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The Body of the City: Angela Carter's "The Passion of the New Eve"
Author(s): Nicoletta Vallorani
Source: Science Fiction Studies, Vol. 21, No. 3 (Nov., 1994), pp. 365-379
Published by: SF-TH Inc
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 ANGELACARTER'STHEPASSIONOF THENEWEVE 365

Nicoletta Vallorani
The Body of the City:
Angela Carter's The Passion of the New Eve
"thatshadowylandbetweenthe thinkableandthe thingthoughtof'-Angela
Carter,TheInfernalDesireMachinesof Dr. Hoffinann.

1. Building the body of the city. The followingis an essay on the repre-
sentationof utopiancities in feministsciencefiction,particularly
the way it is
exploited,interpreted,reversed,and reflectedin AngelaCarter'sPNE. The
maincharacterof the story, a young EnglishmancalledEvelyn,reportshis
journeythrougha darkanddecayedNew York,his escapeto the desert,his
arrivalin a femalecommunity-wherehe is to be transformed into the New
Eve-and his experiencesas a womanin Zero'stown. Threedifferenturban
spaces are describedas complexmetaphorsof the interiorspace. For the
purposesof this discussion,we will considerboth the urbanreality that
providestheunderlyingstructure of anyutopiancity andthe fictionalshapeof
utopiathat,being fictional,is bracketedoff fromthe worldit represents. 1
As an operationalstrategy,let us simplifyandbeginwith the assumption
thatthepassagefromrealityto the imagination impliesa transcodingprocess:
i.e., the symbolsof whatcanbe empiricallyperceivedareto be translated into
the complexweb of metaphorsthatdefine the literaryimagination.Under-
standably,the messagebecomesambiguous,becauseambiguityis inherentin
the polysemy of signs. Cognition,therefore,becomesa complexprocess
becauseit flows throughfabulationandconsequentlyis filteredthroughthe
perceptionof realityas a labyrinth,a tangibleenigmaof imaginativebricks
andmortarwhichleadstowardsseveralconflictingsolutions.
In the processof giving a definite-but neverconclusive-shapeto our
vision of utopiancities, we may posit an analogyand a sort of contiguity
betweenthe physicalbodyof a personandthe urbanbodyof a city. Thuswe
may readthe signs in the urbanspaceas we readwrinkleson the skin.2
Thefictionalcity, in otherwords,is createdthrougha processof doubling,
withthe literarypurposeof articulating the psychologicalandphysicalbodies
of the peopleliving withinits boundaries.An urbandimensionconceivedin
this way augmentsthe semanticload of the individualbody andorganizesit
into a new pattern.The signifyingsystemis amplifiedandgainsimaginative
andanalogicveracity.An evenfurtheranddeeperarticulation, however,may
obtainwhenthe fieldof referenceis no longerandnotonlyutopiaas such,but
sexedutopia,thatis, utopiaas a genrewhichis given a definitegender.This
genderis, in our case, female.

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366 SCIENCE-FICTIONSTUDIES, VOLUME 21 (1994)

"As a woman," writes Marge Piercy, "I experience a city as a minefield.

I am always a potential quarry,or target, or victim" (210). This perceptionof
the city is a first stab towards correctly approachingAngela Carter'sPNE. In
Piercy's words, real cities are defined as dangerousplaces for women who end
up being almost unavoidablyisolated and marginalizedhowever hard they try
to react to this process. To a certain extent, the vision is similar when our
reference is no longer the city defined in gendered terms, but the urban
stereotype in modem fiction.
Burton Pike describes this stereotype: "Duringthe nineteenthcentury, the
literary city came more and more to express the isolation or exclusion of the
individual from a community, and in the twentieth century to express the
fragmentationof the very concept of community"(Pike, xii). Civitas, there-
fore, is felt to oppose communitas;the two terms, which used to pertainto the
same semantic field, are now definitely divorced. Human solidarity as a vital
link is dissolved and individuals are connected only through their incidental
sharing of the same space. The feminist imagination,while appropriatingthis
vision, problematizes the issue by redoubling urban isolation through the
depiction of female marginalizationin the city. A gendered space results.
Wendy Martin, quoting Julia Kristeva, Helene Cixous and Luce Irigaray,
and referring to the female perspective they adopt in their criticism, writes:
"Women need to think with their bodies and, if possible, to return to the
preoedipal experience, before the patriarchalgrid imposed the bifurcationof
mind and body, self and other" (258). In blunt terms, what is suggested here
is that for women the process of rebuilding their original identity is to be
filtered through a female space which is no longer defined as external to the
body, but ratheras its offshoot, a spreadingof the female self in the physical
world.
Urban spaces created by women to host female, feminist, and gynocratic
societies are often symbolically loaded. Mizora (Mary Bradley Lane, Mizora,
1890), Herland(CharlottePerkinsGilman, Herland, 1915), Whileaway(Joan-
na Russ, The Female Man, 1975), Mattapoiset(Marge Piercy, Womanon the
Edge of Time, 1976) are different figures springing from the same female
mind. All of these writers give their cities the shape of a female body which
has been excised from history, disfigured, and sacrificed to the persisting use
by and reference to, in concrete reality, patriarchal codes and signs.
Femininity, while excluded from human history, returns to the surface in
utopia and cannibalizes the urban space, absorbingit into a female body.
The utopian future is thus conceived not merely as a possible time, but as
a new space that allows the process of re-tracingfemale history and tradition.
The city becomes its favorite metaphor: an object which is a living body
expandingand replacingthe self of individuals-male and female-living with-
in its boundaries.
The city remains an alembic of humantime, perhapsof humannature-an alembic,
to be sure, employed less often by master alchemists than sorcerer's apprentices.
Still, as a frame of choices and possibilities, the city enacts our sense of the future;
not merely abstract,not mutableonly, it fulfills time in utopic and dystopic images.
(Hassan, 96)

