Transformational Bodies in the Works of Angela Carter: From the Dark Corporeality of the Symptomatic Body to the Intercorporeality of Maurice Merleau-Ponty

Abstract: Phenomena such as agnosia, anorexia, body-integrity disorder, Morgellons disease, and phantom-limb syndrome compose the dark side of corporeality explored by Angela Carter in The Sadeian Woman , her treatment of the Marquis de Sade. These phenomena also testify to the malleability of the biological body. Considering Carter’s work, this paper asks whether the biological body is more pliable and fluid than we generally think. In short, might there exist, alongside the dark corporality of the symptomatic body, the possibility of a more felicitous transformation through Merleau-Ponty’s concept of intercorporeality?