50 pages • 1 hour read
Angela CarterNights at the Circus
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1984A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Self-Construction of Identity and the Role of the Other in Constraining and Defining Identity
The perceptions of others constrain the identities of the characters in the novel and affect the way in which they construct their own identities. In Part 1, Fevvers is continually subjected to abstraction; she is constrained by the observer’s definition of her. The resolution of her character arc comes about when she can define herself. This theme is reinforced by other instances of characters finding resolution through self-definition and determination, like the prison murderesses, which foreshadows this ending for Walser and Fevvers. While the perceptions of others have an entrapping effect on characters like the clowns, ultimately the novel’s message is that the solution for self-determination is partially reliant on the role of the other.
The clowns exemplify the constraints of the observer and need for self-determination. Buffo’s breakdown in Part 2, Chapter 10 comes from a lack of self-determination. He entirely gives himself over to the perceptions of the audience and becomes locked into the “Christ figure” of the clown. Without self-identification, the clowns are “hollow men” and lack personal identity (121). Buffo’s loss of reason is foreboding for the clowns; without his leadership, they can only wait for a new leader to direct them. Walser losing his identity in Part 3 likewise equates to a loss of his reason, as he reverts to child-like behaviors and crows like a chicken. This recalls Buffo; however, Walser is spared from Buffo’s fate because of the intervention of the Shaman, who interprets Walser’s vague flashes of memories and gives him a firm identity to stand on. Although the Shaman’s interpretations are incorrect, they are still focused on revealing Walser’s individual identity as a shaman, and so returns reason and a semblance of a stable sense of self to Walser. This finds its culmination when Walser re-encounters Fevvers at the end of the novel; they witness each other, and she acknowledges his new identity and sees that “he was not the man he had been or ever be again” (291), allowing Walser’s self-determination to come to culmination. Fevvers’s character likewise finds culmination in this scene because of witness from Walser.
During her time at Ma Nelson’s brothel posing as works of art, Fevvers says that she “served my apprenticeship in being looked at—at being the object of the eye of the beholder” (23). She is likewise an object at Madame Schreck’s, and even more so at Rosencreutz’s; he calls her goddess, Azrael, Angel, imposing his own perceptions on Fevvers. After these experiences, this is how Fevvers relates her own identity—as something that is primarily constructed and constrained by the perceptions of others. From that point on, she turns it into a tool to control her interactions and gain what she wants from onlookers. As long as she can control how others perceive her, she feels that she is exploiting the people rather than that they’re exploiting her. Fevvers realizes how futile this is when she tries to play this game against the Duke in Part 2, Chapter 11. He breaks her sword, which symbolizes the breaking of Fevvers herself. In Part 3, Fevvers must re-establish her identity; without her hair dye and feather dye, she cannot hold herself up to the image of the public persona she has created. However, she ultimately determines for herself that this less made-up version of herself is her identity. She determines this with the influence of others, namely Walser who greets her by asking who she is.
This theme reaches full development at the climax of the novel during the encounter between Fevvers, Lizzie, and Walser and the villagers. The resolution of both character arcs is situated at this moment to reinforce the theme of the necessity of witness in self-determination. While one should not adhere solely to the constraints of the observer’s perceptions, still one needs community or personal understanding between others to validate and help define their identity. Fevvers does not resolve her identity crisis, nor does Walser completely remember himself until he meets Fevvers again; the act of witness resolves the internal conflicts both characters face, underscoring the paradoxical need for community and witness in self-determining personal identity. The fact that the first question out of Walser and Fevvers’s mouths for each other are “Do you have a soul? Can you love?” (291) reinforces this, as the idea of soul and love both transcend the constraints of the observer. To love someone is to witness them, to allow them to be themselves, and to give them power; the power of love and witness of humanity gave the murderesses at the prison the power of self-liberation, reinforcing this theme. Ultimately, the novel does not denounce the influence of the observer; it emphasizes the need for a particular kind of observation—that of witness.
The Paradox of Truth in Illusion
Throughout the novel, the characters find themselves trapped in performance within the perceptions of others. However, these characters also self-impose these performances with illusions that they present to others to achieve a specific self-presentation. Despite this, there is truth in the illusions these characters choose, as they reflect more of the characters’ lived realities than they a falsehood.
