Writings

This is a new category where I discuss my thought processes before, during and/or after the essay had been written and submitted. I think about my writing a lot because I’m just narcissistic that way.

Main text

At the outset, I thought that this being a module focused on feminist writing, the obvious angle would have to be about the idea of looking – mirrors and reflections abound in the titular story. So I thought, why not add a class dimension to it? In retrospect this was highly risky – a strict 1000-word limit doesn’t allow you to expound and develop two axes fully. I took it on anyway thinking that I could be economical with words if I tried.

I chose two tales in the end and envisioned a structure – one on Mr Lyon and one on Snow Child, then a synthesis. Brief notes about my thought processes follow. See previous post for the essay I wrote.

Introduction

Never be wordy with intros. I don’t know how my peers wrote but skip all the perfunctory “Angela Carter was born in…” or “This collection of short stories was written when…”. The underlying rule is that each sentence must serve a purpose. My first sentence quoted Carter herself to give the context and then go straight into “issues of gender and class” because that’s what I am concerned about. Move quickly into the tension of the essay and then, the thesis statement.

Mr Lyon, Snow Child Gender and Class

One predominant problem with this essay that the prof did not appreciate was my blatant disregard for context. Much of what’s written here (and below) makes sense, but only if you are very familiar with the story. Here, I was looking at Beauty as a subject – the narration itself positions her immediately in a domestic space, and her father sees her as “Beauty…girl-child…pet”. It is tempting to take this as one big piece of analysis and say generally that she’s seen as something lesser, but consider why this successive triad? Is there a pattern? Sadly, I was so busy picking out quotes and many of them were not as well analysed – particularly the metaphor of fallen petals at the end. I should have linked it to the rose at the start!

Snow child was interesting (and its length was most agreeable!) because for a feminist text this child didn’t seem to have any interiority. If anything, she’s like the quintessential male fantasy – an empty shell that’s simply young and attractive. It gives rise to the question of why her? Why this, in a Carter tale? My only regret is that there was in fact one more dimension I wanted to explore – the transfer of the fur and boots in the story from the Countess to the Snow Child.

On a side note, reading The Courtship of Mr Lyon made me really mad – Mr Lyon is very obviously a gaslighter (by my reading, anyway). He’s ferocious when meeting the father, gentlemanly when in the presence of Beauty, and guilt-trips her into coming back by emotional blackmail and abnegation. Isn’t that like those kind of asshats who threaten that their lives would be ruined if you break up with them? Maybe sit on some ledge and emotionally blackmails you into not breaking up? That’s Mr Lyon, right there. The ambiguous title could also be parsed as The courtship / of Mr Lyon (i.e. this is a story about his way of courtship). But I digress.

Synthesis

So I tried to differentiate the two tales by their end result, but now I must also say why it matters. “Why does this matter?” is probably a question I must keep asking myself. For those who are reading this to get a sense of the thought processes behind the writing, here is my humble contribution. I don’t profess to speak for all lit students though – I’m sure many others think very differently than I do and produce far better essays than I ever will.