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 ANGELACARTER'STHE PASSION OF THE NEW EVE 367

This is Angela Carter'surbandimension: an alchemicalspace mappingout

humannature, both male and female, not only squeezed into a narrowpresent
reality, but projected towards a possible future, either utopian or dystopian.
As a metaphor, therefore, the city occupies a crucial juncture in Carter's
imagination and tends to become, as in Nights at the Circus, "a city built of
hybris, imagination and desire, as we are ourselves, as we ought to be" (12).
Within its limina any human being, man or woman, can see his/her own re-
flection in an urbanstructureimitatingthe architectureof desire. Its source is
not an act, but a wish, a dream of invisible cities.3
In PNE, Carter goes one step further. Having posited the space/body
identity, she proceeds by systematically inverting the traditional signifying
process. The semantics of the body is appropriatedby the object world of
space. The latter, therefore, becomes the site of language, that is, of a code
suitable to the city and consequently incomprehensible.
"The City cannotbe comprehended,"writes Joyce Carol Oates (30). While
subscribing to this assumption, Angela Carter gives definite fictional
plausibility to McLuhan'sdescriptionof postmodernurbanspace, of the "city
as a total field of inclusive awareness"(166). Since the city endlessly echoes
and reflects the self, the typical processes of the body are coherently trans-
ferred to the objects inhabiting the city's space. And then the process is
reversed. The body becomes a thing, res in reality, the most suitableobject for
literature, fictional space, myth. Ontologically, that is, the body and the city
are identical in that they undergo the same fictionalizing process.4 Under-
standably, "The vertiginous natureof [the City's] threatcan be translatedinto
language-a language necessarily oblique and circumspect"(Oates 30).
The resulting female writing will necessarily be sufficiently complex,
polysemic, multivocal, and ambiguousin orderto reproducethe hybrid gram-
mar of the urban landscape.

2. Writing the Body of Evidence. The underlyingstructureof PNE is deeply

postmodernist in that it exploits the basic procedure of adding up hetero-
geneous structuraland functional elements without pretending to synthesize
them. The main thematic units of the novel lead to a human body-the pro-
tagonist's body-which undergoes a metamorphosis through the addition/
subtractionof sexual genders. Evelyn, a man given a woman's name, uses and
abuses Leilah's female body while living in New York, the postmodern
metropolis.SWithin the bordersof the city, he is a male, and behaves like one.
After leaving the city, Evelyn becomes Eve. The metamorphosisis not the
result of a choice, but of a surgical experimentplannedand performedby the
women of Beulah againstthe protagonist'swill. In blunt terms, the experiment
is describedas an arithmeticoperation:male attributesare subtractedfrom the
protagonist's body, while female shapes are added. Eventually, Evelyn/Eve
will succeed in runningaway only to come back to a male world. His position
in society is now deeply changed:he is a man with a female body of which he
is not yet fully aware. Awareness will spring out of sorrow and humiliation
when Eve/lyn experiences sexual violation and sexual abuse on his/her own
body.

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368 SCIENCE-FICTION
STUDIES,VOLUME21 (1994)

Throughthe whole process,Eve/lynshowsa double,ambiguousnature.

The surgicaloperationhas beencompulsoryandthereforeno new awareness
is impliedin it. A femalebodyhas beensimplyaddedto a maleidentity.The
two gendersexhibita contiguitywhichdoes not-and couldnever-become
continuity.No integrationis possible.Eve/lyn'sbodyandminddivergebut,
paradoxically,the resulting chaotic dispositiontriggers the process of
comprehension.6
Literally,Eve/lyn'sbodyis carnivalized, madegrotesquebecauseit is seen
in the processof becomingsomethingelse.7Cartershowsa preciseawareness
of the disruptivepowerimpliedin carnivalization. The use she makesof this
literarydevice is a functionof a systematicanalysisof femininity,which
eventuallyresults in the completedeconstructionof both genders. What
emergesfrom the whole process is simplythe admissionthat the conflict
betweengenderscan by no meansbe settled.Maleandfemaleas exponents
of an irreducibledichotomymaybe putsideby side, summedup, deconstruct-
ed, agglutinated,butneverfusednorcomposedin a complexfigureincluding
bothgenders.In otherwords,sexes couldbe combinedin androgyny,which
is not-and neverwill be-a stablecombinationof genders.Hybridization is
the only possibleoperationandat its best it resultsin an enigmathatcannot
be unraveled.
Catnivalization,particularlywhen referringto genders,is semantically
overloaded.In its complexityit makesfor a dialogicnovel, reflectingthe
featuresof a highly flexibleandmultivocalartisticvision (cf Bakhtin,12ff).
As it mixesup incompatible elementswhichareneverto be fusedin a mono-
logic vision, it producesmultiplicityin representation and multivocalityin
discourse.The resultingpictureis often disturbingbecauseit is contraryto
commonsense, disruptive,defamiliarizing, anddefamiliarized. Whateverthe
purposesof usingcarnivalization in theartisticcreation,theoperationsimplied
tendto be thesame:deconstruction, accumulation, metamorphosis, fragmented
andunnaturalgrowth.
Oncemore,the coreandstructuring principleemergingin theurbanland-
scapeas well as in the descriptionof the humanbodyis a summingup proce-
dure,producinga carnivalizedspace.It is not reallyan alchemicaloperation,
sinceit does not resultin a compoundof differentelements,butrathera mix-
ture in which every ingredientmaintainsits own characteristics even while
becomingpartof a new whole. Thisis AngelaCarter'scity: the secularcele-
brationof chaos, the weirdplace overlookingthe impossibleexperimentof
Baroslav,a Czechoslovakdeserterpersecutedfor politicalreasons.Oncein
New York,he has founda new identityanda new life: he is a beggaranda
magician,an alchemistwho, beforecreatinggold fromsteelbeforeEvelyn's
eyes, gives a shortandveryeffectivedescriptionof New York'surbanspace:
Chaos, the primordialsubstance....Chaos, the earlieststate of disorganized
creation,blindlyimpelledtowardthe creationof a new orderof phenomenaof
hidden meanings. The fructifying chaos of anteriority, the state before the
beginning of the beginning(14; italicsmine).
In a way, this is also a definitionof Carter'sfictionalspace:a primordial
chaos, whoseelementsare not meltedinto a rationalandlogicalsystem,but

