Kirsty Simpson

'Nights at the Circus'- Angela Carter

Angela Carter’s novel ‘Nights at the Circus’ is one in which the character Fevers is portrayed as being larger then life and flamboyant, as well as extremely vulnerable. This essay will investigate how these two opposing sides of the character’s personality are built up through the techniques the author uses.

Fevvers is introduced as a flamboyant character from the opening of the novel onwards through the descriptions of her used. She is said to be ‘six feet two in her stockings’, wearing ‘six inches of false lash’. These descriptions of her size make her seem a ‘larger then life’ character. This is continued in the account of her circus performance. Wearing ‘dyed plumes that added a good eighteen inches to her already immense height’ on her head, unfurling her wings, ‘six feet across’, her face ‘thickly coated with rouge and powder so you can see how beautiful she is from the back row of the gallery’. The actual Fevvers is mixed with the Fevvers presented on the stage, creating a flamboyant, theatrical, over the top character.
The setting Fevvers is presented in at the beginning of the book also goes to further the flamboyant side of her character. She is in her dressing room, complete with a wall sized poster with ‘foot-high letters’ of her ‘Parisian triumphs’. The ice for the champagne comes from a fishmonger’s, ‘a shiny scale or two stayed trapped within the chunks’. The author says ‘you feel you breathed the air in Fevvers’ dressing-room in lumps’. This creates an incredibly intense sounding environment, reflecting the intense, heady personality of Fevvers. The description of the ‘exquisitely feminine squalor’ of the room, with it’s writhing snakes’ nest of silk stockings’, underwear draping objects, a corset in the coal-bucket, creates a certain atmosphere of dirty, effortless glamour.
Fevvers’ character is portrayed by her actions and manner of speaking. As the character is just being introduced, it is already said that ‘she’d popped the cork of a chilled magnum of champagne between her teeth.’ This straightaway portrays Fevvers as an exciting, over the top character. Her actions are described effectively by the statement- ‘It was impossible to imagine any gesture of hers that did not have that kind of grand, vulgar, careless generosity’, making her seem incredible and immensely likeable to the reader. Her speech also conveys this side of her character. It is printed in broad cockney- ‘Have a drop more, for Gawd’s sake, young feller’- giving the reader a clear idea of how she speaks and meaning her dialogue sticks out from that of other characters. She is said to posses a ‘voice that clanged like dustbin lids’, continuing the idea of her being completely larger then life, with a loud voice to match her huge stature.
The way other characters react to her goes to affect the reader’s judgement of Fevvers. Walser, whose eyes we first see her through, is captivated by her, thus so is the reader. Her appearance, her voice, her actions, her surroundings are all described in such detail as to create a hugely vivid picture of her in the readers mind: ‘the soiled quilting of her baby-blue satin dressing gown’; her dressing room’s ‘hot, solid composite of perfume, sweat, greasepaint and raw, leaking gas’; her ‘two yards of golden hair’. Not all the descriptions of her used are strictly flattering ones, but they go further and further to captivating the reader with Fevvers.
Her back-story, as told near the beginning of the book is a fantastic one, presented so that the reader shares Walser’s disbelief in whether or not it is true. Throughout the book we do not know if the Fevvers we are shown is the ‘real’ one, if her history is real, if her actions are genuine or even her famous wings are the real thing. This creates a fascination for the reader with the character, as we analyse all the information about her that we are given in an attempt to know more.
And through this analysing of her character, we learn that there is more to Fevvers then meets the eye, that there is an incredibly vulnerable side contrasting with her flamboyant exterior. This is suggested very early on in the book, when Walser ‘noted she was wary’ despite her eagerness to shock and interest him. The self that she builds up for others leads her into danger at times, when Mr Rosencreutz tries to kill her, believing it will give him eternal life, or when the Grand Duke attempts to trap her as a toy. These confrontations reveal a more vulnerable side to her. After escaping from the Grand Duke, she is described not as anything flamboyant or magnificent, but as a ‘weeping girl’.
Her vulnerability is reflected in her attachment to her gilt sword, a momento from the brothel she grew up in. Although it is a toy sword, she believes it will be enough to protect her, so runs headlong into potentially dangerous situations, such as that with the Grand Duke. However, he finds and snaps it, leaving her defenceless and in a situation she only just escapes. The description of it as a ‘lethal toy’ shows how flimsy her defences were in the first place. It is said that with her sword she ‘lost some of that sense of her own magnificence which had previously sustained her trajectory’. In her mind, it is because of losing the sword she breaks her wing.
Fevvers flamboyant character and confidence seems to be very closely attached to her appearance; when she finds herself in the Siberian tundra without corsets or hair-dye she begins to lose that side of herself, referring to herself as ‘yesterday’s sensation, a worn-out wonder’. It is said ‘the tropic bird looked more and more like the London sparrow as which it started out in life, as if a spell was unravelling’. At this point the flamboyant side of her has basically been lost, and she is more and more unhappy. Fevvers feels lost if she has no one to impress, and sees no reason to look after herself. Lost in the Tundra ‘She lacked the heart to wash her face… and she was breaking out in spots and rashes’. She is transformed from an incredible character to someone rather pathetic.
Fevvers attitude to Walser also shows her vulnerable side. She is hurt when she believes he is sleeping with Mignon, and attempts to hide this by renting them the bridal suite. She treats him with disdain and sarcasm, but refers to him as ‘my young American’ and struggles to find him in the train-wreck, even when the Russians have her at gunpoint. When she sees him again she says ‘My heart went pit-a-pat and turned right over’. She shows an uncharacteristic amount of love and attachment to him. When they are finally reunited the flamboyant side of Fevvers character begins to come back. Her laughter is described as a ‘spiralling tornado’ which fills the whole Tundra, and we see the old Fevvers coming back. In Walser she seems to have found someone who she now needs to be with to feel like herself.

The character of Fevvers is a complex and interesting one. Throughout the novel she evolves from the captivating, but slightly one-dimensional character she presents herself as, to someone deeper. She is one of the most engrossing aspects of the novel, one whom the reader is hungry to learn more and more about. We feel for her as she begins to lose the extravagant side of her personality, and so the conclusion, with her laughter ringing out through the empty Tundra to the ears of all the characters of the book is a highly satisfying one.