The Employment of The Gothic in Angela Carter's Fiction
The Employment of The Gothic in Angela Carter's Fiction

Summary/Abstract: One of the interesting aspects of Angela Carter's fiction, which she has used since her first novel Shadow Dance (1966), is the Gothic. Horrible castles, damsels in distress, dungeons, disguises, and vampires are just some Gothic elements which permeate her work. Sadism and Masochism are also elements in Gothic literature which govern the relationship between many of the above-mentioned characters. Carter is particularly interested in how such relationships can be dislocated and what they reveal about power structure in the modern society. In her late twentieth century fiction, Carter critically demonstrates the reversal of values and identifications that occur via the Gothic mode. Otherness, or to put it more precisely the relationship between self and other, takes center stage in her work. Sexual transgression, dark desires, and fantastic deviance subvert the restrictive orders of reason, utility and patriarchal morality.

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