Short-Stories
The Bloody Chamber
Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber is a spine-chilling and evocative reimagination of the Bluebeard tale, set in a world that feels both strange and eerily familiar. The story follows a young girl who falls in love with a wealthy and enigmatic man. He promises her everything she could desire, including a future, but with the disturbing absence of a past. Their home, a castle that is as grand as it is oppressive, holds an atmosphere of foreboding. The castle's cold stone walls and its dark corners suggest a sinister presence waiting to reveal itself.
The story is captivating because it explores themes of power, fear, and the loss of innocence. The husband's control over the protagonist, initially subtle through his magnetism and opulence, eventually takes a darker turn. When the girl ventures into the forbidden chamber, the gruesome truth is revealed: the bloodstains, the remains of previous wives, exposing the husband's willingness to manipulate and destroy.
What sets The Bloody Chamber apart is not just the exploration of victimhood but the emergence of the girl's inner strength. As she uncovers the horrifying truth, she begins to recognize her own ability to choose her fate. She is not merely a passive victim but a fighter, determined to control her own destiny—even if it means risking everything.
Carter's writing is extraordinary in how it blends beauty and horror. The vivid descriptions create an atmosphere where readers can almost feel the castle's chill or sense the protagonist's fear. Her candid portrayal of sexuality and violence is both unsettling and empowering, offering a unique and transformative reading experience. Each action of resistance becomes a powerful assertion of autonomy, turning the protagonist into a symbol of resilience.
Ultimately, The Bloody Chamber is a metamorphosis story. The protagonist transforms from a frightened girl into a victorious survivor. The tale suggests that even in the most confining circumstances, there is room for change and empowerment. It emphasizes that, no matter how evil the circumstances, we still have the power to reclaim our own narratives.
The Bloody Chamber vs Bluebeard
Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber reinterprets classic European fairy tales with a feminist, gothic twist. While both Charles Perrault's Bluebeard and Carter's story explore the dangers of curiosity and disobedience in marriage, Carter's version shifts the focus to female agency and empowerment.
In Bluebeard, the grotesque Bluebeard marries a young girl primarily because of his wealth. His previous wives meet mysterious ends, and the girl must rely on her brothers to escape his clutches. This traditional narrative reinforces the cultural norm of men as rescuers and women as passive, overly curious victims.
In contrast, The Bloody Chamber is told from the first-person perspective, allowing readers to delve deeply into the protagonist's inner world. Though initially seduced by her husband's wealth and power, the girl gradually sees through his charm to his sadistic nature. Unlike Bluebeard, where the girl depends on male saviors, Carter's heroine is ultimately saved by her mother, who subverts traditional gender roles by bravely confronting danger to protect her daughter.
Carter critiques the passivity often depicted in fairy tales, presenting the protagonist's journey from objectification to agency. As she uncovers her husband's secrets, she refuses to be passive or guilty in the face of his violence. Carter also introduces Jean-Yves, a blind piano tuner, as a contrast to the violent Marquis, suggesting that true partnership is based on equality and mutual respect, not power dynamics.
Carter's use of magical realism allows fairy tales to reveal deeper social truths about gender and violence. The bloodstain on the forbidden chamber's key becomes both a literal and metaphorical symbol of lost innocence. Through this gothic reinterpretation, Carter challenges readers to rethink traditional fairy tales' messages about gender roles and power.
In essence, The Bloody Chamber transforms Bluebeard by portraying a protagonist who confronts and escapes patriarchal control, empowered by self-realization and maternal support. Carter critiques and reshapes cultural narratives about female agency, curiosity, and autonomy.
The Bloody Chamber vs Puss-in-Boots
Both The Bloody Chamber and Puss-in-Boots draw on traditional fairy tale elements, but their interpretations diverge significantly in tone and themes.
While The Bloody Chamber offers a gothic and sinister retelling of the Bluebeard story, focusing on power, sexuality, and danger in a threatening marriage, Puss-in-Boots is much lighter and more playful. The latter tells the story of a clever cat who helps a young man rise in status and win the heart of the woman he desires through trickery and mischief. There are no dark undertones in Puss-in-Boots, and the tone is more comedic and lighthearted compared to the chilling atmosphere of The Bloody Chamber.
