Intertextuality and the Winged Version of New Women in Angela Carter’s Nights at the Circus

Abstract

The dissertation shows how postmodern British writer Angela Carter constructs a new image of female identity using intertextuality in her novel Nights at the Circus (1984). Carter’s novel won the esteemed James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction in 1984. The aim of the study is twofold. First, it sheds light on how the novel discusses women’s deprivation and marginalization during the era of its publication, and how feminist postmodernist writers defended women’s rights and their values. Second, it shows how Angela Carter uses intertextuality as a powerful tool to create a new image of female identity, and symbolize ‘the new winged woman’, that is powerful, independent, and rebellious. In her novel, Carter challenges and undermines conventional ideas of womanhood by presenting a different perspective that transcends the subject-object distinction by utilizing intertextuality. To reach its aim, the study relies on feminist postmodernist approaches, as well as theories on intertextuality. The dissertation is structured into three chapters, each serving a distinct purpose. The first chapter serves as a theoretical framework for the entire dissertation, while the second and third chapters are analytical. The study analyzes the perspective of a new woman through the protagonist, Sophie Fevvers, a woman who breaks all boundaries of patriarchy and redefines female empowerment. Therefore, it endeavors to shed light on women’s freedom and how they liberate themselves from male dominated society.