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Proceedings of National Seminar on Postmodern Literary Theory and Literature , Jan. 27-28, 2012, NandedPost Feminist Gothic Vision inAngela Carter’s Heroes and Villains- Dr. Raji RameshS. K. Somaiya College of Arts, Science and Commerce, Vidyavihar,MumbaiAngela Carter, the multi-faceted writer hasbecome a central figure in the contemporaryBritish canon, basically because of her novel’sirreverence, quirky, humour, unorthodox genderconstruction and eroticism. Carter’s novelHeroes and Villains [1969] takes off into thefuture of ruins, by employing the familiarconventions of science fiction after the Bomb.The narrative is from the point of view ofMarianne, who runs away from the white towerwhere she grew up with her professor father. InMarianne’s act, Carter appears to demolish thebourgeois security of family and home, and tocome out of the power of the patriarch. TheNovel set in the post-holocaust future, brings tothe forefront three groups of human beings, whosurvive the mass destruction. They are theProfessors, who have preserved many, not all, ofthe features of the pre-holocaust ‘civilization’.They live in systematized communities whichare protected from the attacks by the Barbarians,who live ‘savage’, nomadic lives in the areasoutside the Professors’ communities. Then thereare the out people the radiation mutants livingoutside the realms even of the Barbarians. Theprotagonist of the novel, Marianne throughwhose focalization the novel unwinds, is aprofessor’s daughter who is bored with theroutine, systematic life of the Professors’community and deeply drawn towards thevibrancy and energy of the Barbarians. Soonafter an attack by a group of Barbarians,Marianne helps one of their members, Jewel,who has been wounded in the attack, to escapethe Professors’ village, who had been capturedby the Professors’. She leaves with him whoimmediately proclaims her his ‘hostage’ [Carter:1993, P.18.] inspite of her protest. Soon, theyreach Jewel’s Barbarian tribe, formally governedby Jewel and his brothers but under the authorityof the renegade professor, Donally. Mariannemakes an attempt to escape from the tribe, but iscaught by Jewel who rapes her, and finallymarries her to complete her subjugation. Withina short span Donally is expelled from the tribeafter a fight with Jewel. But having expelledhim, Jewel goes on a mission to save his mentoron knowing that he is held captive by theProfessors. Jewel is killed in this encounter andDonally, too does not return. The novel endswith Marianne deciding that she will rule andcontrol the Barbarian tribe. With this basic plot,Carter unravels the highly complicated aspectsof sexuality and gender roles in a futuristicsociety.Carter portrays the Professors’ communityas highly disciplined and systematic. Just incontrast with the Barbarian tribes, they are selfsufficientand technologically advanced. Theyalso have a tendency to preserve the goodaspects of the pre-holocaust world. TheProfessors with their intellectual frame of minddeny themselves the inborn tendencies that areassociated with the Barbarians. Marianne, theProfessor’s daughter cannot think about sexualintercourse, in all its animal compulsion, in herworld of the Professors. In the night after herforceful marriage to Jewel, Marianne realizesher repressed sexuality in her nuptial chamberand compares his feelings and sensation to whatshe was taught in the Professors’ world. Herthoughts indicate how one’s idea of sex isconditioned by one’s social conditioning:He was a curiously shaped, attractive stone;he was an object which drew her. Sheexamined the holes pierced in his ears tocontain earrings. She had read such coolwords in the books in her father’s study…She had heard her father’s gentle voicespeaking of happenings between men andwomen that, inspite of her affection shecould not associate with happeningsbetween the hairless old man and hermother’s ghost; now she lay far away fromhis white tower with a beautiful strangerbeside her and he stark naked.[HV–82-3]While Jewel is a total stranger to therealistic world of the Professors, Marianne,brought up in the abstract world of Professors, isa total alien to all the basic instincts which Jewel299 PLTL-2012: ISBN 978-81-920120-0-1