Fevvers’s authenticity is in question throughout the novel. In Part 1, Walser wonders if her entire persona is just an illusion built upon an illusion: “For, in order to earn a living, might not a genuine bird-woman—in the implausible event that such a thing existed—have to pretend she was an artificial one? He smiled to himself at the paradox: in a secular age, an authentic miracle must purport to be a hoax, in order to gain credit in the world” (17). This quote foreshadows the truth that is implicit in illusions, particularly regarding Fevvers’s character arc. In Part 3, Fevvers is left without the tools of her illusion (namely, her hair and feather dye), and is conflicted over the truth of her identity; in Chapter 1 of Part 3, Lizzie tells Fevvers that “Since he [Walser] made himself known to us in Petersburg, you’ve been acting more and more like yourself” (297), meaning that Fevvers has become “more and more like your own publicity” (198).
In Lizzie’s estimation, Fevvers is taking up an illusion to impress Walser; however, from Fevvers’s perspective, it is still her genuine self: “Well, who am I supposed to be like, then, if not meself” (198). The resolution of Fevvers’s character arc comes when she reunites with Walser at the end of Part 3 and re-validates her own identity. Fevvers chooses to return to the illusion, that is, the persona she’s constructed for the stage, but here it is because she feels it reflects her genuine self: “...the eyes fixed upon her [Fevvers] with astonishment, with awe, the eyes that told her who she was. She would be the blonde of blondes, again, just as soon as she found peroxide; it was as easy as that” (290). The illusion is not something by which she deceives people; instead, it is a tool for Fevvers to construct her own identity and constitute her own reality. This reinforces the paradox of truth in illusion; when Fevvers chooses the illusion, it’s because she has chosen it as a reflection of her own truth.
Another example of this theme is the Countess at the House of Corrections. She subjects herself to a self-imposed illusion: the illusion of the prisoners’ guilt. However, this only reveals the guilt in the Countess herself. The women at the Corrections House are described as “actors” (211) because the Countess has trapped them in a performance. They perform for her as prisoners, penitents of the condemnation the Countess has imposed on them. Olga, however, rejects this condemnation and justifies her actions to herself. Olga reinforces that this performance isn’t the truth of the prisoners themselves and reveals the truth of the Countess’s nature rather than the imprisoned murderesses. In the construction and imposition of the Countess’s illusion, it reveals more about the one who chose that illusion than about the ones who perform in it.
The Shaman’s role in his community also exemplifies the paradox of truthful illusion. The Shaman is a spiritual healer, but Walser learns in Part 3 that the Shaman is really no more than a con man. However, the narrator specifies that the reader should not consider the Shaman a “humbug” (263), because the Shaman uses his confidence tricks as a medium for conveying the truth of his beliefs rather than for deception or obfuscation: “The spirits took forms visible, unfortunately, only to the Shaman himself so that, to keep his customers satisfied, he must equip himself with corporeal imitations of these malevolent forms and then he could be seen to have cast them out” (263). The Shaman feels that it is not so much an illusion as making the unseen seen, for the benefit of the tribespeople: “others had confidence in him because of his own utter confidence in his own integrity” (263). Whether this illusion is self-serving, as the Countess’s is, or for the benefit of the community is uncertain, as the Shaman fears that without the tribespeople’ belief, he would lose his occupation and have to “engage in productive labor” (264). However, he does genuinely believe in his own interpretations and feels that the illusion is just a translation of his truth. Thus, it reflects the reality the Shaman has chosen for himself rather than a duplicity he imposes on others.
Ultimately, the novel says that the paradox of truth in illusion comes from the fact that both are self-determined. The characters in the novel all choose their illusions to portray a reality that they themselves believe in; thus, the illusions belie the truth of their lived realities.
