Magic Realism in Angela Carter's novel "Nights at the Circus"

Abstract

Magical (magic) realistic fiction, as a form of narrative, witnessed an increase in the last decades; it became highly adopted by writers and enjoyed by readers across the globe. Magic realism is a literary form in which weird, supernatural, and unreal tales are narrated as if the events were commonplace. Angela Carter is a British author whose works, but not all, have been discussed by critics as magical realistic texts.The aim of the following study is to analyze Nights at the Circus in the light of magic realism. An outline of the characteristic features of the genre is introduced at the beginning of the study in order to define magic realism as a genre independent of fantasy or science fiction. A comparison between the characteristic components of the magic realism novel and their equivalents in Carter's text is also a significant part of the analysis.