Both stories feature characters who manipulate others to achieve their goals, yet the tone of manipulation differs greatly. In The Bloody Chamber, the manipulation is linked to dark themes of sex and power, while in Puss-in-Boots, it is playful and humorous. These differences in tone place the two tales in entirely different realms: The Bloody Chamber explores the darker, more sinister aspects of fairy tales, while Puss-in-Boots is a whimsical adventure with little to no danger.
Despite their shared fairy tale roots, the contrast between The Bloody Chamber and Puss-in-Boots highlights how the same plot structure can be interpreted in vastly different ways, with The Bloody Chamber offering a deeper, more complex narrative, while Puss-in-Boots remains a lighthearted, entertaining story.
Tiger's Bride
The Tiger's Bride takes place in Italy, and just like in The Bloody Chamber the narrator is also the heroine. The short-story opens with the narrator saying: "My father lost me to The Beast at cards.", with that, we immediately associate this short-story by Angela Carter to the fairy tale, once folktale, Beauty and the Beast. This opening already tells us it will not be similar to the original story (there is no official story, but the writing of Villeneuve and Beaumont are the most famous), whereas in "Beauty and the Beast" the father "looses" is daughter in a trade for his life and freedom.
The moment the father realizes the consequences of his addiction, he cries: "I have lost my pearl, my pearl beyond price." The father compares his daughter to a pearl, although he says "(...) beyond price" she was valuable enough to be bet instead of loosing his estate. The Beast then growls: "If you are so careless of your treasures, you should expect them to be taken from you.". Both male characters refer to Beauty as a "pearl" and "treasure". She was no longer a woman. She was no longer human. Within seconds she was an object of a bet, a pearl to then a treasure.
The Beast's valet then arrives to retrieve Beauty's items so to live with the Beast, in his mansion. While the heroine was waiting, the father begged for her daughter's forgiveness. She then pricks her finger into one of the white roses, from her bouquet, and gave said flower "all smeared with blood". Blood is a recurrent theme in Angela Carter's writing. In all her short-stories, blood can be read, as it holds a big role in innocence and rebellion. Beauty is hurt at her father's betrayal and at the Beast for accepting his offering and comparing her to a "treasure".
In spite of the Beasts luxuries and ambition for more, his mansion fails to reflect them. It looks inhabited. All the furnish is covered with a white cloth, as if someone was moving in, or out, but not currently living in. Carter does not describe further more the house nor its lack of life, but mentions how all the portraits were also covered so that the faces do not show.
The Beast then summons the heroine, and as his valet as a translator to his growls, he claims she can only return to her previous life and live among her father riches, if she undresses for him and allows him to see her naked. "'My master's sole desire is to see the pretty young lady unclothed nude without her dress and that only for the one time after which she will be returned to her father undamaged with bankers' orders for the sum which he lost to my master at cards (...)" After the counter proposal of the heroine of lifting the skirt only up to her waist with a sheet covering a face, a tear ("A tear! A tear, I hoped, of shame") falling from the Beast's mask. Has the heroine stricken the beast's heart? Is he shameful? Is he joyful?
Beauty threatened to hang herself after the valet took her to a cell, he offered her a diamond earring. Is woman's life worth a diamond? A piece of jewelry? She has been compared to multiple objects, and once again, her life "can" be bought, now with an earring. After a while, the Beast summons Beauty for riding, and suddenly, she feels more familiar whilst riding with the horses and the Beast himself, "I could see not one single soul in that wilderness of desolation all around me, then the six of us-mounts and riders, both-could boast amongst us not one soul, either, since all the best religious in the world state categorically that not beasts nor women were equipped with the flimsy, insubstantial things..."
The valet explains to the heroine that if she does not undress before him, it will be the Beast who will undress before her. Both of them are fearful, but as a sign of equality, Beauty takes of her shirt and goes no further, as the Beast showed embarrassment.
