19th century Pre-1914 Prose Assignment, Discussion of the women.
Romi Verstappen
Masquerade and disguise are key elements within 'Nights at the Circus'. Show how Angela Carter presents masculine and feminine elements of disguise within the novel.
Masquerade and disguise are key elements used by Carter to portray her personal ideas and beliefs throughout the novel. Carter deliberately sets the novel at the end of the nineteenth century, a time where many new political ideas were being discussed, such as whether women should have the right to vote. The women's movement and the fact that women were becoming increasingly confident, is one which is greatly displayed throughout the novel, predominantly through Fevvers. The inequality between men and women is also shown here via the patriarchal society displayed through the clowns. However, Carter shows the clowns/men to be hiding behind a disguise in order to be able to act the way they do in society. 'Nights at the Circus' is full of Carter's views and ideas on gender and relationships within society which are displayed obliquely inside the characters of this novel.
The amount of masquerade and disguise in this novel causes problems for the uneducated members of society. Even though Carter says, 'I purposely try to make what I write open-ended, 'user-friendly'', the working class may get confused at times by the complex political ideas and themes that are portrayed through the novel's characters. Carter asks the reader to deconstruct the text, not just simply read it without thinking about the underlying ideas; it is intended to help us into the sub text. Carter explains that she is instructing us as well as asking us to deconstruct the text. The uneducated members of society would find it difficult and therefore would not understand the novel fully as the symbolism, metaphors and irony of 'Nights at the Circus' make the novel what it is. Therefore, this novel is more directed at the university-educated people of society, despite Carter's attempt to make it 'user-friendly'.
As mentioned earlier, Fevvers is the main character in which Carter portrays her personal views and beliefs on men and women in society. The character of Fevvers is a disguise for the political subject of whether women should get the right to vote in the late nineteenth century, 'Fevvers is associated with the issue of emergent women's rights' (Aidan Day). It is her wings that symbolise her freedom to make change, 'you must be the pure child of the century that just now is waiting in the wings, the New Age in which no woman will be bound to the ground' (25); the 'New Age' meaning the coming of the twentieth century, where Fevvers (the women within society) will become a New Woman. Fevvers is the figure of a winged human being. This idea of winged may imply that she is an angel (which Fevvers is referred as when onstage) as in the nineteenth century, women were either angels or whores, nothing in-between. However, Fevvers is a figure of both; she is a winged female brought up in a brothel. When she is taken in by Christian Rosencreutz who sees her as an object of his own desire, Fevvers comes prepared with Nelson's sword, 'he'd not thought the angel would come armed'(83); Fevvers is not the 'expected angel'. When mixing both of these, some may call her a cockney Venus, a mixture of both divine and realism; she fits in with the higher classes as well as the lower classes. Carter herself once described her as a 'Mae West with wings'. Historically, Rosencreutz may represent a parliamentary man who is against the women's movement; Fevvers explains him as a man who believes that 'women are of a different soul-substance to men...too pure and rarefied to be bothering their pretty little heads with things of this world' (78-9). As I believe Fevvers may represent the advance of the women's movement, the fact that Rosencreutz attempts to kill Fevvers, shows the extent to which most members of parliament were against the women's movement.
In the nineteenth century the saying that 'women should be seen and not heard' was very common (hence it was difficult for women to get the vote) and therefore statues would often be feminine figures; to be looked at and admired, but silent. There are examples of this in the novel, first of all in childhood; Fevvers was disguised as Cupid for customers to 'look at' upon entering the brothel, and later as the Winged Victory, the Goddess of Nike (the personification of victory in Greek mythology). In this Case, Fevvers being a symbol of Victory and Liberty, ...
