Nights at the Circus | Social Concerns

Nights at the Circus Social Concerns

What if ... a woman could fly? gender roles were reversed? patriarchy, capitalism, and the class system were no more?

romance and other myths were exposed as dangerous fictions? the fantastic were to become "real"? This penultimate novel by British fiction and non-fiction writer Angela Carter addresses these and other weighty issues—urging that both her characters and her readers should "briefly contemplate the unimaginable"—with a deft and witty touch. Concerned primarily with how society views female sexuality and autonomy, and with the uses and abuses of power, Nights at the Circus functions as a transgressive fantasy of womanhood that underscores inequities inherent to the dominant paradigm.

Carter herself stated that the idea behind Nights at the Circus was to entertain and instruct. To accomplish this dual purpose, she offers the reader an outrageous female protagonist, embodying both masculine autonomy and a bizarre sort of feminine charm, whose...
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