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Dara Miller
Dr. Fairhall
ENG 451
Basic Human Stuff: Cultural Mythology and Carnivalesque Subversion in The Magic Toyshop
In a 1986 interview with BOMB Magazine, Angela Carter stated that she saw her
business, the nature of [her] work, as taking apart mythologies, in order to find out what basic,
human stuff they are made of in the first place, and despite its almost constant blurring of the
boundaries between fantasy and reality, Carters modern gothic novel The Magic Toyshop
explores, at its core, the nature of this basic, human stuff. As a haunting indictment of the
patriarchal structures embedded in British society, The Magic Toyshop explores and explodes
traditional ideas of gender norms and culturally sanctioned sexuality through the microcosmic
caricature of the family unit contained within Uncle Philips toyshop on the south side of
London. Although primarily focused on the female protagonist, Melanie, The Magic Toyshop
uniquely examines the ways in which characters of both genders are systematically silenced
through the perpetuation of cultural myths. These myths, which Carter alludes to, skews, and
reimagines, become tropes reflective of Bahktinian ideas of the carnivalesque, and it is only by
eventually accepting and engaging in the spirit of the carnival that the characters can subvert the
myths that threaten to engulf them. As a novel of this human stuff, The Magic Toyshop is
perhaps most intriguing in its ambiguity; Carters work examines oppression and challenges the
mythic structures that uphold it, but does not provide a cure for its evils. Instead, through her
exploration of the carnivalesque, Carter examines the role of cultural mythologies as a means of
oppression and questions whether even the carnivalesque subversion of these mythologies is
enough to create a world free from patriarchy.
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Although she avowed that her own father did not prepare [her] well for patriarchy,
(Sugar Daddy 19) much of Angela Carters work revolves around the damaging effects of
patriarchal culture, particularly as it affects women. According to Carter, her interaction with the
feminist movement enters into her writing as a central reflection of her own identity, and as a
way to ask herself questions about the nature of reality (Notes from the Front Line 37). This
entrenchment in her personal study of the social fictions that regulate our lives (Notes 38) is
reflected in Melanies and subsequently Finn, Francie, and Margarets struggle to inhabit the
various roles created for them by their society. In the novel, this struggle is depicted through the
characters various relationships to the world of cultural and societal myths. As the
extraordinary lies designed to make people unfree, (Notes 38) the myths and folktales
readily available in our common cultural knowledge become, in Carters hands, the ideal
vehicles for subversion. By her own admission, she used bits and pieces from various
mythologies quite casually, because they were at hand, (Notes 38) but within The Magic
Toyshop, this indiscriminate inclusion only amplifies the pervasiveness of oppression in the
everyday: the barrage of myths that threaten to erode individual identity come from antiquity,
religion, poetry, art, bedtime stories, cautionary tales, and family invention. Carter, then,
appropriates the structures and motifs of these myriad mythologies to destabilize common
patriarchal tropes. Her goal, however, is not to create a new mythology, even one which is
theoretically empowering. Rather, she considers herself in the demythologizing business
(Notes 38) and advocates for putting new wine in old bottles, especially if the pressure of the
new wine makes the old bottles explode (Notes 37).
The Magic Toyshop opens with just such an explosion, although under an affirmative
guise, as Carter subtly establishes the problems of patriarchy before breaking those problems
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down through the tropes of the carnivalesque. The first few lines appear, initially, to detail a
liberating awakening of a young girls burgeoning sexuality. Melanie discovers that her body,
rather than being an abstract necessity, is instead a thing of miraculous immediacy, made of
flesh and blood, and she wonders at the intricacies of the elegant structure of her rib-cage and
her bud-wing shoulderblades (The Magic Toyshop 1), which, as Catherine Martin points out,
additionally remind the reader of the breasts that are also emerging on her front (10).
However, though the sheer exhilaration (MT 1) of her self-discovery creates an atmosphere of
innocent and exuberant sensuality, Melanies feelings are subconsciously underscored even from
these opening lines by the introduction of the mythic substructures that Carter, throughout the
novel, will seek to expose and subvert.