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 ANGELACARTER'STHEPASSIONOF THENEWEVE 369

merely summed up in a sequence with no understandablelinks. The resulting

organism is complex in the etymological sense of the term, i.e., in that its
constituents stick to their singularity even when combined. Metropolis, just
like personality, is deconstructed. Disassembled units are then recombined
according to principles contradicting any understandablelogical process: a
paradigmaticnegation of common sense (cf Deleuze, 70ff). Paradox is the
artistic form most suitable for representingthis subversive attitude. And it is
disturbing in that it translates, in fiction, into a deliberate rejection of any
conceivable position.
The founding concept of Angela Carter's artistic vision is the "female
gothic" as defined by Ellen Moers (90 ff). While appropriatingthe tools
offered by paradox and satire, she provides a feminine perspective, and by
doing so she discovers in sf an unprecedentedpotential for rupture.A wholly
new order of things is prospected, and it is highly disturbingbecause it is not
built according to men's needs. Systematic deconstructionaffecting all the
items making up the urban landscapeproduceswhat BarbaraWarddefines as
the "unintendedcity" (29): a city with no memories and no future, a cunning
figure of life accepted on its surface, because it is exactly what it seems-a
labyrinthwith no exit. Urbanspace is thereforeconceived, in PNE, as a closed
system. Entropy affects not only the physical and social universe, but also its
linguistic translation. The favored metaphor maintaining this vision is the
postmoderncity, an ambiguous "paradigmof self-reflexiveness," in Mariadel
Sapio's words, which "synthesizes contemporarycodes' potential for change
obtained through an endless mirroringprocess" (26).
In depicting Eve/lyn's journey throughgender stereotypes, PNE therefore
combines a postmodernistselection and accumulationof themesand landscapes
with a poststructuralistinterpretationof language. In a multidimensionalspace
conceived in this way, different writings are interwoventhrough a combina-
torial rule which is incomprehensibleand indescribablebecause it is always
undergoing an endless, everlasting metamorphosis.
Angela Carterdoes not simply write fiction. She also works on the body
of writing, on the linguistic and semantic formations we conceive to be the
basic background to our human lives. Through an orderly process of
deconstructionand recombination, she defines the issues of urban landscape
and codes in gendered terms. PNE is therefore, literally, a gender novel, in
that gender is the still center of a circularjourney throughthree sexed utopian
spaces that alternately host and reject the protagonist and determinehis/her
physical and psychological metamorphosis.

3. New York. Basically, Evelyn is a traveller. In the first pages of the novel,
he moves from London to New York. His personal experience as a man,
therefore, is deeply marked by the awareness of the body of a European
metropolis that, as a literary topos, has always been considered male.8
When moving overseas, however, Evelyn finds an urbanlandscapewhich
he perceives as unfamiliar and about which he says: "Nothing in my experi-
ence had preparedme for the city" (24). In terms of gender, New York is

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370 SCIENCE-FICTIONSTUDIES, VOLUME 21 (1994)

clearlymale, but, when comparedto London,it gives the impressionof a

furtherevolutionin urbanstructure.The rationalprojectunderlyingthe city,
while still evidentin London,hereseemsblurredin New Yorkby a progres-
sive deterioration anddecaythataffectsarchitecture as well as the socialand
individualway of life.
If Londonis the romanticstyleof nostalgiafadingin theironyof memory,
New Yorkis grotesque,a hybrid,a postmodern andself-reflectivemetropolis
foreverhiding the ancientrationalprojectinsteadof revealingit. Its true
identityconsistsof beingableto absorba whirlingsemioticuniversewithno
logic andno meaning.9
Significantly,New Yorkdisplaysall thecolorsof decay.Whendescribing
the city, Evelyn's chromaticvocabularyseems limitedto a few adjectival
expressions,all of themwith negativeconnotations:"black,""acidyellow,"
"mineralgreen."Organicandinorganicdeterioration is mirroredeverywhere
andproducesa totallydefamiliarized imageof the technologicalmetropolis.
The landscape'scolors reflect the impossibilityof any effectivecognitive
process.Chromaticcontrastsaremissingsimplybecausetheyareunthinkable
in an urbanspace conceivedin this way. The landscape'stendencytoward
monochromatism wrapseverythingin a darkshadewhichis physicalas well
as psychological.Only a few sequencesare perceivedin the morninglight,
livid and defamiliarizing,that levels all contrastsand complicatescompre-
hension.
To some extentthe topographyof the city is also incomprehensible: it is
a fragmented,labyrinthinetext that is largelyunreadable.1Urbansites are
locatedaccordingto no apparentcriterion.Seeminglythey do not communi-
cate, or meld. Thecity as a wholehas no centerandno depth:it is a web of
symbols often with no meaning.The sign stands and acts for the idea.
Knowledgeis impossiblebecauseit hasno object.Literallythereis nothingto
know.
In a way, Evelyncanperceive,or ratherimagine,the originalproject:"a
city of visiblereason-thathadbeenthe intention"(16). However,the inten-
tion has apparentlybeen lost in the urbanspacethe protagonistdescribes:a
place of liminality,an endlesssequenceof luridsuburbswhichare the only
tangiblerealityfor the protagonist.In Evelyn'swords, "it was then an al-
chemicalcity. It was chaos,dissolution,nigredo,night"(16).
The chromaticpreferencefor darknessis functionalfor the representation
of anurbankaleidoscopedevoidof anyrationalplan/design.Havingbeenbuilt
apparentlywith no planning,Carter'scity may be disassembledand re-
assembledwithoutrunningtheriskof beingunableto tracetheoriginaldesign.
New Yorkis, therefore,pureimage,theslideof a city, endlesslyreproducing
itself like a modernworkof art.11"Aroundus, as if cut out of darkpaperand
stuckagainstthe sky," says Evelyn, "werethe negativeperspectivesof the
skyscrapers" (30): a papercity, therefore,the infinitelyreproducible, reprint-
able silhouetteof an urbanspace.The silhouette,far fromshowinga simple
two-dimensional profile,provescapableof renderingonce morethe shapeof
an entropicuniversethatresultsfromthe senselessaccumulation of disparate

