The Power to Choose

A passage in Angela Carter’s Nights at the Circus that I found particularly interesting was the introduction to the clowns of Clown’s Alley in the ‘Petersburg’ section of the novel.

Buffo, the chief clown, makes a profound, yet ironic, statement: “And yet... we have possess one privilege, one rare privilege, that makes our outcast and disregarded state something wonderful, something precious. We can invent our own faces! We make ourselves!” (Carter 141).

I love the idea of “we make ourselves”. This freedom that Buffo is speaking of, the freedom to be who we want to be, is real and invaluable, especially in a nation like Canada where we experience great privilege and opportunity. We can choose who we become.

Yet, I would argue that Buffo’s statement about the freedom to create ones own self is ironic because he does not exercise that very freedom! True, he makes the choice to take on the persona of Buffo the Clown, but he even admits his constraints of his choics: “But, once the choice is made, I am condemned, therefore, to be ‘Buffo’ in perpetuity...” (Carter 141). Buffo’s choice to play the role of the clown limits him to only that predefined identity. He further admits that without his clown mask, there is no substance or depth to his own real character. “And what am I without my Buffo's face? Why, nobody at all. Take away my make-up and underneath is merely not-Buffo. An absence. A vacancy” (Carter 142). He plays a character, but has no character.

In class we talked about how our society is obsessed with a ‘pilgrimage to perfection’ - we know how we want to look and what we want to achieve. Though I often wonder if many people give enough thought to how they want their character to develop. 

We have control over the personal qualities we develop: the inherent qualities we already possess and magnify, or ones we strive to acquire. For example, I believe there is great power in recognizing we can overcome natural weaknesses like impatience, laziness, pridefulness, vanity, selfishness, the list goes on. I suppose not everyone may consider these traits to be less desirable... but as there so many factors that can affect our identity that it seems we have so little control over (traditional gender roles in society, as highlighted in Nights at the Circus is one such influencing factor), we need to take ownership of the things we can control, such as the personal traits and qualities that comprise our character.

Nights at the Circus touches on the concept of self-discovery and finding a comfortable sense of self. I would suggest that in being true to oneself is more that just accepting ‘I was made this way’. I think it involved becoming the person you want to be, based on your own set of values. It’s exercising your power to change, not to conform or to satisfy the expectations of others, but to become the kind of person you want to be.