Angela Cater’s Nights At The Circus In The Research Of Four Heterogeneous Spaces

Angela Cater was a contemporary famous British feminist, and her novel Nights at the Circus published in1984. In1899, at the end of the Victorian era as the background, through the long winged heroine Fevvers tells that she once lived in Ma Nelson’s brothel, and Madame Schreck’s museum. She joins Colonel Kearney’s circus. With the entire circus on a train traversing the Siberian wilderness, she meets a group of escaped murderesses. Nights at the Circus incorporates multiple categories of fiction, including magical realism, postfeminism, or postmodernism, presenting the problems in the relationship in human, nature and society, and shaping a group of characters living at the edge of heterogeneous space and male-power characters. This paper uses four heterogeneous space to discuss some social problems, such as female consciousness and people being marginalized that Angela Carter had concerned about.This paper divides into five parts. The first part gives a brief introduction of the present study, including the information on Angela Carter and her novel Nights at the Circus, purpose and significance of the thesis, as well as the related researches from home and abroad. Chapter1introduces Ma Nelson’s brothel from the theory of heterogeneous space, focusing on sisiterhood, discussing and analysing from the aspects of space and gender. Chaper2discusses about Madame Schreck’s museum from the view of female and fairy tale. Angela Carter plays with many literary aspects and dissects the traditional fairy tale structure. Fairy taile was flourishing in Victorian era, and rewriting fairy tailes is an important way for feminists to fight against patriarchal power. Cater was good at colleting folk stories, fairy tales, and her novel has magical realism characters, highlighting the parody between women and fairy tales. In Chapter3, from the multicultural perspective, the author analyses Colonel Kearney’s circus, revealing a group of clowns being marginalized and the carnival qualities, the relationship between the Princess of Abyssinia, a homosexual person and Fan Niang, the fast economic development in19th century, and Colonel Kearney’s capitalism careerist and the ecological problems caused by him. Chapter4borrows the concept of panoramic prison to discuss the countess shelter. With Foucalt’s conception, it finds solutions for women’s liberation, and it explores the relationships between women and postmodern fictions. In conclusion, with the setting of19th century, this novel tells the story as the heroine Fevvers’ experiences in four heterogeneous space, profoundly revealing the fate of the marginalized figures, such as prostitutes and clowns. And it also builds a new role of modern woman as Fevvers to contend with the image of "family angel" in Victorian era. The word "night" in the title of the novel, reveals Carter’s determination in feminist.