Nights at the Circus, Angela Carter essays

Nights at the Circus, Angela Carter essays In both novels, Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter and Geek Love by Katherine Dunn, our of view of what is normal and what is unusual or freakish is completely tuned around. Arturo or Arty from the novel Geek Love views normalcy as a terrible quality to have or to desire. In Nights at the Circus, Carter gives the reader many different freaks to focus on, from the most obvious Fevvers, to the other women at Madame Schrecks. Dunn and Carter explore the theme of the sacred and the profane in both of their novels. Both of these authors tell us many things about or society. Arturo, who is the oldest son in the Binewskis fabulon, views normalcy as a burden on those who embodies it. I see this as being very profane, for any one to want to have fins for limbs, and then to think of him as superior to others is very profane. Arty is the most outspoken and extreme on his views of norms, but the entire Fabulon feels that they are better off than with their specialties than the norms that view their shows are. You figured it wrong. The whole thing wrong... Youve got yourself a little old disability there so you took pleasure in feeling sorry for me. Well you figured wrong. (Dunn 169) In the quote by Arty is telling McGurk, a hired personal electrician that even though McGurk may feel Arty has disabilities that cripple him; it does not mean that arty feels the same way. Arty feels that his disabilities or his specialties make him better than the norms. In the Novel Nights at the Circus, Fevvers, supposed to be bird-women, is paraded around Europe at the turn of the 19th century in a circus as well as being a spectacle in a freak show. Fevvers whose mother is human and father is swan, has all the characteristics of a human woman but also has wings that protrude from her shoulder blades. As...