At what points in this novel do you feel its author is breaking out of realist modes of story telling into the realms of fantasy?

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 Christina Hardinge

At what points in this novel do you feel its author is breaking out of realist modes of story telling into the realms of fantasy?

It is these bursts of fantasy, mentioned in the title, which Carter injects into her work of fiction ‘Wise Children’ that makes this novel the perfect example of the carnivalesque.  This term accounts for the surrealism of the novel which moves away from the tragedies of Dora’s tale, celebrating the lighter side of life.  According to Daphne Moor, the main features of the carnivalesque include intertextuality, ‘the levelling or inversions of hierarchies,’ ‘revelry and celebration’, ‘the chaos of change and of fluctuation’, ‘laughter that regenerates even as it reduces’, and finally the ‘acknowledgement of the body and its cycles of birth, aging and death as well as the organic functions of eating’.  All of these factors are applicable to ‘Wise Children’.

Although there are elements throughout the first chapter, one of the best examples of the carnivalesque here is when Carter first introduces us to Perry.  He is in fact portrayed by Carter in this way as she does not trap him in Dora’s dialogic, polyphonic narration, but also allows him to have a magical, spontaneous quality about him so that pandemonium seems to follow him through each page.  He himself is portrayed as a travelling carnival.  These qualities are evident throughout his life as he introduces Dora and Nora to the magic of his phonograph; “as astonishing as if it were another of his tricks,” to the time he magically “with one swift pass of his hand” removed “a scarlet macaw” from Melchiors tights, and to extend his role as the magician he then, like a performer “rose up and bowed to…every section of the audience.”  He is one character in which Carter most certainly breaks out of realism in to strange realms of fantasy.

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He is initially introduced to us an equal to Melchior, Dora and Nora’s biological father, as Dora claims they were “both our fathers”.  Although he is Melchior’s brother, Peregrine is described “more than an uncle” as he is the only true father Dora and Nora have ever known, and the only “one who would publicly acknowledge” them “even when Melchior would not”.  This leads onto an ‘inversion of hierarchies,’ a typical characteristic of the carnivalesque, as Carter reflects Perry’s superior relationship with Dora and Nora’s over Melchiors’ by juxtaposing their character through contrasting language and information when describing each. ...

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