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In the nineteenth century the saying that 'women should be seen and not heard' was very common (hence it was difficult for women to get the vote) and therefore statues would often be feminine figures; to be looked at and admired, but silent. There are examples of this in the novel, first of all in childhood; Fevvers was disguised as Cupid for customers to 'look at' upon entering the brothel, and later as the Winged Victory, the Goddess of Nike (the personification of victory in Greek mythology). In this Case, Fevvers being a symbol of Victory and Liberty, is a figure of contrast as she is full of life, independent, makes her own choices in life and has individuality, which is something that Marina Warner sees as being impossible, 'Liberty like many abstract concepts expressed in the feminine, is in deadly earnest and one-dimensional'. Fevvers is more than simply a statue or a symbol. It is her personality and her individuality that allows her to withstand other people's expectations of her; it is this individuality which highlights the fact that she is disguised historically as the 'New Woman', as she overcomes the expectations of women made by the patriarchal society. She does not allow men to take away this individuality, for example the Grand Duke tries to do this by creating an ice statue of her. This ice statue will melt as he wants Fevvers to. His jewelled eggs are a sign of him wanting to take away Fevvers power, as she is just getting smaller and smaller inside them; Fevvers' size is what gives her power and the Grand Duke attempts to take that away, however Fevvers escapes once again through her own ingenuity.
Fevvers' behaviour is also very different from the typical women of those days; she is loud, has crude language and manners, an enormous appetite, belches and farts whenever she pleases; Fevvers is a parody of femininity. Therefore, the character of Fevvers is perhaps disguised as being symbolic for the increase in confidence among women in the late nineteenth century to fight for their rights. The idea that Fevvers has un-ladylike qualities, her masquerade, is where Carter is trying to tell the reader that women need to act in a more masculine way in order to survive in a patriarchal society, 'If you can't beat them join them!'. This can be linked to Margaret Thatcher, as not only was she the first female to be elected leader of the Conservative Party, she was also the first female to become the Prime Minister. She, like Fevvers, had to a adopt a more masculine persona in order to get what she wanted in a Patriarchal society, which in her case was support of the country as well as the members of parliament.
The whole of Fevvers' life evolves around illusion and deception. She dyes her hair blonde and her feathers in tropical colours, covers her face with extreme make-up and wears clothes to disguise her real body; her life depends on this masquerade. This re-enforces the question to the reader whether she is fact or fiction. However, this masquerade starts to disintegrate. Signs of this are already seen at the start of the train journey through Siberia where her 'blonde' hair starts showing her dark roots, she is no longer wearing make-up and she is no longer dressed in her usual outfits. Her performing has come to an end for the time being and therefore she no longer has an audience to admire her. When the train explodes she breaks one of her wings; her main source of power is lost. By the end of the novel her hair and feathers are both showing their natural colours. It is almost as if the audience was what kept her masquerade intact, 'you're fading away, as if it was only always nothing but the discipline of the audience that kept you in trim' (280). Fevvers' power is fading away, and Lizzie herself is afraid that she is giving up all of this power for her love for Walser. Again Carter is referring to men over-powering women, and women being trapped by marriage. However, for Fevvers it may be different as she is the one who must always be on top, 'her wings make it impossible for her to adopt another position' (Aidan Day).
