“Circuses and Silences”: Angela Carter’s Circus Worlds and the Urban Family
Angela Carter’s invocation of the circus locus in her penultimate 1984 novel Nights at the Circus has been well-documented in critical works that focus on topics such as her freakish subversive feminism, but a previously unpublished short story “Caligari’s Circus” invites a fresh analysis of ways in...
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Journal of the Short Story in English
2024
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openedition-oai:revues.org:jsse_4113 en https://journals.openedition.org/jsse/4113 2024-10-01T18:18:02Z info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess article info:eu-repo/semantics/article urn:handle:20.500.13089/12eim https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ “Circuses and Silences”: Angela Carter’s Circus Worlds and the Urban Family Journal of the Short Story in English Presses universitaires de Rennes info:eu-repo/semantics/reference/issn/1969-6108 info:eu-repo/semantics/reference/issn/0294-0442 URI:https://journals.openedition.org/jsse Paulusma, Polly Angela Carter’s invocation of the circus locus in her penultimate 1984 novel Nights at the Circus has been well-documented in critical works that focus on topics such as her freakish subversive feminism, but a previously unpublished short story “Caligari’s Circus” invites a fresh analysis of ways in which Carter’s engagement with and manipulation of various circus worlds in her fictions illuminates our seemingly dislocated and disparate experiences of “urban family.” Working through depictions of circus in “Caligari’s Circus,” The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman, and Nights at the Circus, an analysis of the development of the circus worlds concludes that Carter is using the dissolution of boundaries in the chaotic collapse of circus worlds to illustrate the foundering boundaries between writer and reader, part of her ceaseless quest to “ask questions that can’t be asked in any other way.” Ever timely, Carter’s conjurings of circus worlds speak to our dislocated contemporary experiences through her depictions of these constantly evolving relationships, inviting us to laugh at the ridiculousness of our own performances. Le recours par Angela Carter au locus circassien dans son avant-dernier roman, Nights at the Circus (1984), a été bien documenté par un ensemble de travaux critiques portant notamment sur son féminisme subversif et excentrique. Cependant, une nouvelle inédite, “Caligari’s Circus”, invite à une nouvelle analyse de la façon dont l’intérêt de Carter pour les univers circassiens, et les configurations diverses qu’elle en propose dans sa fiction, éclairent nos expériences apparemment disloquées et disparates du concept de « famille urbaine ». Au terme d’une analyse du développement des mondes circassiens chez Carter, avec pour jalons successifs “Caligari’s Circus”, The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman, et Nights at the Circus, on est amené à conclure que Carter s’empare de la dissolution des frontières qui accompagne l’effondrement chaotique des univers circassiens pour illustrer l’anéantissement des limites entre écrivain et lecteur, dans le cadre de sa quête incessante pour « poser des questions qui ne peuvent être posées d’aucune autre manière ». Toujours d’actualité, les univers circassiens évoqués par Carter témoignent – à travers la description de relations en constante évolution – de la dislocation de nos existences contemporaines, nous invitant à rire du ridicule de notre propre théâtre. |
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OpenEdition Journal |
| language |
Anglais |
| format |
Article ou chapitre numérique |
| building |
0/Bibliothèque numérique/ 1/Bibliothèque numérique/OpenEdition Journals/ |
| description |
Angela Carter’s invocation of the circus locus in her penultimate 1984 novel Nights at the Circus has been well-documented in critical works that focus on topics such as her freakish subversive feminism, but a previously unpublished short story “Caligari’s Circus” invites a fresh analysis of ways in which Carter’s engagement with and manipulation of various circus worlds in her fictions illuminates our seemingly dislocated and disparate experiences of “urban family.” Working through depictions of circus in “Caligari’s Circus,” The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman, and Nights at the Circus, an analysis of the development of the circus worlds concludes that Carter is using the dissolution of boundaries in the chaotic collapse of circus worlds to illustrate the foundering boundaries between writer and reader, part of her ceaseless quest to “ask questions that can’t be asked in any other way.” Ever timely, Carter’s conjurings of circus worlds speak to our dislocated contemporary experiences through her depictions of these constantly evolving relationships, inviting us to laugh at the ridiculousness of our own performances. |
| author |
Paulusma, Polly |
| spellingShingle |
Paulusma, Polly “Circuses and Silences”: Angela Carter’s Circus Worlds and the Urban Family |
| author_facet |
Paulusma, Polly |
| author_sort |
Paulusma, Polly |
| title |
“Circuses and Silences”: Angela Carter’s Circus Worlds and the Urban Family |
| title_short |
“Circuses and Silences”: Angela Carter’s Circus Worlds and the Urban Family |
| title_full |
“Circuses and Silences”: Angela Carter’s Circus Worlds and the Urban Family |
| title_fullStr |
“Circuses and Silences”: Angela Carter’s Circus Worlds and the Urban Family |
| title_full_unstemmed |
“Circuses and Silences”: Angela Carter’s Circus Worlds and the Urban Family |
| title_sort |
“circuses and silences”: angela carter’s circus worlds and the urban family |
| publisher |
Journal of the Short Story in English |
| publishDate |
2024 |
| container_title |
URI:https://journals.openedition.org/jsse |
| url |
https://ezproxy.univ-orleans.fr/login?url=https://journals.openedition.org/jsse/4113 |
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