On Wednesday, 7 May 2014, Assistant Professor Selen Aktari-Sevgi (
“The Quest for Self-Identification in Angela Carter’s Feminist Rewritings
of ‘Little Red Riding Hood’”
The talk will take place in Room 308 (
Below you can find the speaker’s bio and paper abstract.
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“The Quest for Self-Identification in Angela Carter’s Feminist Rewritings
of ‘Little Red Riding Hood’”
Abstract
This seminar focuses on the quest for self-identification in two postmodern and feminist rewritings of “Little Red Riding Hood” by Angela Carter: “The Werewolf” and “The Company of Wolves”. In these two rewritings of the classical fairy tale, Carter adopts abject representations in order to rewrite female identity from a feminist lens. Julia Kristeva’s theory of abjection provides a fruitful analysis for uncovering the feminist potential in these stories. Kristeva deconstructs and then reconstructs the traditional identity formation which excludes the female as the other to the self and destroys the strictly demarcated hierarchical boundaries between the subject and the object. Thus, Kristeva promotes a fluid identity which embraces the (m)other and through this she disrupts the boundaries between all kinds of binary mechanisms. She calls such a subject, who carries the other within, a “subject-in-process”. The protagonists of “The Werewolf” and “The Company of Wolves”, at the verge of their puberty, make journeys to the forest which will lead them to identify with abject forms. In these stories, with their association with the maternal, the werewolves are excluded by the dominant norms in respect to their ambiguous appearance and transgressive identities. The werewolves’ hybridity, their capability of metamorphosis, and their potential to blur the boundaries between human and animal promote an unstable and fluid identity which is a challenge to the patriarchally defined solid and stable body. They present a state that belongs to the semiotic stage in which the self and the (m)other are one. Thus, Carter subverts the traditional identity theories which claim that a detachment from the (m)other should take place for the child in order to provide him or her with a psychologically healthy and secure position in the symbolic order. Although “The Werewolf” does not overtly celebrate a female identity formed through an abjection process, Carter implies that the heroine is on her way to achieve her state as a subject-in-process in Kristevan terms. On the other hand, in “The Company of Wolves” she explicitly conveys that her heroine will perform abject qualities and experience a fluid identity which will transgress patriarchal definitions of female identity and female sexuality. In this respect, “The Company of Wolves” appears to be a more radical one when compared with “The Werewolf”. However, in conclusion, although to a certain extent in the former story, Carter celebrates the union of the self with the other and defines a subject-in-process outside the traditional psychoanalytical perception of identity resisting imprisonment in the patriarchally constructed borders of the female body and female identity.
Bio
Dr. Selen Aktari-Sevgi is a graduate of
