Night at the Circus: subverting male representations of women

Resumo

Nights at the Circus, de Angela Carter, apropria e reescreve representações tradicionais – portanto, masculinas – de sujeitos femininos, os quais se tornaram modelos de comportamento para as mulheres ao longo da história. Explorarei a desconstrução que Carter faz dessas representações, através do uso de intertextualidade e paródia, dando voz a mulheres silenciadas por centenas de anos. Focarei naquelas reescrituras que mais contribuem para a subversão de certa representação tradicional, patriarcal e masculina das mulheres: a revisão do personagem mítico de Helena de Tróia, de contos de fadas populares e, finalmente, da personagem Mignon, de Goethe. Angela Carter’s Nights at the Circus appropriates and rewrites certain traditional views – thus male views – of the female subject which have become models of behaviour for women throughout history. I will explore Carter’s deconstruction of these representations through the use of intertextuality and parody, giving voice to women who had been silenced for hundreds of years. I will focus on those of Carter’s rewritings who contribute the most to the subversion of a certain traditional patriarchal male representation of women, namely the revision of the mythical character Helen of Troy, of popular fairy tales and, finally, of Goethe’s character, Mignon.