The power of monstrous women: Fay Weldon's The Life and Loves of a She-Devil (1983), Angela Carter's Nights at the Circus (1984) and Jeanette Winterson's Sexing the Cherry (1989)

This essay deals with three British novels written by female novelists in t he 1980s: Fay Weldon's The Life and Loves of a She-Devil, Angela Carter's N ights at the Circus and Jeanette Winterson's Sexing the Cherry. The protago nists of these three novels are monstrous women who enjoy power over men in different situations. The essay considers the idea of monstrosity explored in each novel-from the freakish to the carnivalesque-and argues that, firs t, it is difficult to assess the feminist ideology of these texts as the re spective writers do not write from clearly feminist positions. Second, that whereas criticism of these novels has focused on their (questionable) femi nism, little has been said about the role played by men in them or about th e implicit androphobic discourse of some fiction by women. Third, that the model of female power offered by these novels is too limited they pale besi des the analysis of powerful female monstrosity offered in some novels by m en. The conclusion, supported by Angela Carter's thesis that women are relu ctant to acknowledge their own moral faults, is that women are offering a b iased portrait of themselves, in which the exploration of woman's weaknesse s is too narrow, even when the issue of female monstrosity is addressed.