The Magic Toyshop Analysis

1645 Words7 Pages
Once upon a time stirs memories…… Angela carter’s second novel “The Magic ToyShop” is a large spread of mythology, fairy tales, feminity, sexuality and reality. The protagonist of the novel Melanie, like every little girl dreams and fantasizes about herself. Her dreams twined with her fate, walks her through her destiny. The novel commences with Melanie’s desire to wear her mother’s wedding dress. Her desire and curiosity to feel like a woman, to feel like a naughty little princess, this episode ends up with her mistakenly destroying her mother precious wedding dress. The act of destroying the dress mysteriously steers the upcoming events in the novel. Melanie becomes an orphan. Melanie along with her siblings without a choice is sent to London…show more content…
Her transformation and growth occur when her dreams burst like a bubble, with reality staring at her face. Carter blends the genre of mythology to structure the novel like a fairy tale. There is a reflection of Blue beard, Mr. Fox, the myth of Leda and the Swan and so on. Extracting Carl Jung’s theory of complex psychology and imprints of archetypal images to give a better understanding of Carter’s “The Magic Toyshop”. This article focuses on how a dream can transform and shape a little girls life. Every culture’s myth is fabricated into its society creating and evolving its identity. Carter’s fantasy does not present a world of promises and hope but a world of threat and danger. It is for everyone to understand that all ‘ Once upon a time..’ does not end with ‘ Happily ever…show more content…
Carl Gustan Jung (1875 -1961) is a famous psychiatrist. In his book Psychology and Alchemy, he gives a detailed account on psychosynthesis or the unification and the differentiation of psych. Jung believed that the mind started out as a whole and would function in the same way. Jung divided the mind into three levels, the Conscious, the Personal unconscious and the Collective unconscious. In this novel through Melanie there is a clear understanding of the power of the unconsciousness. In this novel ‘The Magic ToyShop’, our young protagonist Melanie a 15year old little girl dreams and fantasizes about the self. Her dreams twined with her fate, walk her through her destiny. The novel commences with Melanie’s desire to wear her mother’s wedding dress. Her desire and curiosity to feel like a woman, to feel like a naughty little princess provokes her to sneak into her parents’ room the day parents are out of the home. This emotion she goes through would be Carl Jung’s example of steering
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    The last method that females in general and Melanie in particular have used to construct their gender identities can be seen in light of the heroine’s relationship with the other “male” sex. In The Magic Toyshop, the concept of gender identity can be clarified through studying both male and female identity in terms of analyzing their relationships. Thus, to understand female identity, it seems imperative to refer to the role of male identity in forming female identity. Studying the psychological

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