Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 2002. Vol. 3. Eger Journal of English Studies.(Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 29)
Angelika Reichmann: Ledas and Swans in Angela Carter's The Magic Toyshop and Nights at the Circus
4.0 ANGELIKA REICHMANN held ... Louisa or Emily would have the devil's own job with them, thereafter" (NC 38). The old "magic sword" (NC 192) is bequeathed to Fcwers by Ma Nelson —nothing short of a phallic mother-figure —, and clearly implies that Fewers transgresses traditional gender boundaries. She escapes both times without external help, though not without suffering some losses and she is never the passive victim in these cases, never acts out the role of Leda "perfecdy". Just like in her rewritings of fairy-tales, "Carter reverses the gender biases which assign action and adventure to boys and quiescence and passivity to girls" (Abel et al. 17). Fewers seems to be similar to her "modern fairy-tale heroines [who] are rescuers and fighters [and] whose growth is enabled by strong female relationships" (Abel et al 170). In the case of both novels the covert or overt aim of male characters in the rape scenes is actually to fix female characters in the gender role offered by the story of Leda and the Swan —it is the actual rape that would make them Ledas, attach a certain meaning to them, read them as signs in a patriarchal discourse and by that appropriate —in the case of Fewers literally buy —them. But while Melanie in The Magic Toyshop is not conscious of this hidden purpose —it is only Finn who draws her attention to the manipulations of Uncle Philip during the almost fatal rehearsal of the rape scene in his room —, Fewers consciously resists any attempt to read her as a sign, to cage her in a fixed patriarchal discourse, though her obviously symbolic nature is a constant urge for male characters to try to do so. She is Cupid —the sign of love —, she is Winged Victory, she is Divine Sophia, she is an angel, she is the Yeatsian golden bird on a golden bough, she is the Angel of Death, she is the New Woman —and she is none of them. She is Fewers—the first and unique creature of her sort, without any acceptable pattern of behaviour to follow within the patriarchal discourse, as Lizzie says to her: "You never existed before. There's nobody to say what you should do and how to do it. You are Year One. You haven't any history and there are no expectations of you except the ones you yourself create" (NC 198). Both female characters are forced to escape attempts at fixing them in patriarchal discourse by leaving houses —which are more often demolished by fire at the same time than not —in fact, to fly in either or both senses of the word. On the one hand, in terms of the myth of Leda and the swan flying in its literal sense is associated with the Swan. In the sense of escape it is something —why is it so "natural"? —that does not
