Woman as Alien

Angela Carter's Heroes and Villains

Abstract

This paper shows how Carter revitalizes the once-popular genre of catastrophic fiction. First I briefly characterize this genre and place Heroes and Villains in its context. Then I discuss decay and entropy depicted in the novel as symptomatic to the decay of pre-holocaust symbolic order. Next, I describe how the protagonist challenges the patriarchal social order based on the set of false binary oppositions and attempts to disrupt the old and to create a genuinely new feminist civilization. Similarly, Carter’s novel disrupts old schemes and set formulas of disaster fiction and creates a radically new fantastic narrative of society ruled by women-aliens.