SOURCE: Goertz, Dee. “To Pose or Not to Pose: The Interplay of Object and Subject in the Works of Angela Carter.” In British Women Writing Fiction, edited by Abby H. P. Werlock, pp. 213-25. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2000.

In the following essay, Goertz addresses the dangers for women of being objects of desire rather than active sexual subjects in Carter's writings.

Vampires and sleeping beauties, winged trapeze artists and puppets, werewolves and showgirls—the female characters of Angela Carter's exuberant fiction assume a variety of roles, some from the conventions of realistic fiction but most from fairy tale and fantasy. By using magical realism with a feminist edge, she makes up for the rarity of the female perspective in initiation myths and quests for self-discovery. She portrays young women (and, in some cases, mature women) threading their way through their own awakening sexual desires, male desires, male...