By addressing Melanies body as O, my America, my new found land, (MT 1) Carter
establishes the basis for her demystification of patriarchal mythology. Although she appropriates
the phrase to express the young girls pleasure at discovery, the allusion to John Donne also
simultaneously integrates the canon of British poetry into the work a canon that, like Donnes
poem, relies heavily on a romanticized and highly constructed view of women and implies that
her emerging sense of self is already mediated by culture and history (Gargano 60). This
metaphor extends to entail Melanies vision of herself as an explorer of unknown territories, as a
physiological Cortez, da Gama or Mungo Park, (MT 1) and again subtly invites the reader to
consider the darker implications of summoning up these conquerors, each of whose explorations
was followed by violence and subjugation. Although she imagines herself in this exploratory
role, it should be noted that here she has internalized the male gaze; she still views the journey in
terms of male exploration, foreshadowing her dependence on the image of the phantom
bridegroom in future daydreams. Melanie assumes what she believes is the dominant persona,
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that of a male adventurer, and therefore her self-exploration is still essentially a mans
voyeuristic travelling of her body. She is tranced, suggesting that a separate controlling force
ultimately guides her movements and even her vision of herself, naked, in front of the
wardrobe (MT 1).
This force continues to manifest in the ways that Melanie begins to explore her different
potential identities and contradictory roles that make up the female subject in art and society
(Peach 76). After exploring her body through her own tactile perceptions, Melanie switches to a
fascination with her body as an image in her full-length mirror. In evaluating her body as image,
Melanie explores the outward signs she believes define her gender as she affects attitudes and
poses she believes will make her a woman. However, as Judith Butler aptly claims, Such acts,
gestures, enactments, generally construed, are performative in the sense that the essence or
identity that they otherwise purport to express are fabrications manufactured and sustained
through corporeal signs and other discursive means, (2548) rather than innate qualities of an
individual. According to Elizabeth Gargano, Melanies recreation of various artworks adds to
this performative element of her supposed self-discovery; although she seeks to unravel the
boundaries between the realms of nature and artifice, in the process of recreating herself in the
image of artistic visions of womanhood, her own body transforms into the ultimate disguise
that simultaneously prevents her from establishing her own identity and steeps her in the
historical iconography of the female body (60-61).
Her reinterpretation of herself through the male artistic lens further complicates her ideas
of selfhood because it plays into, as Simone de Beauvoir terms it, the myth of woman (1265).
By mirroring idealized representations of women created by men instead of realizing the
dispersed, contingent, and multiple existences of actual women, Melanie attempts to fit herself
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into the myth of the Eternal Feminine, unique and changeless (de Beauvoir 1265). She
considers herself incomplete without her accouterments to these various imagined identities; she
is holding things in her private modeling sessions, and goes so far as to transform herself into
an object for an imagined man, as she presents herself gift-wrapped in gauze for the phantom
bridegroom she conjures for herself (MT 2). These various props on her miniature stage, which
later expand to include her mothers wedding dress, ultimately embody her fantasy of
womanhood; a fantasy based on societal myths, one that will later find echoes in the props that
shake her sense of self when encountered in Uncle Philips shop. This opening depiction of
Melanie also introduces the complex and ever-shifting relationship of the novel to the idea of the
carnival, particularly in light of Bahktins distinctions between the positive, assertive character
(19) of grotesque realism and the darker elements of its later cousin, the Romantic grotesque.
Melanies exercises in draping and covering herself in front of the mirror are essentially
exercises in masking, and to her, this masking appears to take on the positive force that Bahktin
ascribes to folk culture. Her dress-up performance seems connected with the joy of change and
to contain the playful element of lifebased on a peculiar interrelation of reality and image
(39-40). However, the allusions to the male-dominated ideologies on which she is basing her
vision of herself prevent the reader from fully accepting Melanies personal perspective. The
interpolation of the narrator, then, simultaneously tears the mask away from the oneness of the
folk carnival aspect and strips Melanies self-discoveries of their regenerating and renewing
element, forcing the passage to take on a somber hue (Bakhtin 40) even before she enters the
traumatic garden.
That Melanie is initially and unknowingly absorbed into the patriarchal order is
suggested in the novels opening chapter not only by what she does, but also by what she
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specifically does not do: speak. Although her internal dialogue is rich and varied, Melanie within
the first chapter is decidedly non-vocal until she ventures into the garden in her mothers
wedding dress. Aside from her brief conversation on death with Mrs. Rundle a woman so
defined by her place in the patriarchal society that she adopted the married form by deed poll on
her fiftieth birthday as her present to herself Melanies dialogue is always accompanied by
some variation of the refrain she thought or she wondered (MT 3). While her thoughts
remain in her domain, her actual voice is noticeably still for a person with so many opinions of
her own; however, instead of giving herself a voice in her fantasies, she merely gives way to her
imaginary bridegrooms voice husking darling (MT 2).
