The Carnivalesque in Wise Children

Imma

The Carnivalesque in Wise Children

‘Wise Children’ tells the story of the trials and tribulations of two

sisters of one and the same family – the Hazards, the official,

legitimate side, and the Chances, the illegitimate side. It focuses on

the world of high and low culture as the Chance sisters, the twins

Nora and Dora, are music hall song and dance girls, whereas Ranulph

Hazard and his son Melchior are ‘the Royal Family of the British

Theatre’(page 95). They are great Shakespearean actors and therefore

stand for official culture and its ‘King’. However, during the time of

carnival, kings are always uncrowned, and this is what happens to the

Hazard family.

The decline of the old cultural norms is underlined by Carter in many

ways. Melchior’s Hollywood version of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ is a

complete and utter flop, and the decline of the Hazard family is also

reflected in Melchior’s descendants, who aren’t interested in

following in their father’s footsteps, and who all end up in popular

culture of some sort or another. For example, Saskia, Melchior’s

daughter, becomes the presenter of a cookery show on the television,

while Tristram, his son, ‘the last gasp of the imperial Hazard family’

(page 10), appears to be a victim of American cultural imperialism as

he hosts a TV game show called ‘Lashings of Lolly’, in which money

replaces culture.

Mikhail Bakhtin, a 20th century Russian critic, studied the works of

the medieval French writer and satirist, Rabelais, and defined the

context of his work as medieval carnival. The decline and fall of

everything deemed holy and the promotion of the profane is typical of

the carnival world described by Bakhtin in his book, ‘Rabelais and his

World’. C...

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...orgets where she is: ‘There I go

again! Can’t keep a story going in a straight line, can i? drunk in

charge of a narrative. Where was I?’ (page 158).

When, at the end of the novel, three-month old twins are presented to

Dora and Nora by their uncle Perry, Nora in particular is thrilled by

the prospect of raising them: ‘”Babies!” she said, and cackled with

glee’ (page 229). And so it is that the novel ends with the

marvellous, memorable, utterly carnivalesque image of the laughing

hags, serenading their babies in two-part harmony as they head toward

their home on Bard Road. The last lines of the novel end with the

optimism and joy associated with birth and renewal: ‘There was dancing

and singing all along Bard Road that day and we’ll go on singing and

dancing until we drop in our tracks, won’t we kids. What a joy it is

to dance and sing!’ (page 231-232).