The clowns are the characters in the novel that represent patriarchal society itself, 'The beatings and thrashings of the clowns represent the violence which is rife in a male-dominated culture.' (Pauline Palmer). They disguise themselves by wearing make up and costumes. They have the power to make themselves into anything they want to be. They are violent and because they are clowns, they have permission to do so, 'you can do anything you like, as long as nobody takes you seriously' (102). The make up of the clowns disguises the man; however the make up makes the clown 'real' as it is the make up which permits them to act the way they do. Carter uses the disguise of make up to stress the idea of 'loss of self'. There is a key passage in the novel where this idea is clearly portrayed through the character of Walser,
'When Walser first put on his make up, he looked in the mirror and did not recognise himself...he felt the beginnings of a vertiginous sense of freedom...Walser's very self, as he had known it, departed from him, he experienced the freedom behind the mask'(103)
Walser starts off as a journalist and a believer in facts and becoming a clown means that he has to lose his protective shell and acquire an 'inner life', 'a realm of speculation and surmise within himself that was entirely his own' (260). Walser has to allow illusion to be a part of his life and forget his factual life. In a sense Walser is given the same powers as the author here as he is able to deconstruct himself into his 'inner self'. Walser's idea of the freedom that the mask gives him contradicts greatly with Buffo's, 'how the world defines you, now you have opted to lose your wits in the profession of the clown' (120). Therefore, perhaps Walser is being fooled by the true meaning of being a clown and that it does not give you freedom at all; his sense of freedom has just been an illusion. Some may say that the clowns are much more unfortunate than Walser. I believe that this may be due to the fact that Walser will always have the power to wash off his wet white make up and carry on with his journalist life, however once the clowns have chosen their faces they are stuck with it for the rest of their lives,
'possessed the formal lifelessness of death masks, as if, in some essential sense, they were themselves absent from the repast and left untenanted replicas behind' (116)
Therefore the clowns are locked in violence and chaos and have no way of escaping. The need of escape can be shown through Buffo's excessive drinking. However, when Walser breaks his arm whilst attempting to rescue Mignon, he is no longer a journalist disguised as a clown; he now a real clown and therefore loses his freedom and his sense of self. The idea of 'loss of self' is greatly portrayed through Buffo the Great, 'his real name was George Buffins, but he had long forgotton it' (118). When Buffo turns up extremely drunk, instead of pretending to kill the Human Chicken (Walser) he does it for real. To the audience it is a performance however it is in fact not a performance at all; this is where illusion and reality collide. Instead of pretending to be a clown, Buffo 'loses himself' and becomes a real clown; he is no longer disguised. Carter uses inter-textuality with the character of George Buffins. She links the character of George Buffins to Gorgeous George who is a character from another of her novels, 'Wise Children'. He was a metaphor for the decline of the British Empire, and as George Buffins was a 'great patriot' (118) himself, his 'loss of self' can also be described as a metaphor for the decline of the British Empire. This is also emphasised at 'Buffo's funeral' where a Union Jack flag is drapes over his coffin.
Some might see the clowns as simply representing a patriarchal society, however I believe that they also represent the Church. Buffo himself says, 'you might say, might you not, that the clown is the very image of Christ' (119). Angela Carter even creates a reversal of the Last Supper with Christ, with Buffo the Master Clown acting as The Christ, as well as an imitation of Jesus' resurrection, 'Buffo who is dead is now alive again' (118). Carter creates these imitations to emphasise their connection with the clowns. As I have said earlier, once the clowns have chosen their faces they will be stuck with it for the rest of their lives which signifies that they cannot change, 'the beauty of clowning is, nothing ever changes' (117). They are 'closed institutions' just as the Church is; they don't progress.
Ma Nelson can be seen as the female counterpart for the character of Buffo the Great. This connection can be seen in Buffo's speech on describing the clowns, 'we are the whores of mirth, for, like a whore, we know what we are'. However, Carter presents Ma Nelson to the reader as a more sympathetic figure than Buffo. Carter also uses Ma Nelson to represent the great hero of the British Empire however in a comic manner. As the great hero Nelson is admired, so is Ma Nelson by all the girls who live with her in the brothel. The illusion of Ma Nelson's brothel is soon revealed to us by Carter. Just as the prostitutes leave Ma Nelson's brothel they decide to open the curtains for the first time, 'The luxury of that place had been nothing but illusion, created by the candles of midnight, and, in the dawn, all was sere, worn-out decay' (49). This illusion is what only the clients should see (some might say that Carter is even trying to fool the reader with its disguise) and the prostitutes themselves should have avoided believing in the illusion that Ma Nelson had made. Similarly, Madame Schreck's museum was simply an illusion. Even though it is situated in a smart area of London, it was far from smart; the museum was really a brothel in disguise. Whereas Ma nelson's brothel displayed comic features, Madame Shreck's museum was more of a horrific one due to the prostitutes being freaks; 'prodigies of nature' (59). The fact that these freaks were put on show for clients signifies the power of the gaze. At the end of the nineteenth century, we were extremely fascinated by 'freaks'. Julie Hearn writes in her article 'Out of the Ordinary', that even after scientists established that birth abnormalities were part of 'God's natural Order', PT Barnum's American Museum of Curiosities 'still thrilled crowds with its bizarre displays'. Each of the women in Madame Schreck's Museum can be seen as disguises for the female condition. For example, Sleeping Beauty could represent women dreaming of the new century, as that is what women of that time would have been dreaming of; a time where women would be able to vote. The clients themselves who visit Madame Schreck's museum are able to choose any costume they wish to wear in order to pursue their fantasy; they were able to leave the reality and be sucked into the illusion of Madame Schreck's 'down below' (61). The clients are ostensibly respectable but are often perverted; therefore it is their respectability which acts as their disguise.
