Crossing gender: Andy Warhol’s Candy Darling, America and Angela Carter’s The Passion of New Eve

Mulvey-Roberts, Marie

Abstract

Angela Carter’s The Passion of New Eve (1977) is a darkly satirical novel which explores the crossing of gender in the context of Second Wave feminism. Close connections will be made between this literary text and the visit made by Carter and her husband in 1969 from Britain to the United States, where the novel is set. This was a time of momentous social change in America, heralding gay liberation, militant separatist feminism and the sexual radicalism of drag queens. It will be argued here for the first time that a model for Carter’s transgender character, Tristessa, was Candy Darling, one of Andy Warhol’s ‘superstar’ drag queens. Through the intersection of fiction and real-life, this analysis will explore how Carter’s characters negotiate their crossings in the borderlands of gender and how she plays with the theories of both Simone de Beauvoir and Judith Butler. The novel is also a parody of radical feminist groups, the rising visibility of men in drag and the clash of the counterculture against reactionary homophobic and transphobic forces.

• Online Publication Date: Nov 23, 2023
• Publication Date: Nov 22, 2023
• Deposit Date: Apr 29, 2024
• Pages: 237-56
• Edition: First
• Book Title: Rethinking Identities Across Boundaries - Genders/Genres/Genera
• Chapter Number: 13
• ISBN: 9783031407949
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-40795-6_13
• Keywords: Angela Carter, Crossing Gender, Candy Darling, Tristessa
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/11929388
• Publisher URL: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-40795-6
• Contract Date: Aug 16, 2021