Melanie does gain a voice when she inhabits the mythical role she views as intended for
her by donning her mothers wedding dress, and she boldly invites the night to Look at me!
(MT 16) as she ventures out into the garden. However, the voice she finds within that structure is
insufficient, fading almost immediately: I never thought the night would be like this, she says
aloud, but in a tiny voice (MT 18, emphasis mine). Her voice, for the remainder of the
experience, shifts from confident declarations to gasps, screams, and other semi-verbal
utterances of confusion and fear as the darkness of the outside world begins to close in around
her. In the midst of her trauma, the garden begins to take on primal and mythic undertones,
sinking insidiously into the world of the Romantic grotesque where all that is ordinary,
commonplaceand recognizedsuddenly becomes meaningless, dubious, and hostile (Bakhtin
39). The tree that was her own tree, her friend, whose knobby old branches were thick with
fruit, (MT 19) turns menacing, a symbolic representation of forbidden knowledge, and like Eve,
she is faced with a choice between gaining a fuller understanding of the world (with all its harsh
expectations) and maintaining her childlike innocence. However, as a reflection of her own
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mixed emotions regarding her burgeoning sexuality, even the symbolism of the tree begins to
collapse in on itself. In addition to its Edenic overtones, an allusion to Snow Whites sinister
poison apples (MT 20) further threatens her naivet and reemphasizes the fairy-tale image of the
damsel imposed on her identity. Rather than a silver-tongued snake persuading her to doom, the
monster lying in wait for her within its branches is a cat, more closely associated with a witchs
familiar than with any biblical image, and thus her attempted retreat back into her room becomes
an assault of archetypes that she will be forced to confront as a woman. As she begins her
torturous climb up the symbolic apple tree, she pleads for Gods intervention, but only receives
in reply a realization of her own shame, making her horribly conscious of her own exposed
nakedness (MT 21).
The foundations of Melanies world continue to turn upside down after the death of her
parents, and she in essence becomes a part of the dark fairy tale she began imagining the night
she entered the garden. Lindon Peach notes that the storyline of the novel itself is reminiscent of
a fairy storyIts heroine, Melanie[is] orphanedand the children are forced to live with a
relative they hardly know who turns out to be an ogre (74) and from this point on the structure
of the novel continues to mimic the same structures it works to deconstruct. As light drain[s]
from the streets, she observes forebodingly that as they near her Uncles house, It is beginning
to get dark (MT 37). She receives Finns dire confirmation that it will get darker and imagines
herself on a quest, comparing the ritual quality (MT 37)of their exchange to the search for the
Holy Grail. The shop, however, is no Castle of Corbenic instead, it looms as a dark cavern, a
gaping cave lurking between the lively South London shops (MT 37).
Although Melanie has already unwittingly experienced the effects of patriarchy, her
direct experience with the oppressive nature of that system begins here, as images of bondage fill
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her initial entrance into Uncle Philips shop. An angry parakeet held down by the chain on its
leg, greets her, and disconcertingly life-like stuffed birds in a large gilt cage (MT 40)
surround her. The childrens initiation into this new world is replete with tropes of the
carnivalesque. In the shop, the borderlines that divide the kingdoms of nature in the usual
picture of the world [are] boldly infringed and the usual static presentation of reality (Bakhtin
32) begins to blur. These images of grotesque realism traditionally reveal an extreme lightness
and freedom, (Bakhtin 32) but the images greeting Melanie and her siblings are largely dark and
penitentiary. Melanie, even in her relative naivety, cannot help but compare the caged and
mechanical birds to Aunt Margaret, who she sees as a black bird with a red crest and no song to
sing (MT 42). With the exception of Finn, a haunting silence fills the house despite the real and
mechanical chatter of the birds and Aunt Margarets exuberant chalkboard writing.
