Nights at the Circus

Sophie “Fevvers” is the protagonist and narrator of the novel. The narrator is ambiguous during Parts 1 and 2 of the novel, situated as mostly third-person omniscient. In Part 3, this perspective becomes interspersed with first-person narration from Fevvers’s perspective. The narration still switches back to third-person narration on occasion, however, without break or warning. This indicates the perception she has of herself and reflects the ultimate theme of her character arc and the narrative as a whole: Her warring self-perception as either human or as an object and concept.

Throughout the novel, Fevvers is treated as an object for observation. Her first experience with this is posing as the Winged Victory Statue at Ma Nelson’s brothel in Part 1. Fevvers says of this experience that it was her “apprenticeship in being looked at—at being the object in the eye of the beholder (23), establishing Fevvers’s role as object. After Ma Nelson’s, Fevvers serves as again as an object in a tableau vivant at Madame Schreck’s; after that, she joins the circus and subjects herself to “being looked at” by the circus