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Angela Carter’s Critique of Her Contemporary World

Politics, History, and Mortality

by Yutaka Okuhata (Author)
©2021 Monographs 272 Pages

Summary

This research sheds new light on Angela Carter’s critique of her contemporary world, not only as a feminist and socialist but also as a political writer who lived through the twentieth century, an unprecedented period when even the meanings of life, death, and survivability changed drastically. The book examines Carter’s portrayals of mortality in her nine novels through the lens of the Cold War and subsequent fears of nuclear catastrophe and sudden death, alongside the comfort blanket of the post-war welfare state. Focusing on the mutual dialogues between Carter and actual historical events, from Hiroshima and the Cuban Missile Crisis to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and Thatcherism, the book aims to reconsider her oeuvre from a twenty-first century perspective.

Table Of Contents

  • Cover
  • Title
  • Copyright
  • About the editors
  • About the book
  • This eBook can be cited
  • Acknowledgements
  • Contents
  • Abbreviations
  • Introduction
  • Historical Background
  • Critical Context: Biographical Studies
  • Methodology
  • Biopower, Mortality, and the Post-War Period
  • Overview
  • Chapter One The Silent Response to the “Insane World”
  • Mental Disorders and the Absence of Politics
  • Characterisations in the Bristol Trilogy
  • Carter and R. D. Laing
  • Challenging Mortality: Mental Illness and the “Insane” World
  • Psychic Numbing
  • Farewell to the Sixties
  • Chapter Two Natural/Violent Death in the Twentieth Century
  • Fairy Tales and Death
  • Violent and Natural Death
  • The Hidden Trauma: South London, the Crystal Palace, and the Blitz
  • Melanie’s Trauma: Recurring Images of Mutilated Bodies
  • Uncle Philip: Manageable and Unmanageable Death
  • Problems of Death
  • Chapter Three Rousseau in a Post-Apocalyptic Context
  • Carter, Science Fiction, and Rousseau
  • The Nuclear War as the “Original Sin” in Oblivion
  • The Frozen Time: The Professors
  • Living in the Present: The Barbarians
  • Feminist Critique: The Professors and the Barbarians
  • The Out People
  • The End of “Human History”
  • The Tragic Ending
  • Chapter Four The Imaginary Arms Race and the Cultural Wreckage:
  • The Cold War and the Crisis of Human Cultures
  • Military Desire: The Political Subject
  • Economic Desire: The Intertextual Structure
  • Cultures as “Junk”
  • The Reality War and the Cold War
  • The Lost Samples: Carter and J. G. Ballard
  • The Cultural Wreckage and the Nuclear Age
  • Chapter Five Hollywood, Femininity, and the Cold War
  • Gender Roles in the Cold War Era
  • America, Tristessa, and the Hollywood Illusions
  • The Domestic Containment and the Cultural Construction of “Woman”
  • The Dystopian Situation and Mortality
  • Repudiating the “Ideal” Family
  • The Cinematic Re-Education
  • “Demythologising Business” in a Social Context
  • Chapter Six Carter, Thatcherism, and International Politics after Détente
  • Carter in the 1980s
  • Thatcherism and the British Empire
  • The Soviet/Russian “Empire” and the Socialist Revolution
  • American “Empire” and Capitalist Economy
  • Mortality, Contingency, and War Memories
  • Capitalism, Socialism, and the End of the Cold War
  • From the Twentieth to the Twenty-First Century
  • Conclusion
  • Bibliography
  • Index

cover

Bibliographic Information published by the
Deutsche Nationalbibliothek

The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche
Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data is available online at
http://dnb.d-nb.de.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the
Library of Congress.

About the editors

Yutaka Okuhata teaches post-war English literature at Japan Women’s University in Tokyo. He studied at Keio University, the University of Tokyo, and Birkbeck College, University of London. He received his Ph.D. in English from the University of London in 2019.

About the book

Yutaka Okuhata

Angela Carter’s Critique of
Her Contemporary World

This research sheds new light on Angela Carter’s critique of her contemporary world, not only as a feminist and socialist but also as a political writer who lived through the twentieth century, an unprecedented period when even the meanings of life, death, and survivability changed drastically. The book examines Carter’s portrayals of mortality in her nine novels through the lens of the Cold War and subsequent fears of nuclear catastrophe and sudden death, alongside the comfort blanket of the post-war welfare state. Focusing on the mutual dialogues between Carter and actual historical events, from Hiroshima and the Cuban Missile Crisis to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and Thatcherism, the book aims to reconsider her oeuvre from a twenty-first century perspective.

This eBook can be cited

This edition of the eBook can be cited. To enable this we have marked the start and end of a page. In cases where a word straddles a page break, the marker is placed inside the word at exactly the same position as in the physical book. This means that occasionally a word might be bifurcated by this marker.