Carter emphasizes the thin line between animate and inanimate created by patriarchy in
her characterization of Aunt Margaret, a woman literally struck dumb on her wedding day as she
gave her life over to a man who would allow her no voice. Even from her initial introduction,
Aunt Margaret represents the theme of the tragic doll that Bakhtin identifies as one of the
common themes of the dark Romantic grotesque (40). She offers Melanie a stiff, Dutch-doll
embrace; her armstwo hinged sticks, her mouth cool, dry, and papery, her kiss inhibited, tight-
lipped but somehow desperate, making an anguished plea for affection (MT 49). This wooden
characterization of Margaret also loosely suggests yet another fairy tale, but whereas in the story
of Pinocchio magic and love allowed a wooden toy to become human, Carters language implies
that in this story confinement and tyranny have succeeded in reversing that transformation. When
Melanie wakes up, she feels trapped, like an unwitting Sleeping Beauty, by a thick hedge of
crimson roses with cruel thorns (MT 53) that she had failed to notice the night before. The
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effusive oppression she feels leads Melanie to feel a stranger, so alien, and somehow so
insecure in her own personality (MT 58).
The blurred lines between the concrete and the imaginary shake her sense of reality as
well as her sense of herself; the constant qui vive of the painted dog and the grotesque
inventiveness (MT 60) of the cuckoo clock disturb her already fragile sense of personal identity.
Again, the disruptive forces of the carnivalesque that should lead to a festive overturning of
hierarchy are repurposed in its service within this strange household, and Melanie feels
withered and diminished by the fact that nothing was ordinary, nothing was expected (MT
60). This feeling intensifies when Finn reacts violently (MT 62) to Melanies appearance in
trousers. She is bewildered when he implores her to change into a skirt, because she was
covered and proper, and at first she thinks he must be joking (MT 62) about the extent of
Uncle Philips power. Although Melanie has yet to meet the man himself, Finns initial
description of Uncle Philip serves to further his characterization as a domestic tyrant, a
patriarchal monster who insists upon absolute rule of the household and its members (Sceats
106). His subsequent admonitions to avoid make-up and remain silent emphasize his awareness
of the artificiality of the roles they play within the household; his advice is given
choreographically, (MT 63) as he, too, recognizes his own subjugation within the household
hierarchy.
Melanies first encounter with her Uncles puppet workshop echoes her entrance into the
garden, and her uneasiness in this environment of too much (MT 18) is even more immediate
than it was in the garden. The jumping jacks, dancing bears, and leaping Arlecchinos that
should be enchanting are counteracted by the grotesque work bench filled with carved and
severed limbs and the partially assembled puppetsblind-eyed puppets, some armless, some
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legless, some naked, some clothed, all with a strange liveliness as they dangled unfinished from
their hooks (MT 67). Melanie sees herself in the eerily life-like and dejected sylphide, and as
noted by Gina Wisker, this figure of the living dollmarks the threshold of horror and
carnivalesque comedy in Carters work and becomes a central conceit in The Magic Toyshop,
blurring the boundaries of performance and experience, of effect and affect (121). The horrific
puppets also evoke the fairy-tale images of Bluebeards wives, hung up in the forbidden
chamber, but Melanie, rather than being caught in the act by the villain, is instead completely
ignored; when the immense, overwhelming figure of a man (MT 69) enters, Uncle Philips
introductory violence is aimed entirely at Finn, further defying conventional expectations and
expanding the sphere of patriarchys reach.
Though it does not touch her directly yet, Melanie soon finds herself dragged down by
the influence of Uncle Philips control. As she moves mindlessly through household chores, she
becomes a wind-up putting-away doll, clicking through its programmed movements. Uncle
Philip might have made her over, already. She was without volition of her own (MT 76).
Melanie envisions Uncle Philip as a monster with a voice so loud she was afraid he would bring
the roof down and bury them all, (MT 77) but despairs of finding any way to combat him. She
identifies both herself and Aunt Margaret as Uncle Philips puppets, but soon comes to
understand how his control extends beyond the female members of the household. As evidenced
in the first puppet show scene, the male members of the household are also forced to submit to
his whims. Although Francie asserts some weak defiance with his excessive, perhaps derisive
(MT 129) fiddling, and Jonathan remains bored and oblivious throughout the performance, they
are still forced into cooperation with Philips obsession. The entire family, frozen in their
assigned roles, all bend to Uncle Philips patriarchal puppeteering.
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In Finns role, Uncle Philips power to subject the members of his household is perhaps
most readily apparent. Finns talent is an essential part of the magic Uncle Philip attempts to
create, as his painting helps bring the toys and the puppet characters to life. Uncle Philip may
hold, as he does in the announcement poster, the ball of the world in his hand, (MT 126) but
this world is built partly on his control of the resistant Finn. When Finn fails to work the
puppets properly and they collapse to the floor in a tangled mess, the rest of the family freezes in
a deadly silence that is broken by a clear and penetrating, irrepressible gush of Finns
laughter (MT 131). As an indispensible element of the carnival, laughter is ambivalent: it is
gay, triumphant, and at the same time mocking, deriding (Bakhtin 12). Finns laughter is a brief
and defiant attempt to harness this festive power; to divest the situation of its forced gravity and
acknowledge the ridiculous nature of both the accident and the terror it inspires in the family.
