Magic Toyshop Essay Example
Melanie’s Fall The Magic Toyshop is the second novel of the feminist writer Angela Carter. It is one of the most popular of her early books. In Carter’s works mythological and Biblical themes often appear, and The Magic Toyshop is a good example of that. This essay is intended to discuss the introductory chapter of The Magic Toyshop, in which Carter rewrites a major Biblical story. The Magic Toyshop follows the story of a teenage girl, Melanie. She is one of three children, her younger brother is Jonathon and her five year old sister is Victoria. They live in the English countryside in a middle class family. Their house is spacious; they all have their own bedrooms. Their parents are rich, successful and the children have everything they need. The children have a middle aged governess Mrs. Rundle. She is overweight, was never married, only added the Mrs. title to her name a few years ago as a present to herself. Melanie has a fear of becoming someone like Mrs. Rundle. She does not believe in God but she prays that she would marry and have sex in her life. She is worried about her weight because she thinks she is too thin, but she would not eat too much either because then she might become fat and never marry. She already sees herself as someone’s wife; she looks at herself as a male would do. (Gamble 69) The novel tells the story of the children becoming orphans and having to leave their home. Their parents are killed in a plane crash and the three children must leave the countryside to live with their uncle in London. Uncle Phillip owns a toyshop and is a toymaker himself. The orphans do not know anything about him; Melanie’s only memory of him is that when she was a little girl he made her a jack in the box which was very scary. They do not know that the world they are about to enter is radically different from the one they lived in until now. At the beginning of the novel Melanie is a happy fifteen year old girl who is starting