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 ANGELA CARTER'S THEPASSIONOF THENEW EVE 371

objectstranslating andcompression
theaccumulation of personalandcollective
history.
The deconstructivemodel identifyingthe disjecta membraof the city
requiresthat there be a code capableof writing an unwritabletext. The
descriptionof thepostmodernmetropolisis giventhroughsyntagmatic opposi-
tionswhichtriggerconflictingsemanticreferences:"Instead of hardedgesand
cleancolours,a lurid,Gothicdarknessthatclosedovermy headentirelyand
becamemy world"(PNE 10).
Manhattanresemblesa medievalcity, a place of disorderand darkness
whichEvelynalternatelyloves andhates,as is oftenthe casewiththingsthat
arenot understoodbut whosefascinationis undeniable.
Only later will Evelyn realize the impossibilityof fully acceptingthe
"dying city" (37) and consequently leave it.
Whilelookingfor freedom,he finallygets to the city of Beulah.

4. Beulah. Beulahis a gynocraticsociety. Carter'sdecisionto includea

utopian space like this in PNE partly reflects the prophetic tendency that
Wendy Martin acknowledges in many women writers:
The utopian community of sisters.. .is a profoundly political phenomenon which
results from an evolution in consciousness from acceptance of traditionalvalues,
or at least the effort to adjustthem, to questioningof these values, to rebellion and
finally separation from the dominantculture to form a new social order. (250)
ThereforeBeulah is planned on the prototypeof feminist separatistcommuni-
ties which are the underlying structuresof some already mentioned novels.
Mizora(Lane),Herland(PerkinsGilman),TheFemaleMan(Russ)or Woman
paradigm,each
on the Edge of Time(Piercy)all exploitthe samestructural
focusing on different problematic issues. PNE offers a slightly diverging
model, a peculiarsemanticandthematicshadeso unusualin feministfiction
that it has in some cases led to misunderstandingsin the critical response to
the novel.
Robert Clark, in particular,when referringto Beulah, maintainsthat the
city is planned and built as "an image of feminine society which exists only
in male chauvinist nightmares"(148). This claim presumesthat Carterwishes
to proffer a serious operationalmodel of the perfect female community. Such
a perfect model, according to Clark, can be discerned in Beulah.
I believe Clark's interpretationis not sufficiently grounded in an unprej-
udiced and objective critical analysis of Carter'snovel. The general structure
of PNE seems to me to supportJane Palmer's less contradictorytheory, that
the creation of Beulah is plausibly the result of Carter'stypical approachin
writing fiction, an approachthat could correctlybe defined as "satiricalon the
whole" (22). From this perspective, Beulah should be perceived and inter-
preted as a satirical model, an attempt to reverse the pattem of a rigid,
traditional patriarchal tradition, and at the same time the corresponding
feministutopianresponsesto it, whichin somecasesproveequallyrigid.This
sort of doublesatire,whichis ratherunusualin feministfiction,maybe the
sourceof Clark'smisreading.Obviously,AngelaCarterdoes not-and does

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372 STUDIES,VOLUME21 (1994)
SCIENCE-FICTION

