Flower Symbolism in Angela Carter's Novel, The Magic Toyshop

Abstract

The novel has the potentiality to induce some interest in the reader’s mind that the notions of the body, identity, gender and sexuality need clarification in a female context. Melanie is the narrator and also the focaliser. She tells a story with the purpose to understand what goes on around her, in her close environment that undergoes a substantial change when the parents die. She is an individual who tries to find her roots, her identity. This position gives a chance for a close observation, to be more precise, because the protagonist keeps telling her own story, it goes through a transformation, so the comprehension of the problematic issues is easier from her point of view. The whole text is about Melanie, her feminine nature, her feminine identity, her self-definition, but a really ambiguous element of this whole process is that this is a self-definition totally determined, created and mediated by the culture in which Melanie lives. This fact immediately raises a question if a true selfdefinition exists at all in the case of women.