‘Second-Hand’ and ‘Hardly Used’: Gendered Violence and Rape Culture in Angela Carter's Shadow Dance

Abstract

In this analysis, Angela Carter's first novel, Shadow Dance (1966), is viewed as an initial diagnosis of the structures that promote and uphold gender inequities and feed the fantastical pathologies that underpin gendered violence and rape culture. While Carter's life's work can now be seen as dedicated to the feminist project of rethinking the relationship between power and desire through a process of resignification, this early work has often been read as resolutely pre-feminist, a fetishization of the specularized woman and, even, verging on complicity with patriarchy. This article argues instead that this novel represents Carter's first and youthful attempt to fathom the sexual dynamics that inform her 1960s subculture in Bristol. It explores the sociocultural inheritance of gender norms and interpersonal dynamics of the period. This article reads Shadow Dance with attention to its construction—the topoi of impersonation and performativity, the narrative point of view and the formal qualities, all of which reveal that the logic of male domination/female subordination is pathological for men and women alike. In particular, the focalization of the narrative through the perspective of a virulent misogynist reveals a specific fetishization of youthful femininity, as well as other problematic ideations that attend rape culture. This article thus advances the thesis that Carter's first novel can be read as a diagnosis of the gendered pathologies embedded in received histories. As a diagnosis, it may assist us in moving towards a reassessment of the ways in which we are still in thrall to this history.

Keywords:

• Feminist fiction
• British women's fiction
• Angela Carter
• Shadow Dance
• 1960s fiction
• Rape culture
• Gendered violence
• Misogynist narration

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 Statistics cannot convey the full extent of rape and sexual violence, as many instances of sexually motivated violence go unreported. In the United States, the National Crime Victimization Survey includes data on sexual assault as well as rape. That data reports 247,730 rapes and/or sexual assaults for 2002, which is equivalent to 28 each hour (Buchwald et al. 2005: 6). This is only in the United States, however, and only what is reported.

2 The ontological uncertainty is a key to the very different interpretations that this novel garners, as one's reading is mediated by one's own perspective as to whether Carter is providing a naturalist account or a Gothic fabulation, or both and more, as is her wont.

3 Morris's decision to escape into the shadows with Honeybuzzard may be an expression of his homosexual longing as well. Because we are privy to Morris's thoughts, we understand just how deeply he represses his own awareness of this, but clear indications of it surface throughout the novel. Still, Morris's decision to retreat into the shadows because of a fear of exposure does not preclude the fact that he also joins Honeybuzzard because of his desire.

4 It is not until 1979, when Carter publishes ‘In the Company of Wolves’ in The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories, that she will attribute to Red, of Riding Hood fame, the surety ‘that she was nobody's meat’ (Carter 1979b: 118).

Additional information

Funding

The author wishes to acknowledge the Humanities and Social Sciences Grant Program at the University of British Columbia, Okanagan, for supporting this research.