Proceedings of National Seminar on Postmodern Literary Theory and Literature , Jan. 27-28, 2012, Nandedthe Barbarian epitomizes : “he’s id”, Cartercomments, using the Freudian term for the“primordial instincts which root humanbehavior”.[Sage: 1977,P.56] RegardingMarianne, Carter observes, in her letter to ElaineJordan : “She is very much a stranger to her owndesire, which is why her desire finds itsembodiment as a stranger.”[Jordan: 1994, P.197]To the extent that Marianne is attracted by theBarbarian vitality she is also urged by theenergies within herself that are completelyrepressed in the Professor’s world. Theprominent text that the two societies in Heroesand Villains share, and which is tattooed onJewel’s back, is the myth of Adam and Eve.Summarizing the story of Adam attracted byEve’s smile, the tattoo actually brings to theforefront the ideologies through which Jewel’sview of Marianne is mediated. Like ShadowDance (Carter’s first novel), Heroes andVillains also places misogynism within a largerideological and cultural framework. Jewel’sdeep sense of fear of Marianne is given as hisexplanation for raping her. His fear of her isalso the reflection of the way in whichpatriarchal societies deeply fear the loss of theircontrol to women. This is substantiated byJewel’s sense of happiness whenever Mariannehas been subdued.The tattoo on Jewel’s back is a cruelreminder of the oppression and cruelty inflictedupon others; Jewel himself feels that whenDonally tattooed him he was delirious and thatthe extraordinary care of Mrs. Green only savedhim from blood poisoning. It actually suggeststhat suffering doesn’t valorize pain but remindsone of the circumstances in which the sufferingoriginated. While Jewel is immersed in thebeauty of the tattoo, Marianne is concerned withthe pain it might have caused to him. She isn’tinterested in the tattoo’s beauty transcendingJewel’s suffering even though pain is eroticised.Eschewing romantic valorization of sufferinggives Carter ample scope to explore the extent towhich men are trapped within codes of violenceand aggression that may at times eroticisesuffering and the limit to which violence, painand suffering are used to dominate women.Though Marianne finds a sense ofawakening to her sexuality amongst theBarbarians, there are certain aspects of their lifethat dismays her and draws her respect, to theProfessors world. During her early secretventure into the Barbarian territory, she hadglimpsed a troupe of Barbarians and had beenshocked by the length of their materialdispossession, this attitude itself had renderedtheir faces ‘sick, sad and worn’ [HV–14]. Thatimpression is still afresh in her mind as she isliving amongst them. Marianne’s father, himselfa History Professor, had been researchingRousseau’s ideas on the innocence andcontentment of humankind in a ‘state of nature’.Marianne finds out the futility of Rousseau’sidealisations in a real situation. Carter says that“Heroes and Villains involves “a discussion ofthe theories of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and… itfinds them wanting”. [Haffenden: 1985, P. 76-96]Within a short period of her stay withthe Barbarians Marianne’s romantic conceptsabout them has completely vanished. But, thedispelling of the romantic feelings does notqualify her discovery of her own deeper,motivating desire in her relationship with Jewel.Here, she slowly understands that, it is her ownrepressed desire, which is much more importantthan Jewel himself. Within itself, Marianne’srelationship with Jewel is not at all liberating.Since, within Barbarian society, the sexualrelationship is very much deep rooted in thepatriarchal ideals just as the relation between thesexes had been patriarchally controlled in theProfessors’ community. Jewel’s initial rape ofMarianne is an expression of the ultimatedominating masculinism of his view of world.And this view is deeply conditioned by Donally.It was Donally who had tattooed on Jewel’sback an image from one of the great patriarchalmyths of all time.The Barbarians get a myth to live by,from their leader Donally. This very myth istaken from the ancients and is firmly based onthe denigration of women as misguidingoffenders of faith or trust. Further, regardingtheir views on the relative positions of the sexes,the Professors’ community with its patriarchallaw of inheritance, and the Barbarian world withits commodification and constant blame ofwomen, are mirror images of each other.Through different means both of themmonopolize women.300 PLTL-2012: ISBN 978-81-920120-0-1
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