The Complex Nature of Humanity and Its Attribution or Denial as a Tool of Control
The nature of humanity is central to the narrative. The circus performers, such as Fevvers, the clowns, and the animals, exist in a kind of eternal performance and are relegated to objects of observation, calling the very nature of their humanity into question. As a convention of the magical realism genre, this state of abstraction, dissociation, and objectification represents a state of non-reality. The narrative questions the nature of humanity, and how the denial or ascribing of it can be a tool of control for the observer.
As a character, Fevvers walks the line between two extremes: freak or goddess. She is entrapped in the performance of one or the other; she is either looked at as a miracle, abstracted into a concept or idea, or else made to exploit her physical anomalies for profit, as she is at Madame Schreck’s. In Part 2, when Fevvers’s trapeze act is sabotaged and she climbs down the ladder instead of flying, Walser even thinks to himself about how this changes her relationship to the observer:
she would no longer be an extraordinary woman, no more the Greatest Aerialiste in the world but—a freak. Marvellous, indeed, but a marvellous monster, an exemplary being denied the human privilege of flesh and blood, always the object of the observer, never the subject of sympathy, an alien creature forever estranged (161).
Here, Walser grants the observer the power to ascribe or deny humanity. Fevvers’s designation is entirely reliant on the determinations of the audience. In Part 1, Rosencreutz is obsessed with Fevvers as an exalted being, a symbol of fertility, and an idea. However, he is simultaneously terrified of female sexuality and refers to a woman’s sexual organ as “the dreadful chasm, the Abyss” (77) and vilifies it as an otherworldly horror. When Rosencreutz finds Fevvers de-mystified into what she really is—a woman with her own agency—he finds her too terrifying to comprehend. In perceiving her only as befits his own beliefs, it saves him from the fear of her ungovernability as another human in her own right; and it also saves him from having to investigate his human nature and face the abnormality and beastliness in his actions against others.
The question of what makes something human and the relativity of “beastliness” is prominent in Part 2. Walser realizes this concept through his experiences with the Professor and the Educated Apes and with the Princess’s dancing tigers. When Walser sees the Educated Apes practicing for their act in Part 2, Chapter 2, Mignon and Samson are copulating in the background. It’s an ironic scene, as the humans are behaving on primal animal instinct, while the beasts, the apes, are expanding their knowledge and investigating higher-level questions such as the human anatomy. Walser’s exclamation of “What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculty!” (111) prompts the reader to consider the irony of the rational apes versus the irrational and animalistic humans. Here, Walser begins to understand the concept of the relative definition of humanity and beastliness. This is reinforced when Walser dances with the tigers in the Princess’s act in Part 2, Chapter 8. Walser speaks to his tiger partner like he would to an ordinary human and witnesses the world through her perspective: “He allowed himself to think as the tigers would have done: Here comes the Beast, and Beauty!” (164). Unlike Rosencreutz, Walser’s encounters with creatures who have been designated as dumb beasts prompts him to reflect on the complexity of humanity and to understand its relativity and extend it to others without thought of superiority or excusing himself from self-reflection.
In Part 3, a reclamation of others’ humanity through witness is what saves the murderesses imprisoned at the House of Correction. The Countess denies the humanity of the murderesses, and, like Rosencreutz, it’s a denial she undertakes to spare herself from investigating her own nature. The Countess is no different from the other murderesses, but rather than bearing her guilt, she punishes other women in her situation and strips them of their individual identities and humanity, projecting her own self-perceptions onto them. Her constant vigilance over them represents the power of the observer in defining or removing one’s humanity to serve their own ends. Even the guards and the prisoners are subject to this dehumanization in their perspectives of each other; when both groups of people finally realize that the women of the other group are still “women just as vividly alive as themselves” (217), they form connections with each other and re-establish individual senses of selves, as well as a sense of community. This reattribution of humanity to each other is what gives them the power to rise up as “an army of lovers” (217) and usurp the Countess’s control over them.
Ultimately, the novel says that humanity is complex, and when reduced or denied it becomes a tool of the oppressive observer. Defining others as ‘inhuman’ gives the observer control over them and prevents the observer from acknowledging the cruelty and beastliness in their own natures. When the complexity of humanity is acknowledged, and ascribed to others, it constitutes an act of witness which gives the individual agency to revolt against the systems that hold them in place.
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By Angela Carter