Finns laughter, however, almost immediately modulate[s] into a high-pitched scream (MT
131) as Uncle Philip throws him from the flies, breaking him as easily as one could a toy. Rather
than showing any concern for his human nephew, Uncle Philip instead shove[s] Finns body off
Bothwell with the casual brutality of Nazis soldiers moving corpses (MT 132) so that he can
instead tend to his beloved puppet. In this setting, his control over the family is complete. When
he decides to incorporate Melanie into his next production, he invalidates the voices of the
protest from Francie, Finn, and (silently) Aunt Margaret, claiming that it is settled with no
acknowledgement of their objections (MT 133).
Uncle Philips violent exertion of his patriarchal power, which had previously been
established primarily through his belligerence, marks a noticeable shift in the Flowers household.
Finn is empty, and the circle of red people was broken; although he paints them together as
martyrs to Uncle Philips tyranny, each a St. Sebastian full of arrows, (MT 132) the familial
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unity has been shattered, and they can no longer ignore the effect of his power on their lives.
Melanie finds herself once again draping herself in white, but now all her romantic imaginings
about a phantom bridegrooms gaze are replaced with Uncle Philips leer as she is forced to
embody the way he sees [her] (MT 140). In Uncle Philips vision, however, Melanie becomes
a distorted figure; her tits are too big and he resent[s] her because she was not a puppet (MT
143-4). Despite her submission to his demands, no amount of costuming or grease-paint make-up
can make her quite wooden enough for him without her spirit being broken.
To make her an acceptable puppet, Uncle Philip uses the ultimate tool of patriarchy: rape.
By framing his performance within the scheme of myth with his idea of Leda and the Swan,
Uncle Philip casts himself in the role of Jove. His lust, however, extends beyond Joves physical
desire for Leda; by attempting to use Finn as his initial instrument of rape, Uncle Philip desires
the complete annihilation of both of their individualities. When Finn instigates the so-called
rehearsal of the Melanies performance on Uncle Philips command, Melanie attempts to bring
in the carnivalesque through her laughter, still attempting to evade the darkness of Uncle
Phillips plot. Finn, however, realizes the extent to which Uncle Philip truly desires their mutual
destruction:
.he wanted me to fuck youSuddenly I saw it all, when we were lying there.
Hes pulled our strings as if we were his puppets, and there I was, all ready to
touch you up just as he wanted. He told me to rehearse Leda and the swan with
you. Somewhere private. Like in your room, he said. Go up and rehearse a rape
with Melanie in your bedroom. Christ. He wanted me to do you and he set the
scene. Ah, hes evil! (MT 152)
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Melanie, however, still does not grasp the full significance of Finns analysis, and her
inexperience compounds the trauma of the puppet show. Despite Uncle Philips intentions, she is
under-rehearsed (MT 164) and ill-prepared to woodenly accept the bestial ravishment of his
puppet. According to Carter, the fear of rapeis a fear of psychic disintegrationa fear of loss
or dismemberment of the self, (The Sadeian Woman) but Melanie cannot initially recognize this
fear, even though it was foreshadowed by her hallucination of the dismembered hand (MT 118).
As the show begins, her fear blurs the boundaries between reality and myth, and she imagines
that Uncle Philip will transform into Jove as a bull and, all myths awry, carry her off as Europa
(MT 163). Like in her experience in the garden, this conflation of mythologies signals a period
of trauma for Melanie, and her fear grows stronger as she enacts her performance. Momentarily
thrown by the absurdity of grotesque parody of a swan, which she can clearly identify as
dumpy and homely and eccentric (MT 165), Melanie reacts to Uncle Philips narrative, rather
than the farcical actuality, and loses her grip on reality as she succumbs to her scripted role. In a
perversion of grotesque realisms ability to turn [its] subject into flesh, (Bakhtin 20) the swan
morphs into a symbol of Uncle Philips patriarchal power, and as Melanie realizes her
insignificance and disposability within his world, she fears that the swan, the mocked up swan,
might assume reality itself and rape [her] in a blizzard of white feathers (MT 166). As a
symbolic and psychological rape, Uncle Philips violent swan effectively accomplishes his goal,
and all of Melanies ability to laugh at the situation is snuffed out (MT 166). Melanie is
separated from herself, and while her body screams in protest, her mind is overwhelmed to the
point of unconsciousness; her trauma is only amplified by the horrifying patter of applause
(MT 167)signifying approval albeit forced of her personal degradation. This degradation
again echoes the carnival version of the grotesque, but again twists it. While Bakhtin defines it as
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the power to bury, to sow, and to kill simultaneously, in order to bring forth something more
and better, (21) the degradation planted in her instead transforms her into something less and
worse.