not mean to-create an ideal city. Rather, she selects and then adds up some
recurringmodels in order to produce in the readerthe sort of defamiliarizing
effect frequently leading to cognition. In other words, Cartershows a precise
awarenessof the city as an artistictopos, an "adaptedstereotype"(Gombrich,
68) giving fictional reality and plausibility to the intentionof reversingand/or
confirming a traditionalparadigm.
Accordingly, in Carter'snovel highly heterogeneousinfluencesinterweave
in the paradigm of the female community and they result in a contradictory
and sometimes paradoxical model of the city of women. In PNE, even the
name of the gynocratic community defines a specific satiric intention. As a
literary topos, Beulah appears for the first time in John Bunyan's Pilgrim's
Progress and is defined as a place "uponthe borderof Heaven"throughwhich
"pilgrimspass on to eternallife" (155). The "daughtersof Beulah"in William
Blake's works are the Muses inspiringthe poet (420). Both Bunyanand Blake,
moreover, seem to suggest that Beulah is the ideal place for the perfect
patriarchalmarriage.
In my view, Carter revises the traditionalstereotype, adaptingit for her
own purposes. When giving her gynocraticcommunitya nameborrowedfrom
a patriarchaltradition, the authorof PNE relocates meanings; in doing so she
establishes a semantic contradictionand multiplies the symbolic associations.
Again, what we have here is a reversed stereotype triggering a cognitive
process.
The whole topographyof the landscapewhich Carterdescribes apparently
supportsthis critical view. First of all, Beulahcan only be reachedby crossing
the desert, the traditional metaphorfor wilderness and sterility, with all the
associated symbolism.12
Analysis of the shape of the feminist community and recognitionof its
main structurereveal that its basic architectureis defined in genderedterms.
Beulah is a rigidly homosexual and separatist female community, and
consequently built on analogy to a womb.13 "Beulah," says Evelyn, "lies in
the interior, in the inwardpartof the earth"(47). Both from the psychological
and the physical point of view, Beulah is the ideal place for Evelyn's re-birth.
"It will become," says the protagonist, "the place where I was born" (47). It
becomes the belly of the whale where the rite of death and re-birth will be
performed.
Chromatically,Beulah displays the colors of a woman's womb. The sym-
bolism of darkness is only superficially similar to the absence of light we
identified in the urban landscape of the metropolis. Semantically, the "lurid
darkness"of New York is diametricallyopposed to the damp absenceof light
in the female womb, a symbol exemplifying the rejectionof the male rational
and monological ethics (cf Deleuze, 12 ff). In other words, New York still
maps out an urban project, however decrepit, while Beulah is primarily the
architecturalfigure of a womb.
Beulah's typical atmosphereis not pure darkness, but rathershadow, the
kind of twilight which allows shapes to be seen in outlines, as in dreams.
Evelyn's frequentreferenceto the idea of a nightmarewhen describingBeulah

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 ANGELA CARTER'S THE PASSIONOF THENEW EVE 373

sets up a criterion according to which the gynocratic community is to be

interpreted.In a place such as this, reality graduallyfades away, togetherwith
the patriarchallogic of the male metropolis.
By the same token, the main female figure in this part of the novel,
Mother, is defined as the "focus of darkness"(58). She is perceivedby Evelyn
as a nightmarish figure leading him-and compelling him-towards a new
female identity in a voyage au bout de la nuit, a journey from the old, crum-
bling city into the dark womb of a new mother.
Besides echoing a tradition supported by other female utopias, the
underground location of Beulah morphologically reproduces the symbolic
meaning of the place for the protagonist. Before the surgical operation, he is
kept there and protected from the dangers of the outside world just like an
unbornchild in the womb of its mother. The first phase of his journey towards
female identity is performed inside the body of Beulah mapping out the
topographybuilt on the body of a pregnantwoman.
Understandably,this topography shows a complex physical and psycho-
logical pattern and is therefore far from being linear. Beulah is a labyrinth,
fragmentary,complex, self-reflexive, and multivocal like the city but built on
the basis of diverging principles. In the same way as New York, the gyno-
cratic communityoffers Evelyn interweavingroutes. However, Beulah differs
from the labyrinthinemetropolis in that the formerhas been built on the basis
of a project. The structuringprinciple of the gynocraticcommunity, however
meaningless it may be to Evelyn, functions throughoutthe part of the novel
dedicated to Beulah. Rationality, in the male sense of the word, is not its
guiding thread: indeed the project of Beulah is conceived to be a radical
reversal not only of the structure but also of the meaning of patriarchy.
Significantly, an ambiguous relationship to technology as a mainly male
concept emerges in the definition of what Mother is: "Beneaththis stone sits
the Motherin a complicatedmix of mythologyand technology"(48; italics
mine). Beulah, therefore, is not anti-technologicalbut perceives technology
differently, by considering it similar to mythology.
Once more the striking collusion of conflicting elements is revealed as the
most suitable key for interpreting PNE. In New York, contradiction is a
consequence of the deterioration of rationality, while in Beulah it is the
structuringprincipleof the utopianspace: "Thereis a place where contrarieties
are equally true. This place is called Beulah" (48).
Juxtaposition is confirmed as a method of disrupting and subverting
traditional semantic borders and the conflict is made more evident by the
intrinsic nature of the terms placed side by side: technology and mythology
stand for male and female, respectively. The assumedcompatibility,the truth,
of both dichotomic terms is actually an illusion because it is based on a vague
and undefinedprinciple of no-contradiction:series of phenomenabelonging to
two different orders can not be compared. Myth is neither more nor less
reliable than technology. The two terms can however be placed side by side
to produce a defamiliarizingeffect.
In the structureof Beulah, this procedureproducesan extremelyheteroge-

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374 STUDIES,VOLUME21 (1994)
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neousdramaticconfiguration the rulesof mimesis.It is thusthat

complicating
the grammarof landscapeis obtainedthrougha combinationof myth and
technology.Ontheotherhand,whiletheprotagonist approaches thethrobbing
heart of darkness-andhis own metamorphosis-themythicand symbolic
element tends to dominateand to be intensely reflectedin the novel's
landscape.Technologyis not forgottenas a reference,but it becomesmore
andmoresimilarto a sortof magic.
Metaphorsof the body andof humanphysicalprocessesdefinean urban
space that is openly gendered.Referringto the ritualof cannibalism,the
femaleprinciplehas swallowedmale realityin the bowels of the Earthto
suggestthe imageof a femalebody as largeas the city itself. And fromthis
body, Eve, physicallya womanandpsychologicallya man,will makea clean
starton anotherjourney.

