In reading Nights at the Circus, I felt as though I was absorbed by the pages, sucked into the plot itself, being encapsulated within the magically world of the characters. The entire book was the epitome of the carnivalesque, with obscure ideas, language, and an inexplicable effect which made it come to life. I found this book a bit of a difficult read in that I had to re-trace my steps and re-read some parts, trying to wrap my mind around the content and rich vocabulary. This book also brought up contrasting effects of both normalizing "freakishness" and also enhancing the defect. The carnival factor brought emphasize to Fevvers deformity as she was put on display as magical and unusual, while the aspect of norm falling for freak and vice versa seemed to normalize her and bring her back to a level in which one could relate.

"Only a bird in a gilded cage..." was a line which appeared frequently in this novel, so I decided I would look up the official definition of gilded. The first of the two definitions was 'covered or highlighted in gold', and the second was 'having a pleasant or showing appearance the conceals something of little worth'. I found this interesting that this quote was one which Fevvers 'foster mother' Lizzie said to her often. Does she mean that Fevvers is of little worth? More likely she is simply stating that Fevvers is a normal girl, covered up with a mask of the phenomenal; a bird in a cage dressed in gold to make that relatively normal bird seem magnificent, or a freak.

The idea of the carnivalesque can be argued for and against in Katherine Dunn's Geek Love, but I think that it is evident partially through Baktin's idea of the inversion of social hierarchy or role reversal. In Geek Love, the "norms" are the freaks, and the "freaks" are the norms. The Binewski family, especially Arty, views those without deformities as the outsiders and freaks, something which in a typical society is reversed. Chick, the most physically normal of all the children is regarded as the lowest in the hierarchical chain, and spends most of his time with fellow norm outsider Dr. Phyllis, a physically normal woman. In a typical family where the children are "normal", a deformed child may be excluded and felt to be the outsider, but in the Binewski family, this is the exact opposite. This aspect is carvinalesque within itself and contributes to the theory that people will gravitate to that which they know and that which is most similar to themselves. As human beings we are often fearful or uncomfortable towards the unknown, and the Binewski children are rarely amongst the norms (except for their parents, though arguably Al and Lil are not completely mentally normal, proven through their practices and actions), so they feel discomfort and avoidance towards the norms, and tend to stick within the family or workers in the carnival. I found this interesting that whether people are "normal" or "freaks", the human brain operates the same, gravitating to that which we know, seeing ourselves and those like us to be normal and those different to be unusual.