Pieces.In these two works,the exploration of "desire" is a recurring theme,manifesting Carter’s attention to and attempt to liberate desire,and seek freedom,within her literary pursuits.This thesis focuses on the subject of desire in Angela Carter’s literary world during her transitional period.On the basis of a close reading,Carter’s experiences and development of the poetics of desire are also considered for reference,with an aim to achieve in-depth and rational objective analysis.The introduction presents Angela Carter’s literature and review the current research at home and abroad.In the first part,Freud’s psychoanalytic theory is introduced to study the "subject of desire" focusing on Carter’s deconstruction of the "Oedipus complex" and exploration of gender harmony.In the second part,Lacanian theory on the "other of desire" is introduced to reveal the impact of others on the subject’s self-awareness,whilst showcasing the route of character construction through escaping from the order of the other.The third part compares Carter’s constructed "desire machine" with the concept of "desire machine" by Deleuze and Guattari,further exploring the characteristics and significance of the liberation of desire in Carter’s novels.In conclusion,the differences and relationships between Freud’s individual unconscious desires,Lacan’s language and cultural unconscious desires,and Deleuze’s post-structuralist unconscious desires are highlighted alongside their integration with Cater’ s work.The study shows that the works of Carter during her transitional period can be explored through theoretical discourses of the subject of desire,the other of desire,and the desire machine,revealing feminist,psychoanalytic,and schizoanalysis elements in texts,highlighting the literary and cultural value of the poetics of desire.