Analysing using Psychoanalytic literary criticism :Lacan The Mirror Stage

The Magic Toyshop : Angela Carter

(opening passage of the novel )

The Magic Toyshop seems to drow on Lacan’s idea of the Mirror Stage.Angela
Carter in fact takes the Mirror Stage literally(not symbolically) when she places the
heroine in front of the mirror at the beginning of the novel.Melanie identifies with the
image reflected in the mirror.She sees herself as an active subject and is filled with a
sense of oneness and difference.But this is ironically revealed in the text as an
illusion.She is already part of a system of representation defining her as a passive
female and object.She is defined just like thousands and thousands of other
women.The sense of wholeness is an illusion because she is split between a subject
that sees and an object that is seen.

Melanie experiences a transition from childhood to adolescence and with this

transition there is a discovery of the self and of the body.She seems to experience
Lacan’s the Mirror Stage.It’s that stage when a child starts to gain autonymy and
mastery over its body and its body movements.He or she completely feels as one
different.It’s a state of illusion.Melanie here lives the illusion of being a subject
independent and different.In already made terms,she is in fact split between a
subject that sees and an object that is seen.

She describes herself as “ my America,my new found land” and sees it as an object
of expiration by male explorers,notice the succession of the names, “ Cortez,da
Gama,Mungo Park ” (Cortez:Spanish conquerer of Mexico/de Gama:Portegese
explorer/Mungo Park:Scottish explorer who explored west Africa) They personify the
masculine face of adventure,exploration,conquest,mastery,and exploitation in the
traditional patriarchal paradigm.So this trope of jurney positions Melanie in the state
of an object,a territory to be explored by men.This means that Melanie at this stage
defines herself according to the masculine conception of femininity:woman as a
mysterious object to the male subject.

Posing in attitudes as she imitates famous portraits by male painters like Pre-
Raphaelite “as she posed in attitudes,holding things.Pre-Raphaelite” and Toulouse
Lautrec “a la Toulouse Lautrec,she dragged her hair”,Melanie inscribes herself in
already made terms.She also offers herself as an object to the male gaze.Melanie
defines ferself and her body according to the male concept of femininity.Women in
Pre-Raphaelite and Toulouse Lautrec’ paintings are conceived of a binary
opposition.They are either charming,lovely,and mysterious or sensual and wicked.