As the three arrive home, she finds her father among her belongings and additional gifts, but finds no will to leave. She has compassion for the Beast. The Beast is terrified of her. But, despite this fear, there is a mutual understanding between them. They acknowledge their loneliness. Slowly, she begins to see beyond his animalistic form, how his fear and cruelty derived from his loneliness, just like her own.
GradeSaver.(n.d.). The Tiger's Bride summary. GradeSaver.
Retrieved November 17, 2024 from https://www.gradesaver.com/the-bloody-chamber/study-guide/summary-the-tigers-bride
The objectification of women is a recurrent theme in Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber and Other Short-Stories. Both Tiger's Bride and the previous short-story The Courtship of Mr. Lyon are inspired in the fairy tale Beauty and The Beast. In the latter, the father looses his daughter to the Beast after stealing a white rose as a gift for Beauty, resembling the fairy tale.
In both stories, it is the woman the protagonist, but in The Tiger's Bride, the heroine in the end embraces her wild-spirited animal side as tiger, becoming one with the Beast. In The Courtship of Mr. Lyon, their relationship is more romanticized and it is the Beast who transforms into a human, a man, as Beauty develops romantic sentiments for him.
Both tales also focus on identity and transformation. In The Tiger's Bride, the heroine physically sheds her human skin rejecting any societal constraints, leaving behind her life under her father riches. In The Courtship of Mr. Lyon, the Beast surrenders his animalistic side as he falls in love with Beauty. This short-story is more romantic than the other but does not steal the highlight of it.
We are used to the famous story of Beauty and The Beast and it is Beauty who takes care of the Beast and switches on his human button. He had left behind such human feelings as the population had been horrible to him, simply for being different.
Angela Carter saw an opportunity to switch this button as well. The Courtship of Mr. Lyon resembles the fairy tale as in in both of the stories, the Beast becomes a man. He is who makes the biggest change and takes the biggest step. While in The Tiger's Bride, Beauty, after being heavily objectified by the men surrounding her, chose to be with the Beast after realizing he is the one who is terrified. She became a tiger to be with him. Or not. It can also be interpreted her becoming a tiger to free herself. The act of the Beast licking her skin off, at the end, during her transformation, can be seen as a sexual act, but Carter's writing blends genres making it a challenge and open for interpretation.
The Snow Child
The Snow Child is another short-story in "The Bloody Chamber and Other Short-Stories" which talks about the objectification of women. The Count and the Countess ride their horses in the fresh fallen snow. The Count begins to fantasize, and says: "I wish I had a girl as white as snow.", followed by "I wish I had a girl as red as blood." as the come upon a hole filled with blood on the ground, and finally "I wish I had a girl as black as that bird's feather." after sighting a black raven. At that, a child appears of the roadside, naked, trembling with cold, who the Counts sits on his horse and uses his wife's fur coat to warm. The Countess shows pure hatred to her husband's real life fantasy. At first, she asks the girl to pick up her glove and her diamond brooch, she both threw at the ground. Both orders were overruled by the Count claiming he could by her more of her wishes. At last she asks for a rose, which the Count does not contest, and the girl picks a flower on the roadside. Unfortunately she pricks her finger on the flower thorn and dies. The body lays on the cold snow. The Count rapes her. The Countess watches.
After this cold, cruel act, her body transforms into blood stained snow, a raven's feather and the rose the Countess demanded for. The Count then picks the flower and hands it to his wife. She then throws it to the ground and says: "It bites!"
This short-story resembles the fairy-tale The Snow White, both have skin as white as snow and dark hair.
Both The Tiger's Bride and The Snow Child objectify women. In The Snow Child, the protagonist has no other purpose other than fulfilling the man's needs. Fortunately, in The Tiger's Bride, the woman manages to find herself and her true identity despite her previous objectification by all the men surrounding her.