5. Zero's town. WhenleavingBeulah,the protagonistis perfectlyawarethat

his/herbodyhas undergonean impossiblechange.Thewomenof the female
communityhaverelocatedits genderthrougha sortof mythicalvengeance,a
nemesisreproducingthe modalitiesof the slaughterof Dionysus,the greedy
child who, cut into seven pieces, boiled androasted,is to becomethe main
coursein the Titans'banquet.His heartis spared,however,just like Orphe-
us's headin a similarcannibalisticmyth.
Evelyn's sacrifice,though similarto its mythicalreferences,tends to
respondto a more complex configuration.Evelyn's body is not literally
gobbledup afterhavingbeencooked.Theobjectof the women'sritualmeal
is nottheprotagonist'sfleshandblood,buthis maleidentitywhichis deprived
of its anatomicalsupport.His genderno longercoincideswithhis sex. Eve/lyn
perceiveshim/herself-andis perceivedby peoplebelongingto the opposite
sex-as an emptybodypromisingendlesspleasures."I havenot yet become
a woman,thoughI possessa woman'sshape,"saysthe narrating voice. "Eve
remainswillfully in the stateof innocencethatprecedesthe fall" (83). The
awarenessof a terminallydecenteredlife leadsthe protagonisttowardsa new
ritual death perceivedas the only possible way to recovera lost sexual
identity.
In his/herfranticquestfor a trueself, Eve/lynreturnsto the desert.Once
more,wildernessandtheabsenceof anypossiblefertilityservesas a metaphor
for the protagonist'sconditionof being a hybridcreaturewith no memories
andno sharedexperiences:"atabulaerasa,a blanksheetof paper"(83). Lost,
deeplyunableto identifyherself/himselfin a paradoxicalanatomicdisguise
whichdoes not overlapwitha corresponding psychologicalchange,Evelynis
no longera manbutnot yet a woman.Beinga hybrid,he/shedoesnotbelong
to any community:he/she has no history, no tradition,no sharedlife and
finallyno gender.
In otherwords, the protagonistis literallyoutsidethepolis, in the realm
where, as Aristotlesays, you cannotbe trulyhuman,but eithera god or a
beast. Thereforethe new Eve, in his/her searchfor identity,will have to
becomeintegratedin a new urbanrealityandundergoa third,painfulritual.

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 ANGELACARTER'STHE PASSIONOF THENEW EVE 375

The ideal site for this new change appearsto be Zero's town. Both physi-
cally and psychologically, the place is built to reproducethe symbolic meaning
of a patriarchalautocraticcommunity. All the features of the landscape are
borrowed from De Sade's novels and exacerbatedwith the obvious aim of
producing a strong grotesque effect. The final result has an unprecedented
potential for rupture:while maintainingsome of the features of a model that
Clark defines as "a patriarchaltype not infrequentin history" (148), Carter
appropriatesthe paradigm and deconstructsit for feminist use. The minimal
units are reassembledthrougha clearly ironic stylistic procedure.The assumed
rigidity of the patriarchalmodel is purposefullyhighlightedin orderto provide
a highly concentratedversion of a woman's life in a harem.
By the same token, Zero, the father and owner of all the women living in
the town, assembles all the negative features of patriarchalpower. Poet and
magician, master of words and dissipation, he is the uxoricidal tyrantforever
performingthe role of a wicked fool celebratingany form of perversion. His
wives seem affected by what JoannaRuss defines as "idiocy," that is "what
happensto those who have been told that it is their godgiven mission to mend
socks, clean toilets and work in the fields; and nobody will let you make the
real decision anyway" (255).
Decisions, actually, are up to Zero. His behavior is entirely defined by a
precise theocratic will, determinednot by rational design but by the wish to
preserve a dogmatic attitude, made clear by the tendency to reproducethe
masculine perception of linearity and univocality.
Significantly, Zero is a figure of totalitariansexuality, opposite but similar
to Mother. And just like Mother, he projects onto the urban landscape the
dominant features of his Weltanschauung. Beulah is built on analogy to a
womb and is, literally and figuratively, Mother's body. It shows the dis-
quieting darkness and the incomprehensiblebut irresistible fascination of a
female pregnantbody. Similarly, the town in the desert is plunged in dazzling
sunlight. The topological patternunderlyingthis choice is evident:the unfading
brightness of the desert does not allow for any shadow in the same way as the
rigidity of male rationality does not allow for any doubt. Once more, this
makes a case for Deleuze's theory that dazzling light is a metaphorfor what
is obvious, self-evident, monologic, and linear: in short, what is male (cf
Deleuze 14ff).
The landscape is therefore used with the precise purpose of exposing the
contradictorynatureof male ethics. Dogmatismis the structuringprincipleand
the still center of both the physical and the psychological scene. Urban and
imaginative space show their mutual solidarity and prove to be deeply
interwoven, producing a topographical pattern where no object occupies a
neutral position: the semantic area covered by each element of the landscape
tends to be modified according to the natureof the light that strikes it. The
unrelenting sunlight typical of the desert should consequently shine upon the
realm of absolute, unbending rationality.
Which is obviously not the case in Zero's town. While appropriatingthe
stereotype, Carter succeeds in subverting it. In depicting the patriarchal

