Research Article

The Hybrid Other in Angela Carter's novel The Nights at the Circus

Volume: 19 Number: 2 April 25, 2020
TR EN

The Hybrid Other in Angela Carter's novel The Nights at the Circus

Abstract

Angela Carter’s political novel Nights at the Circus, written in 1984, presents the hybrid Sophie Fevvers as the personification of “Wisdom in the Flesh.” Her body conveys a huge body of knowledge related to indigenous history and myths. As a bird-woman, a shaman and a trickster figure she will change (the consumerist “Little Man“) Native Californian reporter Walser’s outlook related to “difference” and “the Other.” Angela Carter by locating her characters in the open land, creates a Third Space for thinking deconstructing the orphic discourses of the West. By using the devices of magical realism, she writes a counter story about the indigenous people of both Russia and America, showing the plight of these people whose lands are occupied by schizophrenic capitalist and globalist forces, which destroy the whole world with their progress and growth stories. With his new eco-self, he now will understand Fevvers, the “bird-woman” and enable the communication between the colonizer and the colonized. The aim of this paper; is to explore the realities and truths related to the (hybrid) ”different other“ through “animal symbolism” and Deleuze and Guattari concepts of “minor literature and art,” becoming woman, becoming animal, nomadism, assemblage and flight employing “nomadic thinking, “ to open up a Third Space in the mind as a site for the construction of new discourses deconstructing the dominant Western discourses created by binary oppositions and descentering man and God and questioning of the “grand narratives of growth and democracy“ in the quest for true knowledge in a Western oriented “global” world through counter local knowledges.

Keywords

References

  1. Bhabha, H. K. (2006). The Location of Culture. London and New York: Routledge.
  2. Bowers, M. A. ( 2004). Magic(al) Realism. London and New York: Routledge.Carter, A. (1994). Nights at the Circus, Vintage.
  3. Caliskan, D. (2017). The Third Space, The Desert and A New Genesis: Bodies, hallucunary Spaces and Hum/animalsin Angela Carter’s and Edward Abbey’s Fiction.. (Unpublished doctoral Dissertation). İstanbul Aydın University, İstanbul,Turkey.
  4. Creighton, J. (1992). Joyce Carol Oates: Novels of the Middle Years.New York: Twayne Publishers.
  5. Colebrook, C. (2002). Gilles Deleuze. London & New York: Routledge.
  6. Deleuze, G. (1994). Difference and Repetition. (Paul Patton, Trans.). New York: Colombia University Press. (Original work published 1968). Deleuze, G. (1995). Negotiations. (Martin Joughin, Trans.). New York: Columbia University Press. (original work published 1972-1990).
  7. Laplace, P. S. (1951). A philosophical essay on probabilities (F. W. Truscott & F. L. Emory, Trans.). New York, NY: Dover. (Original work published 1814).
  8. Deleuze, G. & Guattari, F. (1987). A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. (Brian Massumi, trans. and foreword). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. (Original work published 1980).

Details

Primary Language

English

Subjects

Creative Arts and Writing

Journal Section

Research Article

Authors

Publication Date

April 25, 2020

Submission Date

July 31, 2019

Acceptance Date

March 23, 2020

Published in Issue

Year 2020 Volume: 19 Number: 2

APA
Caliskan, D. (2020). The Hybrid Other in Angela Carter’s novel The Nights at the Circus. Gaziantep Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi, 19(2), 367-384. https://doi.org/10.21547/jss.599059
AMA
1.Caliskan D. The Hybrid Other in Angela Carter’s novel The Nights at the Circus. GAUN-JSS. 2020;19(2):367-384. doi:10.21547/jss.599059
Chicago
Caliskan, Dilek. 2020. “The Hybrid Other in Angela Carter’s Novel The Nights at the Circus”. Gaziantep Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi 19 (2): 367-84. https://doi.org/10.21547/jss.599059.
EndNote
Caliskan D (April 1, 2020) The Hybrid Other in Angela Carter’s novel The Nights at the Circus. Gaziantep Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi 19 2 367–384.
IEEE
[1]D. Caliskan, “The Hybrid Other in Angela Carter’s novel The Nights at the Circus”, GAUN-JSS, vol. 19, no. 2, pp. 367–384, Apr. 2020, doi: 10.21547/jss.599059.
ISNAD
Caliskan, Dilek. “The Hybrid Other in Angela Carter’s Novel The Nights at the Circus”. Gaziantep Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi 19/2 (April 1, 2020): 367-384. https://doi.org/10.21547/jss.599059.
JAMA
1.Caliskan D. The Hybrid Other in Angela Carter’s novel The Nights at the Circus. GAUN-JSS. 2020;19:367–384.
MLA
Caliskan, Dilek. “The Hybrid Other in Angela Carter’s Novel The Nights at the Circus”. Gaziantep Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi, vol. 19, no. 2, Apr. 2020, pp. 367-84, doi:10.21547/jss.599059.
Vancouver
1.Dilek Caliskan. The Hybrid Other in Angela Carter’s novel The Nights at the Circus. GAUN-JSS. 2020 Apr. 1;19(2):367-84. doi:10.21547/jss.599059