On The Carnivalistic Features Of The Infernal Desire Machines Of Doctor Hoffman

Angela Cater is regarded as one of the most original women writer in contemporary Britain.Her work is unique in writing style,full of bizarre imaginations and magnificent language,imbued with carnival colors.The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman is the first work in her period of intellectual maturity and creation transformation,which makes its significance self-evident.In the city,the fair,the valley and the castle that take on carnival-square significance,a life that deviates from the normal one is shown in all its glory and a free contact among people is formed.The ritual of crowning/decrowning and disguise are transported into the novel to show main characters’ transformation and create an atmosphere of hilarious revelry as well.Carnivalistic characters,such as clowns,fools and tricksters and so on,mock the established norms of society and expose their hypocrisy in unique ways.These carnivalistic features show a rebellion against orthodoxy,hierarchy and authority,a parody and mockery of patriarchal society and Christianity as well as a subversion of images of male and female in traditional novels.And they also embody the author’s spirit of freedom and equality,subversion and reconstruction and the interpretation of the carnival sense of the world.The novel can be seen as a carnivalised novel.As Dr.Hoffman is a reflection of Carter,the novel can be also interpreted as Carter’s “desire machine” in which Carter expresses her desires and ideas to the fullest.And the carnivalistic features of the novel can be perceived as the various components of the “machine”.Carter’s demonic desire and passion drive this “machine” in an extremely “infernal” way with hellish carnival and freedom.