Angela Carter and Transformations

Abstract

When asked in an interview whether "we tell stories to try to come to terms with the world, to harmonize our lives with reality" (4), Joseph Campbell replied, "I think so, yes" (4). We often use stories to define the world around us--to make it available to us and render it understandable. In many ways we come to know the world through the stories we know from childhood and as we get older we often sort out the world in the stories we learn to tell about ourselves. And in a fashion similar to the way we tell, read, or listen to stories, we also develop stories in which we recognize ourselves. We place the things around us and our experiences into a kind of self-narrative so as to be able to derive meaning from them. We set up stories of self which encompass everything from our goals and dreams to our psyche and sexuality: such stories encompass our lives as individuals, as members of a family, and as members of a community. We place ourselves in the world in terms of certain self-narratives that we learn to develop. Parallel to the traditional stories we have come to know, each of us has his/her own self-evolving story through which we identities maintain self­