Wise Children

Wise Children

First edition
Author Angela Carter
Country United Kingdom
Language English
Genre Magical realism
Publisher Chatto & Windus
Publication date
 1991
Media type Print (hardback & paperback)
Pages 232 pp
ISBN 0-09-998110-6
OCLC 26311519
This article refers to the novel by Angela Carter. For the album by Tom Harrell see Wise Children (album)

Wise Children (1991) was the last novel written by Angela Carter.[1] The novel follows the fortunes of twin chorus girls, Dora and Nora Chance,[2] and their bizarre theatrical family. It explores the subversive nature of fatherhood, the denying of which leads Nora and Dora to frivolous "illegitimate" lechery. The novel plays on Carter's admiration of Shakespeare and her love of fairy tales and the surreal, incorporating a large amount of magical realism and elements of the carnivalesque that probes and twists our expectations of reality and society.

Background

Angela Carter wrote this novel after she knew she had been diagnosed with cancer.[3] She would leave behind a husband and small son.

Plot summary

The story begins on the 75th birthday of identical twin sisters, Dora and Nora Chance. By what Dora, who is also the narrator of the story, describes as a bizarre coincidence, it is also the 100th birthday of their natural father, Melchior Hazard, and his fraternal twin brother, Peregrine Hazard, who is believed to be dead. The date is also Shakespeare's supposed birthday – 23 April.[4]

Dora and Nora's birthday gets off to a dramatic start when their half-brother, Tristram Hazard, who believes himself to be the nephew of the twins, arrives on their doorstep. He announces that Tiffany – his partner, and the goddaughter of the twins – is missing. Dora and Nora soon discover that Tiffany is pregnant with Tristram's baby, but he is unwilling to take on the responsibility. Once this bombshell has been dropped, it emerges that a body has been found and it is believed to be Tiffany's.

Most of the novel consists of Dora's memories. As well as providing the backstory of her natural father, Melchior Hazard, her legal father, Peregrine Hazard, and her guardian, Grandma Chance, Dora describes key events of her life. These include her early theatre performances, how she and her sister deal with being rejected by their father, as well as the time that she spent in Hollywood, producing a film version of A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Dora and Nora attend Melchior's 100th birthday party, where he acknowledges they are his children for the first time in their lives. The twins learn that both Peregrine and Tiffany are alive, and the true nature of their long-time enemies, Saskia and Imogen, is revealed.

The novel ends with Dora and Nora being presented with twin babies to look after – a gift from Peregrine. They realise that they "can't afford" to die until they've seen their children grow up. The final line of the story is a message constantly conveyed throughout the novel: "What a joy it is to dance and sing!"

Main characters

Other characters

Family tree

Solid lines indicate biological relationships. Dotted lines indicate others (not recognised by law, for example).

Major symbols

There are many symbols used in the book which illustrate the themes. Carter frequently uses objects and places which take on meanings beyond the literal and begin to develop ideas about society, for example:

A grandfather clock represents their absent father, as it was given to them by their great Aunt (Ranulph's Sister) and sent to their house as the last known address of Melchior. It is also a phallic symbol. It is flawed, as it doesn’t always strike the right time: "it gives out the time in a falsetto ping, and always the wrong time". This links to their father, as he is also flawed, there being aspects of his personality which are less than admirable.

Song and dance represents their career. Like them it is light-hearted and full of energy.

London is their home city and their birthplace. There is a carnivalesque element to London as a city that is constantly changing.

The pairing of opposites is shown in sets of twins and in the family names "Chance" and "Hazard" (two words with the same meaning, perhaps emphasising the superficial nature of the differences between them).

Themes

Illegitimacy versus legitimacy: Nora and Dora are from "the wrong side of the tracks" and were "born out of wedlock", their father is "a pillar of the legit theatre" and throughout the book the twins are constantly trying to become legitimate and be accepted. However, Carter questions the concept of legitimacy, and whether it is just a perception rather than reality: even the characters that are seen to be from the legitimate side do not always act in a respectable way, for example Saskia has an affair with Tristram, her half-brother. See Illegitimacy in fiction.

Carnivalesque: Carter uses the carnivalesque to illustrate some of her points about social boundaries, such as illegitimacy and highbrow/lowbrow. Important instances include the scene at the burning mansion in Chapter 2, where she describes the "orgiastic" element to the scene, using images of the "flickering flames" to emphasise this: the highbrow party and mansion is reduced to a ruined, passionate near-orgy by the fire and the breaking of social boundaries. This is similar to the final chapter when Dora and Perry have sex, as Nora says she wishes Dora would "fuck the house down": as well as physically damaging the Hazard residence, Dora and Perry having sex almost brings down the divide between the highbrow and lowbrow sides of the family. Some of the imagery used in this scene echoes the imagery of the Chapter 2 scene, for example "cover them all... with plaster dust and come and fire".

Incest: for example Saskia and Tristram are half brother and sister (although may be cousins), Nora loses her virginity to a pantomime goose when playing a gosling, Perry sleeps with Dora. Melchior and Peregrine also share partners (e.g. Daisy Duck, Lady A); Nora and Dora both sleep with the Blond Tenor. This could be seen as carnivalesque, as it inverts social hierarchies and boundaries. There is also the recurring idea of the actress playing Cordelia falling for the actor playing Lear in Shakespeare's "King Lear" on stage.

Culture and class: the high culture of the theatre in the legitimate side of the family as opposed to the dance halls in which Nora and Dora perform.

Shakespeare: Shakespeare is used continually, the ideas of his plays are incorporates, comparisons made continually between characters of the book and of the play and the book itself is written in five chapters just as a Shakespearian play often had five acts. Melchior idolises his father, and also Shakespeare, worshipping earth from ground that Shakespeare once performed on more than his own daughters. The inclusion of Shakespeare references in Dora's narrative highlights the idea of culture and class and of Shakespeare now being considered "high art".

Allusions and references to other works

The term "wise children" occurs in two other novels by Angela Carter: The Bloody Chamber and Nights at the Circus.

Throughout the novel, there are numerous references to the works and impact of William Shakespeare.[5] At the beginning of the novel there are three quotations, two of which allude to Shakespeare: "Brush Up on Your Shakespeare", a song title from the musical Kiss Me, Kate based on Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew, and the quote "How many times Shakespeare draws fathers and daughters, never mothers and daughters" by Ellen Terry, an English stage actress. In an interview on the subject of Wise Children, Angela Carter stated "[I wanted] to have a transparent prose that just ran, I wanted it to be very funny, and at the same time I wanted the complex ideas about paternity and the idea of Shakespeare as a cultural ideology." [6]

There are also various other theatrical quotations, for example there is a "paper moon" motif, symbolising the spot-light, and indicating a sense of illusion. Also present are instances of magic realism, which is when a scene is exaggerated to an extent when the reader cannot possibly believe it, but does because of the realism of the rest of the novel. This is known as the willing suspension of disbelief.

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Angela Carter, 1940–92: A Very Good Wizard, a Very Dear Friend by Salman Rushdie
  2. ↑ 'Comedy Is Tragedy That Happens to Other People'
  3. ↑ Margin: Exploring Modern Magical Realism/HAZARDING CHANCE: READING ANGELA CARTER'S "WISE CHILDREN" – INTRODUCTION by S.L. Deefholts
  4. ↑ Book choice: Wise Children – Telegraph
  5. ↑ More on the Shakespeare elements of the Novel
  6. ↑ Lorna Sage's interview with Angela Carter in New Writing (eds., Malcolm Bradbury and Judith Cooke, 1992:188)

Further reading

Wikibooks has more on the topic of: Wise Children
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