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to my supervisors, Professor Heike Bauer and Dr. Joe Brooker at Birkbeck College, University of London, for reading the earlier drafts of each chapter and providing me with a number of helpful suggestions and comments during my Ph.D. study, as well as to the Japan Student Services Organization (JASSO) for funding this research. I would also like to thank Professor Sue Wiseman for her encouragement and guidance during the seminars for first-year Ph.D. students and Professor Roger Luckhurst for his insightful advice on my chapter draft and thesis outline. As Ph.D. examiners, Professor Marie Mulvey-Roberts at the University of the West of England, Bristol and Dr. Nick Hubble at Brunel University London offered me valuable feedback.

I am also grateful to Professor Yoshiki Tajiri and Professor Kaz Oishi at the University of Tokyo, whose recommendations made it possible for me to study in London, in addition to the staff of the various libraries I occasionally used. I sincerely appreciate the discussions I had with other scholars at conferences and would especially like to thank two Japanese experts of Angela Carter studies: Professor Natsumi Ikoma at International Christian University and Professor Mayako Murai at Kanagawa University. The earlier versions of Chapters Three and Six were previously published in Humanities, vol. 8, no. 3 (2019), The British Fantasy Society Journal, vol. 19 (2018), and Ad Alta: The Birmingham Journal of Literature, vol. 10 (2019). I would like to thank the editors of these journals for giving me permission to reproduce the articles. I also appreciate the Estate of Angela Carter that generously allowed me to use Angela Carter’s materials (These are Copyright © The Estate of Angela Carter. Reproduced by permission of the Estate c/o Rogers, Coleridge & White Ltd., 20 Powis Mews, London W11 1JN). Finally, my deepest appreciation goes to my parents, Kazuhisa and Hiroko, for their support throughout my research, as well as to my late maternal grandmother, Mieko, for encouraging me to study abroad when I was in Japan.

Contents

Abbreviations

Introduction

Historical Background

Critical Context: Biographical Studies

Methodology

Biopower, Mortality, and the Post-War Period

Overview

Chapter One The Silent Response to the “Insane World”: The Portrayal of the Sixties in Shadow Dance, Several Perceptions, and Love

Mental Disorders and the Absence of Politics

Characterisations in the Bristol Trilogy

Carter and R. D. Laing

Challenging Mortality: Mental Illness and the “Insane” World

Psychic Numbing

Farewell to the Sixties

Chapter Two Natural/Violent Death in the Twentieth Century: The Magic Toyshop as a Modern Fairy Tale

Fairy Tales and Death

Violent and Natural Death

The Hidden Trauma: South London, the Crystal Palace, and the Blitz

Melanie’s Trauma: Recurring Images of Mutilated Bodies

Uncle Philip: Manageable and Unmanageable Death

Problems of Death

Chapter Three Rousseau in a Post-Apocalyptic Context: The World after Atomic War in Heroes and Villains

Carter, Science Fiction, and Rousseau

The Nuclear War as the “Original Sin” in Oblivion

The Frozen Time: The Professors

Living in the Present: The Barbarians

Feminist Critique: The Professors and the Barbarians

The Out People

The End of “Human History”

The Tragic Ending

Chapter Four The Imaginary Arms Race and the Cultural Wreckage: Intertextuality in The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman

The Cold War and the Crisis of Human Cultures

Military Desire: The Political Subject

Economic Desire: The Intertextual Structure

Cultures as “Junk”

The Reality War and the Cold War

The Lost Samples: Carter and J. G. Ballard

The Cultural Wreckage and the Nuclear Age

Chapter Five Hollywood, Femininity, and the Cold War: The Representation of Cultural Re-Education in The Passion of New Eve

Gender Roles in the Cold War Era

America, Tristessa, and the Hollywood Illusions

The Domestic Containment and the Cultural Construction of “Woman”

The Dystopian Situation and Mortality

Repudiating the “Ideal” Family

The Cinematic Re-Education

“Demythologising Business” in a Social Context

Chapter Six Carter, Thatcherism, and International Politics after Détente: The Representations of “Empires” in Nights at the Circus and Wise Children

Carter in the 1980s

Thatcherism and the British Empire

The Soviet/Russian “Empire” and the Socialist Revolution

American “Empire” and Capitalist Economy

Mortality, Contingency, and War Memories

Capitalism, Socialism, and the End of the Cold War

From the Twentieth to the Twenty-First Century

Conclusion

Bibliography

Index

Details

Pages
272
Year
2021
ISBN (PDF)
9783631833766
ISBN (ePUB)
9783631833773
ISBN (MOBI)
9783631833780
ISBN (Hardcover)
9783631830376
DOI
10.3726/b17500
Language
English
Publication date
2020 (October)
Published
Berlin, Bern, Bruxelles, New York, Oxford, Warszawa, Wien, 2021. 272 pp.

Biographical notes

Yutaka Okuhata (Author)

Yutaka Okuhata teaches post-war English literature at Japan Women’s University in Tokyo. He studied at Keio University, the University of Tokyo, and Birkbeck College, University of London. He received his Ph.D. in English from the University of London in 2019.

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