ABSTRACT
This chapter demonstrates the forward narrative's continuing engagement with and critique of surrealist and psychoanalytic imagery and theory before showing how the inverted Oedipal stage theory once again structures the entire narrative allegory. The Education of a Female Oedipus", focusing on The Philosophy of the Boudoir's Eugenie. In terms of formal education and cultural literacy, there was clearly an asymmetry between Angela Carter and Mark Pearce akin to that of James Joyce and Nora Barnacle. Carter's model here is not Judith Butler's notion of gender performativity, but rather a modern form of Joan Riviere's masquerade by way of Mae West, whom Carter respected because of her ability to control the audience's response to her in her films. Femininity is a mask, a mockup, and men can manipulate it as well as women; conversely, male gender identity is equally a performance. While Carter's works embrace binaries, Derrida sought to demonstrate their inherent instability.
