Rewriting the Body

The body has become a highly contested, political site in (post)modern literature and literary theory. In Angela Carter's work the image of the body is constructed around the tension between a post-structuralist notion of gender fluidity and a feminist reclaiming of the female body as a source of pleasure and power. This study examines the body politics in the last four novels Carter wrote between the seventies and the nineties: The Infernal Desire Machines, The Passion of New Eve, Nights at the Circus and Wise Children. Drawing on feminist and poststructuralist theory, it traces a development in Carter's fiction that moves from the pessimistic negation of a self-determined female corporeality to the assertion of the female body as a powerful site of alterity.

Autorentext

The Author: Julia Simon studied English, German and Psychology in Freiburg im Breisgau, Norwich (Great Britain), Aberystwyth (Wales) and Eugene (USA). She received her Ph.D. from the University of Freiburg im Breisgau in 2004.

Inhalt

Contents : The Body in Selected Novels by Angela Carter: Theorising the Body - Cannibalism, Desire and Power in The Infernal Desire Machines of Dr Hoffman - Confinement and Metamorphosis: the Body in The Passion of New Eve - Alterity, Femininity and the Monstrous Body in Nights at the Circus - Age, Death and Maternity in Wise Children .