Excerpt from Nights at the Circus

"Gawd!" exclaimed Fevvers when she saw Mignon's nakedness. Mignon's skin was mauvish, greenish, yellowish from beatings. And, more than the marks of fresh bruises on fading bruises on faded bruises, it was as if she had been beaten flat, had all the pile, the shin banged off her adolescent skin, had been beaten threadbare, or as if she had been threshed, or beaten to the thinness of beaten metal; and the beatings had beaten her back, almost, into the appearance of child-hood, for her little shoulderblades stuck up at acute angles, she had no breasts and was almost hairless but for a little flaxen tuft on her mound. Unconscious of their startled looks, she dropped her wrapper on the floor and scampered to the bathroom, all legs and elbows. She did not forget to take her chocolates with her. Lizzie picked up the discarded garment with the firetongs and dropped it on the blaze, where it flared, crackled, turned into a black ghost of itself and disappeared up the chimney. Fevvers put a summoning finger on the room service bell. (Carter 129-130) Nights at the Circus

1)      Which text from the novel is the best example of colloquial language?

I.                    “…the minute hand and the hour hand folded perpetually together as if in prayer” (29)

II.                  “ ‘Course,’ said Fevvers, ‘he never got nowhere’ “ (19)

III.                “ ‘Nobody. I meself” (19)

IV.                “The clown may be the source of mirth, but- who shall make the clown laugh?” (121)

a.       II

b.      III

c.       IV

d. II and III

e.      IV and II

Explanations:
a. This answer is wrong because this is an example of a metaphor or personification, not colloquial language.
b. This answer is right, but there is a better answer.
c. This answer is wrong because it is simply asking a question, and has no colloquial language
d. This answer is right because the diction Fevvers uses ("never got nowhere" and "meself") are informal language, and stem from her Cockney background.
e. This answer is wrong because IV is not an example of colloqiual language.

1)      Walser tone towards Fevvers in the beginning of the novel can be most accurately described as:

a.       Appraising

b.      Analytical

c.       Judgmental

d.      Skeptical

            e.    Both b and d

 

Explanations:

a. This answer is wrong because Walser is a journalist who sets out to expose Fevvers as a fake. He is in no way appraising of her except for her ability to fool the world of her abilities.

b. This answer is correct, but there is a better answer.

c. This answer is wrong because Walser is not judging her. He doesn't put down or support anything she does, he is simply observing.

d. This answer is correct, but there is a better answer.

e. This answer is correct because Walser is sitting analyzing Fevvers, picking her apart with his questions not because he is curious about her life, but because he is skeptic of her and wants to point out the holes in her story.

Ironic

1)      In the novel, Fevvers’ wings can be most symbolic of:

I.                    Her freedom

II.                  Irony, because though she has the ability to fly (which is a symbol of freedom) she is not truly free.  

III.                Religion, Fevvers is the image of the fallen angel

a.       I

b.      I and III

            c.    II

d.      III

Explanations:
a. This is the wrong answer because though wings are a sign of freedom and do at some points in the novel allow her to obtain freedom, she is not free.
b. This is the wrong answer because though her wings are a symbol of freedom, they do not symbolize Fevvers as a holy being.
c. This is the right answer because Fevver's wings symbolize different things to those in the book. To her fans, they are a symbol of her freedom. Ironically enough, they are what keeps her caged because she uses them to make herself a spectacle.

d. This is the wrong answer because though there can be religious conotations made about Fevver's wings, such as refering to her as "the Angel of Death", that is not the strongest symbol of her wings.

superfluous

1)      What is the grammatical purpose behind Fevvers’ way of speaking as Walser interviews her?

a.       To show the reader that she has a Cockney accent

b.      To make her seem intelligent

c.       To show the paradox of Fevvers in that she is intelligent yet includes Cockney slang

Explanations:
a. This answer is wrong because though it is true that Fevvers has a Cockney accent, that is not the purpose behind her grammar.
b. This answer is wrong because though Fevvers uses superfluous language, she does not do so to make herself seem intelligent, but rather to further exploit herself as a spectacle.
c.  This answer is correct because it shows the complexity of Fevvers in that despite her attempts to remake herself, she is unable to entirely blot herself out. She does this through various alterations to her appearance as well as her personality.

            For the second novel I read, Nights at the Circus, also by Angela Carter, I chose the poem Portrait d’une Femme by Ezra Pound. The speaker of the poem is acknowledging a woman that is very similar to Fevvers. Both are strong, cultured woman who are constantly in the presence of people described in the poem as: “one average mind- with one thought less, each year” (10).  And because of this, both of the woman find themselves without identity or fulfillment, taking in the “ideas, old gossip, oddments of all things, / Strange spars of knowledge and dimmed wares of price” (5-6), they are the great Sargasso Sea in which the social current back washes into. “The tarnished, gaudy, wonderful old work; / Idols and ambergris and rare inlays” (22-23), these images show the life that Fevvers lives, acting out in an overcompensated personality and acquiring a gushing of flashy material items. The tone of the piece is also similar to that of Walser as he interviews Fevvers; evaluating and criticizing, picking her apart as he asks her to tell him her story. And in the end, his words to her are just as climatic as the last three lines of the poem, in which the speaker exclaims: “No! there is nothing! In the whole and all, / Nothing that’s quite your own. / Yet this is you” (28-30). This line can be paralleled the Walser demanding Fevvers: “What is your name? Have you a soul? Can you love?” (pg. 291). By asking her this, he is dehumanizing Fevvers, taking away her name, heart, and soul- proving that nothing is her own because she has already given it away to something else.