Angela carters nights at the circus 119

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CRITICAL READINGS

moulting, and she is covered in ‘spots and rashes’ (Pt. III, Ch. 9, pp. 271 and 277)
is a physical manifestation of a crisis of self-confidence, which is intimately linked
to her love for Walser and, specifically, with the implications of their relationship
for her feminist agenda.
A shortcoming in Fevvers’ feminism, Carter intimates, is the belief that in order
to love Walser, she must relinquish her autonomous self: ‘My being, my me-ness,
is unique and indivisible [. . .] the essence of myself may not be given or taken, or
what would there be left of me?’ (Pt. III, Envoi, pp. 280–1). That Fevvers’ perspective on marriage is a response to patriarchal paradigms that contain female
agency and autonomy is clear. Yet, the suggestion remains that political, intellectual and emotional progress do not lie in a simple reversal of these oppressive
conventions. Fevvers’ vision of herself as ‘the New Woman’ who will ‘mould’
Walser into ‘the New Man’, who, in turn, will record ‘the histories of those
woman [sic] who would otherwise go down nameless and forgotten, erased from
history as if they had never been’ (Pt. III, Envoi, p. 285) is, for instance, tellingly
curtailed by Lizzie; ‘It’s going to be more complicated than that [. . .] You improve
your analysis, girl, and then we’ll discuss it’ (Pt. III, Envoi, p. 286). Fevvers’
rhetoric of female emancipation (‘all the women will have wings’, Pt. III, Ch. 10,
p. 285) may be utopian in spirit. But that, as far as Lizzie is concerned, is part of
the problem. Meaning ‘no place’, utopia is an imaginary realm without time,
space, history or politics.
Progress can only emerge, therefore, out of ‘difficult’ or dystopian situations
such as being in love. Indeed, the recovery and preservation of a sense of self,
which is so important to Fevvers’ feminist project, is realized through a form of
love which is fraught with vulnerability and anxiety, but ‘anxiety’, as Carter
notes, ‘is the beginning of conscience, which is the parent of the soul but is not
compatible with innocence’ (Pt. III, Envoi, p. 293). Carter advocates a form of
love at the close of her novel which is neither controlling nor naïve, but one that
admits tensions and ambiguities. This is evident in Walser’s reaction to Fevvers’

naked body when ‘he saw, without surprise, she indeed appeared to possess no
navel but he was no longer in the mood to draw any definite conclusions from this
fact’ (Pt. III, Envoi, p. 292). Walser’s ever-diminishing scepticism signals a future
for himself and Fevvers which remains uncertain, but which hints, nevertheless, at
mutual growth and expression. Even Lizzie recognizes the benefits of this when,
looking into Walser’s eyes, she sees how Fevvers ‘was transformed back into her
old self again, without an application of peroxide even’ (Pt. III, Envoi, p. 293). As
for Fevvers, her power and self-confidence are restored when she embraces
Walser’s love and thus stops questioning her own indeterminate identity – ‘Am I
fact? Or am I fiction? (Pt. III, Ch. 19, p. 290) – and accepts that she is neither one
nor the other, but both. Indeed, Fevvers’ closing line ‘To think I really fooled you!
[. . .] It just goes to show there’s nothing like confidence’ (Pt. III, Envoi, p. 295)
gestures to the power of self-confidence and the allure of the confidence trick.
That Carter playfully reasserts Fevvers’ ambiguity at the end of the novel suggests
that the aerialiste’s survival is dependent upon on a constant negotiation of self
and spectacle, matter and metaphor, woman and freak. In a moment of teasing
triumph, therefore, Walser and the reader are kept guessing as Fevver re-emerges,
for the time at least, on top.
In Nights at the Circus, Carter seizes upon the disruptive potential of