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Summarising the argument in the journal article Is she fact or is she fiction? Angela Carter and the enigma of women, Fernihough argues that gender is a performance, our ideas of masculinities and femininities become knowable through representations of them. The article states through performance we are able to break away from our sex/ gender dual notions which have become socially recognisable.
Fevvers constitutes her identity through performance in which audiences are unable to distinguish between whether she is real or whether she is fake. This could be disputed because the audience may be aware that Fevvers stage persona is not real yet are still entertained by her performances and want to believe it is reality. The novel directs the reader into thinking that Fevvers true identity will be revealed at some point, the article suggests this will happen when Fevvers mask, for example her makeup is stripped off and each layer will reveal more and more of her true self. Furthermore, Fernihough demonstrates that Fevvers embodies this idea of masquerade; she hides her true identity with an artificial mask, so she will be seen as more desirable to a man and their idea of a women. On the other hand, is she just acting out her own idea of gender? It could be thought that Fevvers disguises her true identity because she takes pleasure in being the centre of attention and centre of the male gaze. For instance, “Look at me! With a grand, proud, ironic grace, she exhibited herself before the eyes of the audience as if she were a marvelous present too good to be played with. Look, not touch."( Carter, 1984: p13). The quote highlights she is demanding everyone’s attention and does not want to be touched she thrives on attention from her audien...
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...ef Lives: Angela Carter's Nights at the Circus." Journal of Narrative Technique 28: 2 (1998) 161-85.
Guffery, Robert. "White Noise: Don Delillo's Postmodern Autopsy of the Twentieth Century." New York Review of Science Fiction 20: 1 (2007) 8- 13.
Kohike. M.-L. "Into History through the Back Door: The' Past Historic' in Nights at the Circus and Affinity." Women: A Cultural Review 15: 2 (2004) 66- 153.
Martin, Sara. " The Power of Monstrous Women: Fay Weldon's The Life and Loves of a She-Devil (1983), Angela Carter's Nights at the Circus (1984) and Jeanette Winterson's Sexing the Cherry (1989)" Journal of Gender Studies 8:2 (1999) 193- 210. http://docserver.ingentaconnect.com.ezproxy.tees.ac.uk/deliver/connect/routledg/09589236/v8n2/s5.pdf?expires=1298230278&id=61314097&titleid=391&accname=Teesside+University&checksum=2898893BE0AFDC1DF11479EEA7F65916 (20. 2. 11).
...e relationship with men, as nothing but tools she can sharpen and destroy, lives through lust and an uncanny ability to blend into any social class makes her unique. Her character is proven as an unreliable narrator as she exaggerates parts of the story and tries to explain that she is in fact not guilty of being a mistress, but a person caught in a crossfire between two others.
Don DeLillo creates in White Noise a manifesto which attempts to expose certain retrospective characteristics which he believes must be a part of every postmodern fiction.
Moers, Ellen. "Female Gothic: The Monster's Mother." Reprinted in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Norton Critical Edition. 1976; New York: W. W. Norton, 1996. 214-224.
Bailey, Carol. "Performance and the Gendered Body in Jamaica Kincaid's "girl" and Oonya Kempadoo's Buxton Spice." Meridians: Feminism, Race, Transnationalism. 10.2 (2011): 106-123. Print.
Angela Carter’s ” The Bloody Chamber And Other Stories” is a collection of short stories written in the style of traditional fairy tales. The thrust of these stories is the objectification of women. Carter uses the fairy tale style as a way of exploring female power, desire and sexuality and adeptly uses the fantasy framework to explore feminist ideas.
Karlsen, Carol. The Devil in the Shape of a Woman. (New York: Vintage Books, 1989), 2.
I shall endeavour to explore and analyse how women are presented in Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet”, Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress” and Duffy’s “Human Interest”.
Judith Butler’s concept of gender being performative focuses on how it creates a sequence of effect or impression. Human have a consistent way of talking about their gender as if it were something that is simply a fact. People go about their lives following patterns that are interconnected with their male or female appearance. They get very settled in the expected behaviors and common attributes of male or female, without recognizing that gender is a social construction. It is difficult to wrap your head around the idea that gender is always changing and being reproduced because it is conversation that often goes unnoticed. Butler realizes that it will be a struggle to get people to grasp the idea that nobody actually is their gender and that
Sarah Pomeroy. Goddess, Whores, Wives and Slaves. (New York: Pantheon. 1975, 1976. Print. P. 80
These women authors have served as an eye-opener for the readers, both men and women alike, in the past, and hopefully still in the present. (There are still cultures in the world today, where women are treated as unfairly as women were treated in the prior centuries). These women authors have impacted a male dominated society into reflecting on of the unfairness imposed upon women. Through their writings, each of these women authors who existed during that masochistic Victorian era, risked criticism and retribution. Each author ignored convention a...
Butler, Judith. Ed. Case, Sue-Ellen. "Performative Acts and Gender Constitution." Performing Feminisms: Feminist Critical Theory and Theatre. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990.
Haney-Peritz, Janice. "Monumental Feminism and Literature's Ancestral House: Another Look at 'The Yellow Wallpaper'" Women's Studies. 12 (1986): 113-128.
Showalter, Elaine. The Female Malady: Women, Madness, and English Culture, 1830-1980. New York, NY: Pantheon Books, November 1985.
Butler states that “gender...is an identity tenuously constituted in time--an identity instituted through a stylized repetition of acts,” and she makes specific reference to these
...present powerful characters, while females represent unimportant characters. Unaware of the influence of society’s perception of the importance of sexes, literature and culture go unchanged. Although fairytales such as Sleeping Beauty produce charming entertainment for children, their remains a didactic message that lays hidden beneath the surface; teaching future generations to be submissive to the inequalities of their gender. Feminist critic the works of former literature, highlighting sexual discriminations, and broadcasting their own versions of former works, that paints a composite image of women’s oppression (Feminist Theory and Criticism). Women of the twenty-first century serge forward investigating, and highlighting the inequalities of their race in effort to organize a better social life for women of the future (Feminist Theory and Criticism).