'Tap-dancing on the edge of the abyss' : Angela Carter in contention with feminism

Abstract

This dissertation will consider the way that constructions of the female identity an exposed in the works of Angela Carter and the issues Carter raises in this trajectory that seem in contention with many concepts of feminism. lt will explore how Carter's oeuvre seeks to empower its heroines; freeing them of their conventional position as secondary to man by exploding the codified identity enforced upon them by a patriarchal society. The chapters will consider the way that Carter seeks out those genres and representations that act as carriers of false mythologies - those that inflict a bogus paradigm of femininity upon the female class. It is necessary to define the way in which Angela Carter's fiction systematically demythologises socially constructed gender roles along with paradigms of sexuality that customarily govern the feminine sense of self and how she utilises the same narrative styles which have traditionally characterized women as passive, allied to nature, victims, without reproducing the same conclusions in her own rendering.