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376 STUDIES,VOLUME21 (1994)
SCIENCE-FICTION

community,sheundermines thefoundingprinciplesof maleethicsnotthrough

an overtly feminist discourse, but by polarizing contradictionsin the
reproductionof the model which is inherentlyirrational,illogical, self-
contradictory. This amountsto the creationof a city whosetextualidentityis
programmatically reversed.Thedesertsunshineson anurbantopography that
is anythingbutrational.Farfromgivinga moreconcreteshapeto thecity, the
dazzlinglight floodingthe wholelandscapeseemsto adda ghostlikeshadeto
theold, rottingvillage:"Theminer'stown....looked,in theanalyticlightof the
desert,far olderthanthe rockson whichit was built"(PNE93).
Zero's town, therefore,provesto be a merejuxtapositionof crumbling
houses, a built-upareawith no centerand no history,a town which is old
withoutbeingancient.Appropriately, Zerolives in a "ranchhousein theghost
town" (85), a buildingreflectingthe psychologicalidentityof the person
inhabitingit. A figureof an essentialevil whoseideologicalreasonhas been
lost, the ghosttowndisclaimsandbetraystherationalintentionof its planner.
Semantically,an urbanspaceconceivedin this way revealsan underlying
texturebuilt on analogy with dreamimagery.The frequentrepetitionof
referenceto nightmaremarksthe ultimatebreakdownof bordersbetween
realityand imagination,whichareplacedside by side andgiven exactlythe
samesortof fictionalexistence.Realityis neitherdeepernormoresuperficial
than imagination.The two termsbelong to the same level of perception.
Wordsandtheirmeaningsaredivorced,andthe logicallinkbetweenthemis
disrupted.Signsarelegitimizedas existingin theirown right,apartfromany
connectionswith the objectsnormallydesignatedby them.Languageitself is
rewrittenin orderto makeit suitablefor narratingthe endlessinstabilityof
representation: "YetZero'srhetorictransformed thisworld.Theranchhouse
was Solomon'stemple;the ghosttownwas the New Jerusalem" (100).
Reality and imaginationare posed as conflicting-andyet coexisting-
terms.Theirmutualoppositionis overtlyre-enactedthrougha languagethat
emphasizessyntagmaticoppositionsratherthan paradigmaticreferences.
Throughthis specificchoice of style Carter'snovel displaysa strongpost-
modernistinclination:multiplicityand multivocalityseem to be expressed
through a web of apparentsemantic contradictionswhich are in fact subtle
shiftsthroughthe usualsemanticbordersof the verbalsigns. The attemptto
rebuild the connection between signifier and signified, and therefore to
defamiliarize language, is the principle guiding the novel as a whole, but it
becomesopenlydisturbinganddisruptivein the descriptionof Zero'stown.
"Inthe ruinsof an old chapel,"says the narrator,"undera saggingroof
of corrugatediron, Zero kept his pigs" (95). The two key-wordsof this
quotationcoversemantically oppositefields:theterm"chapel"conjuresupthe
imageof a holy space,whichis howeverinhabitedby "pigs":not ministers
of religion,thatis, but filthy beasts.The contiguityof the two termsmakes
the whole text subversive in that it displaces the presumed sacrality of the
chapel, depicting it througha globally blasphemousperspective. The resulting
linguisticand stylisticstructureis a highly complexone, whichfocuseson
multivocalityas a strategyfor resistanceagainstthe male univocalityin

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 ANGELACARTER'STHEPASSIONOF THENEWEVE 377

languageandethics. Interestingly,the wordas a unit is not deconstructed in

Carter'snovel: disintegration does not affectthe syntaxof the form;rather,
it workson semanticsas a field of meaningsno longerpermanently connected
to specificsigns.
Meaningsare assembledthroughthe sameprocessof juxtapositionwhich
is the structuringprinciplebothof landscapesandthe condenseduniverseof
characters.The city as a multivocal,self-reflexive,and unwritabletext is
ultimatelyduplicatedin the figureof Tristessa.A formermoviestarpinnedto
the fixityof his/herownbeautifulbutunrealimage,s/he is thenarrativefocus
of all contradiction.Anatomically,her/hisbodyshowsbothmaleandfemale
features.TristessathereforearticulatesEve/lyn's deep dissociation,while
makingit moretangible.The split no longeraffectsthe genderof the char-
acter,as in the case of the narrator,but it is duplicatedandreflectedin two
sexes coexistingin the samebody, assemblingin orderwhatis maleandwhat
is female.As a character,Tristessademonstrates the contradiction
inherentin
the physicalcontiguityof two sexesthat,whenput side by side, arestrongly
focusedas conflictingterms."Tristessa.Enigma.Illusion.Woman?Ah"(6).
Justlike the urbanspacesof PNE, Tristessacanneitherbe understood nor
explained,becauseshe is "anillusionin a void"(110). Ontologically,shedoes
not exist. Orbetteryet, she is giventhe samelevel of existenceas New York,
Beulah,andZero'stown:all of themare icons of themselves,imageswhose
elementshavebeen deconstructed andthenre-assembled,enactingan impos-
sible transition,the metaphorof a journeywhichcanhaveno endbecauseit
is circular."We startfromour conclusions"says the narrator,definingthe
claustrophobicspace that is overcrowdedwith objectsand meanings.The
landscapeof the city, withinthe limina of this space,is shapedinto a diluted
body whichresemblesultimatelya sexedbody.

NOTES
1. For the concept of a "bracketedoff world," see Iser 236-246.
2. To a certain extent this concept is implied in the utopiancity as a literarytopos,
which determines an analogy between the urban architectureand the shape of the
human soul. The ideal city is a mainly psychological model representingthe perfect
organization of an idea. Therefore, a so-conceived urban space becomes literally a
"disembodied city," a place which is real though not tangible, just like Calvino's
Invisible Cities.
3. See Italo Calvino, Le Citti Invisibili, Torino, 1985.
4. For the concept of fictionalizing act or process, see Iser 236.
5. The contiguity between postmodernismand women's science fiction is by no
means limited to Carter's novels. As Robin Roberts says, "Feministscience fiction of
the 1980s can be discussed most usefully in terms of post-structuralismand post-
modernism. Post-structuralistfeminist SF problematizes language acquisitionand the
gendered hierarchical structures embedded in language" ("Post-Modernism and
Feminist Science Fiction," SFS, 17:138, #51, July 1990).
6. The most obvious reference is Virginia Woolf s Orlando.
7. See M. Bakhtin. Dostojevskij: Poetica e Stilistica (Torino, 1968), 122-132.
8. "If a city may be said to have a sex," writes Jane Marcus, "London was, and
is, unmistakablymale" (Marcus, 139).