In the aftermath of her performance, Melanie remains detached, apart, (MT 168) and
morbidly fixates on the intricacies of Uncle Philips power. She feels herself losing her
humanity, slowly succumbing to the role he has created for her; even taking on, as Jean Wyatt
notes, the consciousness of an object as reality hemorrhages from the things she perceives,
flowing toward the subject who now organizes her as an object in his world (67). Uncle Philips
silence, in contrast to the powerless silence felt by the Jowles siblings, and now also Melanie,
had bulk, a height and weight. It filled the room[an] elemental silence which could crush you
to nothing (MT 168). Without him providing the voice-over to guide her actions, Melanie
remains silent and inert, passively allowing the evening to pass her by.
While the swan serves to propel Melanie further into patriarchal subjection, it also serves
as the impetus for Finn to break free from it, and because Melanie feels that somehow their
experience ran parallel, (MT 173) she is also able to take part in Finns victory and even bolster
him up when the enormity of what he has done sinks in. As Finn recounts his drunken
destruction of Uncle Philips swan, the carnivalesque elements that have up to this point
contributed to the darkness of the text begin to revert to their essential, empowering meanings.
Finn enters Melanies bedroom covered in earth (MT 170) but now this trope of degradation is
one of regeneration. Like Melanie, Finn had walked into the forests of the night where nothing
was safe (MT 173) and experienced a world where ordinary sights transformed, but unlike
Melanie, his night ended with the regenerative pleasure (MT 173) he felt in destroying the
swan.
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Once they have accepted the fact that his actions have presented a concrete challenge to
the patriarchal order of Uncle Philips household, the rest of the family are free to begin further
subverting the traditional structure, which they accomplish by embracing the medieval origins of
the carnival. The swans destruction ushers in a moment of crisis, but also a breaking point
(9) in their microcosmic society that echoes the conditions Bakhtin outlines for producing the
earliest and most regenerative forms of the carnival. Uncle Philips absence leads to universal
festivity in the house; the very bacon bounced and crackled in the pan for joy, and even the
toast catching fire with a merry flame becomes a joke (MT 183). Aunt Margarets
movements lose their doll-like stiffness, and Finn instigates a desecration of Uncle Philips
symbols of tyranny by sitting in his chair like the Lord of Misrule (MT 183). What begins as
breakfast soon turns into a feast and festival, as they pile up food and close the shop to have a
partya wake for the swan (MT 184). The images blur into a typical grotesque carnival and
turn kitchen and banquet into a battle (Bakhtin 22) for the happiness of the family. Finally, the
pervasive silence that has defined the majority of their interactions breaks into true festival
laughter, a laughter that frees and renews and allows even Aunt Margaret to consider the
possibility of her own tomorrow, where she could come and go as she pleased and wear what
clothes she wanted and maybe even part her lips and speak (MT 184), and as they continue to
sink into a liberating destruction of household object Melanie observes that she had never seen
the brothers laugh so much (MT 185). As time stops with the destruction of the cuckoo clock,
the grotesque upheaval discloses the possibility of an entirely different world, of another order,
another way of life, (Bakhtin 48) a possibility they symbolically embrace by changing into
clothes Uncle Philip would never have permitted them to wear.