At the start of the novel the Strong Man represents the bestiality of man. His costume in the circus is a leopard skin loincloth which emphasizes his animal like qualities. Not only does he act like an animal but he is also treated like one from the other people in the circus. For example, when Samson is beating up Walser, Fevvers rescues him by blasting cold water at Samson which is what the Princess used on the tigress. Even though some may think that Samson and Walser are very different they are connected in some way; they are both capable of change. Even though Samson has a hard and strong external self, this is simply a disguise as there is some inner goodness in him, 'he was very strong, and, as he knew deep down, a spiritual weakling' (167). This inner goodness only starts to show when he sees the 'new' Mignon after he thinks she has left him for a clown. The Strong Man develops himself through the novel, just as Walser does; he will uncover his more feminine side, 'out of the fracture, sensibility might poke a moist, new-born head'. This is an analogy for re-birth (birth is a feminine act); being born again as a new man. A definite sign of his development is when he saves Fevvers and some others from the clowns dance by bringing them into a safe shelter. The Samson we knew at the start of the play would not have carried out such a heroic act. His masquerade is dissolving into his true feminine self.
Colonel Kearney is a disguise or a caricature for the capitalist USA as he is dressed as 'Uncle Sam', 'a gun-metal buckle, in the shape of a dollar sign...a pair of tightly tailored trousers striped in red and white and a blue waistcoat ornamented with stars'(99). Even though it is obvious that Carter was strongly against the Capitalist America, as she is in favour of Marxism, Liberalism and Feminism, she also displays positive views on America through Walser; she portrays Walser as an amiable and sensitive figure with a great sense of freedom. Carter displays Colonel Kearney as a man who drinks too much and his only motivation is money. He is a businessman who only has profit on his mind. Carter gives this character a pig, Sybil, as his adviser which represents the American government; the use of the pig clearly shows that she is mocking the US government.
It is clear that masquerade and disguise are key elements within the novel. Both are used to represent Carter's ideas and views on society in those days as the new century was approaching. Even though this text can simply be read on one level, the method of using elements of masquerade and disguise means that we as the reader have to deconstruct the text and discover the underlying metaphors and symbols. The female characters within the novel use masquerade, i.e. clothes, make-up etc, to their advantage in order to get what they want, whilst still retaining self. I believe that they may represent the advance of feminism, which is displayed mainly though Fevvers. The male characters use their elements of disguise to hide behind and therefore hiding their true self; this is mainly shown through the clowns. Carter could be trying to say that women use their masquerade in order to gain power, whereas the men use their disguise in order to justify them having it.
Word Count - 2700
Bibliography
. Nights at the Circus
Angela Carter
Vintage- 1994
2. An Interview with Angela Carter
Anna Katsavos
www.centreforbookculture.org-1994
3. Nights at the Circus - York Notes
4. The Rational Glass
Aidan Day
Manchester University - 1998
5. Out of the ordinary (Article)
Julie Hearn
