A Carnival Interpretation Of Female Consciousness In Wise Children

Angela Carter is one of the most original writers in British literature in the second half of the 20th century.Her novelistic writing style and her bold talk of taboo subjects make her work highly controversial.In her writing,women have gained a higher degree of attention.They are courageous and rebellious,possessing independent female consciousness.They dare to break through both physical and psychological confinement and strive for happiness.Only after Carter’s death do critics show a strong interest in her unique feminist ideas embodied in her novels.Angela Carter’s works have been widely studied in western countries but have not received much attention in China.This thesis takes Carter’s last work,Wise Children,as the object of research.This novel is rich in carnival features.Based on Bakhtin’s carnival theory,this thesis tries to analyze various carnival elements in Wise Children,and categorizes them into three aspects: carnival body,carnival utterance and carnival spirit,so as to explore how they reflect Carter’s female consciousness.This thesis is composed of the introduction,the main body and the conclusion.The first part is the introduction.First,it briefly introduces Angela Carter and her works.Second,it reviews the current status of Angela Carter’s research at home and abroad,and clarifies the structure of this thesis and its research significance.The second part is the main body,which is composed of three chapters.The first chapter focuses on the body images presented in the novel.This chapter explores how women construct their subjectivity and deconstruct male subjectivity by theses body images.By presenting female body images,female characters gain the freedom of carnival and the cognition of body.At the same time,Carter deconstructs male subjectivity by male body images,allowing men to descend from the altar in a carnival atmosphere.The male body no longer has the right to oppress the female body but becomes the means of female carnival.The second chapter focuses on the complex utterances in the novel.This chapter explores how women challenge the male right of speech through carnival language and how marginal women gain the right of speech through polyphonic construction.Carnival language and the laughter undermine the authority of male right of speech.At the same time,Carter gives marginalized women the opportunity to utter through polyphonic construction,breaking the male monologue and revealing the female right of speech.The third chapter focuses on the subversion and renewal of carnival spirit.This chapter explores how women subvert the authoritative men with subversive spirit and show the powerful changing power of women with renewed spirit.On the one hand,women subvert high culture and patriarchal authority.On the other hand,women renew the traditional female image and family model.Through the author’s efforts,the marginalized women in the patriarchal society have achieved equal status with men,showing Carter’s female consciousness.The third part is the conclusion.To conclude,Wise Children,as a typical carnivalized novel,establishes a carnival world for women,where women get rid of the oppression of patriarchy and marginalized identity.They awake women’s consciousness of fighting for equality and freedom.Angela Carter believes that by resisting male hegemony,women could usher in a new world of equality.The new world doesn’t polarize the confrontation of genders,but rather creates an inclusive and pluralistic world.Marginalized women can have the opportunity to enter the center of history,re-writing history.This is consistent with Bakhtin’s idea of pursuing pluralism and equality.This notion can inspire the oppressed people of the world and is of great significance to the development of world.Therefore,it is of practical significance to use Bakhtin’s theory of carnival to interpret the female consciousness contained in the novel.