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As the circle of red people knits back together, Melanie discovers that she wanted all
their past, every bit of it, to shareshe felt she would die if she could not know everything (MT
190-1), and as their wild abandonment begins to settle down, Melanie is finally initiated into the
Jowles family by witnessing the secret of their family. As Francie and Aunt Margaret embrace,
Carter surrounds them in both pagan and Christian imagery, again harkening back to the origins
of medieval carnivals, which, while connected to the church, also contained a genetic
linkwith ancient pagan festivities (Bakhtin 8). Their love sweeps them away to a place at
midnight on the crest of a hill, with a tearing wind beating the branches above them, and yet
they kneel together as if in a Catholic wedding ceremony; in the midst of this ultimate taboo, the
reality of the room seems to blur as Melanies preconceptions about their family shimmered and
dissolved (MT 194) along with the cigarette smoke. In the spirit of the carnival, their love
appears as a reversal of expected norms, but not a transgression; rather, this enacted secret serves
to consecratefreedom, to permit the combination ofdifferent elements, to liberate from the
prevailing point of view of the world, from conventions and established truths, from clichs,
from all that is humdrum and universally accepted (Bakhtin 36). As another element of the
carnival spirit that had been previously stifled and silenced under Uncle Philips reign, Francie
and Margarets love offers the chance for the whole family to have a new outlook on the
world, to realize the relative nature of all that exists, and to enter into a completely new order of
things (Bakhtin 36).
In Melanies acceptance of Aunt Margaret and Francies love, the secret filled up all the
space between them and around them and in her acknowledgement and acceptance of the
incest, invoked downstairs on the woven rug, she melds into the family, turning her connection
to Finn into a similar incest invoked upstairs in the quiet bedroom (MT 195). Melanie wishes
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for some magical rite that could explain to her of past and present and future and a grand
concept of them all as a whole in which incest had an explicable place; (MT 196) however, her
identity is already tied to the Jowles, overriding any desire for explanation.
Although Aunt Margaret and Francie have always been lovers, (MT 194) it is only now
that they feel free enough to make that love known as they make no attempt at privacy, they
must expect that Uncle Philip will come home to witness their intimacy. This deliberate act,
invoked on the dining room floor and made possible by Finns choice to destroy the
representation of Uncle Philips power, breaks the spell of silence on Aunt Margaret and creates
her anew as a living, speaking goddess of fire, and unlike the doll-like timidity of her former
self, this empowered reincarnation, reminiscent of the Gaelic goddess Brigid, brings a storm
into the room (MT 197) with her that threatens to sweep away the last remnants of Uncle
Philips power. Although the enraged Uncle Philip gleefully plots to Trap them like rats and
burn them out! (MT 197) he seems to be the one most susceptible to the flames; Aunt Margaret,
with her eyes burning and her hair flickering, and Francie, heading fearlessly back into the
flames carrying a crowbar, seem impervious when contrasted against the gruesome vision of
Uncle Philip, struggling to overcome his own barricade (MT 198).
As Finn and Melanie escape hand in hand into a new world outside the toy shop, Melanie
realizes their identities are inextricably intertwined; that they have only each other, now (MT
199). Their escape seems dismal, but they begin their new life on an equal level; the
carnivalesque nature of their last moments in the house effectively [suspended] all hierarchical
precedence (Bakhtin 10) and created them anew as equals. Rising like phoenixes from the
ashes of their old life, they are free to create a world not based on dark fantasy, but on the wild
surmise of their own creating (MT 200). As Wyatt observes, this final allusion to Keats version
Miller 18

of Cortezs discovery encourages reader to hope that the destruction of Philips factory of
patriarchal fantasies opens up before Finn and Melanie an uncharted space free of patriarchal
oppression and old gender demarcations, yet simultaneously gives the reader pause, as the
opening pages metaphors of global exploration have taught us to be skeptical about the
possibilities of brave new worlds (75).
The hope for a brighter future remains ambiguous; Finn and Melanie only hope (MT
200) that their loved ones have survived, but likewise the dread of Uncle Philips survival is also
a possibility. In this final tableau, Melanie again visits a distorted garden, though this time with
Finn as Adam by her side. As a modern embodiment of the first couple, however, Melanie and
Finn have never tasted paradise, and their romance is not traditional love story. As Madeline
Monson-Rosen demonstrates, Finn and Melanies love is instead born out of mutual alliance,
out of familiarity, (235) and even, following Francie and Margarets example, out of a sibling
bond. Carters work, then, is hardly an answer to the problem of patriarchal oppression; however,
as an exploration of the human stuff involved in that problem, it offers a sympathetic
understanding to those who do struggle with the gray areas involved in overcoming oppression.
By attempting to demythologize the fictions that structure our world, Carter treads the fine line
between the destructive and regenerative power of the carnivalesque; although laughter has
returned, it is a choked half laugh, half sob (MT 200).




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