Dissertation Day: Angela Carter

Today I'm having a dissertation day; at the beginning of this year I told myself that every Monday would be a dissertation day but I've kind of fallen off the bandwagon with that...other assignments and commitments just kept getting in the way. Today I'm back on track, though.  I'm writing my dissertation on Angela Carter's representations of women through her use of the fairy tale, gothic and carnivalesque and am halfway through the second of my three chapters.  

Writing this dissertation hasn't been as daunting as I thought it would be.  I think that since it's something I've chosen to write about, I'm a lot more enthusiastic than I tend to be about other assignments and essays.  The main problem is how time consuming it is; hours and hours spent trawling the library looking for a certain book all for one quote that you need, only to find someone's taken it out and hasn't brought it back.  Ugh. It's definitely the secondary reading and planning that takes up most of the time, and sometimes planning makes it feel like you're not getting anywhere.  I know people who have written an entire chapter off the top of their heads, finding quotes and thinking of points as they go along, only to end up re-writing most or all of it.  Planning takes a lot of time, and it can sometimes feel like I'm not achieving anything since all I have are pages & pages of notes, but when it comes to actually writing the chapter, I can have it done in a day.  Always, always plan. In first year I hardly ever did and it's only now that I'm realising how much it can benefit your essay. 

I'm looking at Wise Children, Nights at the Circus and The Bloody Chamber for my dissertation because they all explore different aspects of Angela Carter's work.  I adore her writing style, especially in Wise Children; it's so authentic and colloquial and Cockney. Dora & Nora are two of my favourite literary characters; they just do their own thing. Not actively resisting the roles prescribed to women at the time, nor wholly conforming to them - just being themselves, in all their gaudy, raucous, fun-loving glory. 

My friend bought me a beautiful book called A Card from Angela Carter for Christmas.  She knew I was writing my dissertation on her and thought I'd like it, and she was right! It's by Susannah Clap, who was friends with Carter for many years, and the book is a collection of the postcards, notes and letters that Carter sent to her over the years.  Such a beautiful book.

This has been a bit of a ramble, but there you go!

Steph x