Summary:
The Oppressive Power of Patriarchy in Angla carter's novels: The Magic Toyshop; Nights at The Circus; Wise Children.
We can read Angela Carter as both entertaining and a critique of constructions and presentations of power, gender, sexuality and construction of gendered identities. First we will consider the oppressive and destructive power of patriarchy which is the social system in which men are regarded as the authority within the family and society. Afterwards in the next chapter we will investigate how Carter's heroines succeed in constructing their femininity and their gendered identities.
Let us look at a typical piece of Carter' s writing The Magic Toyshop and its specificfocus on critiquing the oppressive power of patriarchy that is represented through the oppressive character of Uncle Phillip. The novel narrates the story of Melanie and hertwo siblings who are moved after the sudden death of their parents to the strange domain of the puppet maker's house, Uncle Phillip, where their freedom is snuffed out by his tyrannical presence.
The Victorian domineering Uncle Philip is citied throughout the text .All the readers know of him his brutality and his queer puppet shows. It is apparent from the first glance that he pulls the strings creating a tyrannical hold over the household .He aims to turn his hapless extended family into puppets, and control Melanie's sexuality when he sent Finn to rape her and also when he tries to represent her as a puppet through Leda and Swan rape scene.
In this sense, Melanie is forced to be a human puppet to Uncle Philip's fantasy of power
which belongs to her magical realism technique with combining both real and magic.
Uncle Philip's perversion is pointed out at the moment when he inspects Melanie's looks before the performance. He is dissatisfied and says:
"I wanted my Leda to be a little girl. Your tits are too big." 1
Uncle Philip also tyrannizes his wife Aunt Margaret and her two brothers Francie and Finn . Lorna sage asserts:
"Uncle Philip has made images of them as toy monkeys, they are in his power, and ......Melanie joins them in this house." 2
Carter tries to tell readers through The Magic Toyshop how Uncle Philip's power 1could turn Melanie into a victim and this exposes a kind of bullying male power.
In her penultimate novel Nights at the Circus, Carter mocks and explodes the constructive cultural stereotypes of femininity and masculinity. The novel is divided into three sections: London, St.Perersburg and Siberia and Carter conducts it like a circus.
The embodiement of the patriarchal power is in the characters of Walser, Christian Rosencreutz, Grand Duke. For example, early in the novel, in London Carter displays Walser's continous attempts to fix Fevvers to paper or to disclose her as a hoax to secure immortality of profession acknowledgement. The journalist Walser who represent the power of patriarchy comes to interview Fevvrers. He is more ambitious about dismantling and distroying the identity that is presented to him than trying to understand it. This is a condition of his journalistic ambition but it also an act of misogyny to aliegn Fevvers to his own image of what a women should be. He intents on fixing and writing Fevvers's identity in a manner that suits his conceptions of reality. Walsar, the journalist, is seeking something real Gina Wisker affirms:
"He initially desires to expose her pretence but then recognizes the importance of Fevvers ownership of her own version of her identity." 1
Likewise, Christian Rosencreutz mythologizes her as Sophia, semi-angel who must be destroyed for masculine power and the world to continue. Grand Duke also attempts to objectify her by transforming her into a precious miniature to keep in his collection of toys.
They all want to victimize and tyrannize Fevvers. I have to say that throughNights at the Circus, Carter tries to exposes a great deal of patriarchal opression through three males over one woman.
In Carter's last novel, Wise Children, the novel concentrates on the repeated favorite themes of identity, gender roles, construction, representations and performance. Likewise in the novel, the reigning system is patriarchal and character can't find value and success according to their own terms within its roles and regulations. The great actor Sir Melchior is the personification of the patriarchal empire which he creats, while the twins Dora and Nora represent the alternative. They struggle for recognition and visibility within a system ruled by patriarchal values. Melchior refused to acknowledge them as his daughters and wants to give them success according to patriarchal values so the twins only achieve supreme fame and notorety when the opportunity is given to them through Melchior himself with roles in musical and movie.
Dora says:
"Although he did not live in heaven, our father was in constant communicationwith the angels. And that is how we came to star, alongside his very self, in that soon-to-be-famous West End revue entitled What You Will." 1
Carter wants through Melchior to give us lessons about the power of patraiarchy which prevades in her ultimate novel Wise Children.
To sum up, much of Carter's work scrutinizes ways in which masculinity is presented through archetypal patriarchs, critiquing constructions of man's power over women and the reductive power of reductionism. Carter in her above writings flies in the face of patriarchy, or oppressive male power.
Primary Sources
Carter, Angela. The Magic Toyshop. London: Virago Press, 1981.
-------------. Nights at the Circus. London: Vintag, 1984.
-------------. Wise Children . London: Vintag, 1992 .
Secondary Sources:
A-Books
Alexander, Flora. Contemporary Women Novelists. London :Advision of Hodder & Stoughton, 1989.
Bowers, Maggie Ann. Magical Realism. London and New York: Routledge, 2004 .
Haffenden, John. Novelists in Interview. USA: Methuen & Co. Ltd, 1985.
Gamble, Sara. Angela Carter.Notes from the Front Line. Britain: Edinburgh, 1997.
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