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378 SCIENCE-FICTION
STUDIES,VOLUME21(1994)

9. Carter refers to a literary topos which is to be considered as typical and

recurring: "New York-that most mythical of cities-tends to emerge in recent
literatureas hellish, or at any rate murderous"(Oates, 30).
10. As Burton Pike writes, "The absence of shape in the form of orienting
landmarks is a major problem for a person trying to define a real city or navigate
within it. If shapes make individualcities recognizable, urbanshapelessness is a form
of disorder, expressing anxiety and loss of coherence, and symbolizingthe anonymous
randomness of contemporarylife" (129).
11. See WalterBenjamin.L'opera d'arte nell'epocadella sua riproducibiliti
tecnica (Torino, 1980).
12. Particularlyclarifying are Jane Marcus's words on the subject: "Centralto the
concept of female wilderness is the rejection of heterosexuality. In the dream of
freedom, one's womb is one's own only in the wilderness" (Marcus, 136).
13. With reference to a possible continuitybetween the female womb and space in
women's sf, some basic considerations are to be found in Oriana Palusci, "Judith
Merrill e il grembo dell'astronave [JudithMerrill and the Spaceship Womb]," in her
Terra di lei (Pescara, 1990), 59ff.

WORKS CITED
Blake, William. "Milton." The Complete Writingsof WilliamBlake. Ed. G. Keynes.
London and New York, 1952.
Bunyan, John. Pilgrim's Progress. Oxford, 1960.
Carter, Angela. Nights at the Circus. London, 1984.
-. ThePassionof NewEve. London,1982.
Clark, Robert. "AngelaCarter'sDesire Machine." Women'sStudies, 14:147-61, 1987.
Deleuze, Gilles. La logica del senso. Milano, 1979.
Del Sapio, Maria. Alice nella citta. Pescara, 1988.
Gombrich,Ernst.ArtandIllusion.A Studyin thePsychologyof PictorialExpression.
Princeton, NJ, 1961.
Hassan, Ihab. "City of Mind, Urban Words: the Dematerializationof Metropolis in
ContemporaryAmerican Fiction." Jaye, 93-112.
Iser, W. Prospecting:FromReaderResponseto LiteraryAnthropology.
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Jaye, Michael, and Ann Chalmers Watt, eds. Literatureand the Urban Experience:
Essays on the City and Literature. New Brunswick, NJ, 1981.
McLuhan, Marshall. UnderstandingMedia. New York, 1965.
Marcus, Jane. "A Wilderness of One's Own: Feminist Fantasy Novels in the
Twenties." Squier, 134-60.
Martin, Wendy. "A View of the City Upon a Hill: The PropheticVision of A. Rich."
Squier, 249-265.
Moers, Ellen. Literary Women. London, 1978.
Oates, Joyce Carol. "ImaginaryCities: America," Jaye, 11-34.
Palmer, Jane. "From Coded Mannequin to Bird Woman: Angela Carter's Magic
Flight." WomenReading Women'sWriting.Ed. S.N. Roe. Brighton,Sussex, 1987.
179-205.
Piercy, Marge. "The City as Battleground."Jaye, 209-18.
Pike, Burton. The Image of the City in Modern Literature. Princeton, NJ, 1981.
Russ, Joanna. "Science Fiction and Technology as Mystification." SFS 16:250-60,
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Squier, S. Merrill, ed. WomenWritersand the City:Essays in FeministLiterary
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 ANGELA CARTER'S THE PASSIONOF THENEW EVE 379

ABSTRACT
Since the 1970s, science fiction has provided a discursive space which has enabled
women writers both to criticize currentsocial practices and to speculate on alternative
social arrangements.Angela Carter'sPassion of New Eve represents, in relationto this
particular perspective, an original and innovative reconfigurationof characteristic
female and/or feminist motifs, such as the representationof urbantechnological space,
the idea of a gynocratic community, and the sociological implicationsof male power
in society. In this view, Carter'snovel not only conveys a comprehensiveand complex
view of reality, but also makes for a definite and original literaryexperience exploiting
all possible narrative devices to their fullest.
Three different types of communities are described, each of them embedding a
specific side of the female stereotype. The first of these highly symbolic places is New
York, the post-modern metropolis, the ideal backgroundfor an image of the woman
as a prostitute,an empty body offering infimitesexual pleasures. The second is Beulah,
which offers a completely differentperspective:being a feminist separatistcommunity,
it is planned and described as a metaphorof totalitarianfemale power. Finally, Zero's
town again reverses perspectives, offering a nightmarishimage of women as house-
wives/slaves.
Through a close analysis of the structuraland stylistic devices operatingin each part
of the novel, it is possible to map out the psychological journey of the protagonist
towards his/her identification.The phases of this journey are markedby threephysical
metamorphoses implying individual as well as gender problems. The changes in the
body of Evelvn/Eve are duplicated through the description of highly hybrid spaces,
mostly defined by unresolvable dichotomies. The outerjourney reflects metaphorically
the inner quest of a human being looking for his/her own true gender. (NV)

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