The Erl-King
The Erl-King is the fifth short-story in the Bloody Chamber and other Stories. This eerie story could be based on the German poem 'Der Erlkönig' from Goethe written 1782. This poem is based on the German legend of a malevolent elf who haunts the Black Forest, luring children to their doom. However besides the chilling vibe and the name, the plot from both the poem and the short-story are completely different.
In this story we follow the protagonist, a young girl who remains unnamed throughout the story, who willingly enters a mysterious and dark forest and encounters the Erl-King. The Erl-King is described by the narrator as the embodiment of the forest itself: "And I could believe that it has been the same with him; he came alive from the desire of the woods." (page 103). She ends up being seduced by him and they begin a relationship yet over time his true nature is revealed. Their relationship ends up being one of seduction and entrapment. Throughout the story we can see the mixed feelings that the protagonist has for the Erl-King. The protagonist loves him but she also knows and acknowledges the danger he possesses: "I loved him with all my heart, and yet I had no wish to join the whistling congregation he kept in his cages."(page 108). This highlights the tension between her desire and her self-preservation. Further on it is revealed that the several mentions of birds that are locked in cages are actually women that the Erl-King trapped by biting their neck just like he did or wanted to do with the young girl. At the end of the story we see her choking the Erl-King with his own hair thus killing him and then freeing the caged birds who then turns into women.
However we are left to wonder if the young girl actually killed him, in the process freeing the birds from the cages or if she is merely fantasizing about doing so. That is due to the changing of tenses. The protagonist goes from writing: "My hands shake."(page 109) to "I shall strangle him with them."(page 109), so we are left with no precise ending. Some people might argue that the young girl did murder him others will say she was merely fantasizing about it.
Although we do see the power-dynamic switch that happened at the end, just like in other stories of the Bloody Chamber like in 'The Company of Wolves' where the girl tames the werewolf by giving her body to him. On one hand the Erl-King is described as this predatory male figure while on the other he is described as an "excellent housewife"(page 104). And the girl observes that he looks after the birds in his care with great affection. So the reader is torn whether to like him or fear him just like the protagonist.
Overall, just like in "The Company of Wolves" or "The Werewolf", "The Erl-King" challenges the portrayal of women as passive victims and highlight female agency, with diverse degrees of empowerment. Whereas the male figures (or wolf-like figures) are symbols of both physical and psychological danger, representing the duality of desire and fear. These shared themes of gender dynamics, nature, transformation, and the subversion of fairy tales tie "The Erl-King", "The Company of Wolves", and "The Werewolf" together as powerful feminist reinterpretations of folklore. Each story has their unique perspective on the interplay of desire, danger, and the assertion of action in oppressive circumstances.
References
Interesting Literature. (2023, April). A summary and analysis of Angela Carter's 'The Erl-King'. Interesting Literature, from https://interestingliterature.com/2023/04/angela-carter-the-erl-king-summary-analysis/
Encyclopaedia Britannica. (n.d.). The Erl-King. In Encyclopaedia Britannica, from https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Erl-King
Wolf-Alice
"Wolf-Alice" is a story about a girl that, as she herself would describe, is only a girl in the sense that she is human, for she believes herself to be a wolf. With a dead mother at a young age, she is left to be raised in the wild, not by humans, but by nature and its creatures. At some point she is taken to a convent, where nuns try to "tame" her and introduce her to the ways of human civilization. She completely opposes and resists being humanized, having the nuns given up on their quest. She is then taken to the castle of The Duque, a cloistered weird man, a creature that, like her, is neither human nor animal. With the passage of time, Wolf-Alice starts to form a conscience and begins to develop a sense of self. A pivotal moment in realizing her own existence is when she first sees herself in a mirror. For years she doesn´t recognize her image, believing that her own reflection is an entirely different being. Another crucial moment in her development is when she first gets her period. Naturally, she is shocked when she first bleeds, for she knows practically nothing about being a human, and nothing at all about being a woman. Noticing a pattern in her menstruation is what first teaches her the notion of time, and slowly she starts developing another basic human notions, reaching a point when she finally recognizes herself and her body in the mirror.
While this happens, we learn that The Duke is somewhat of a werewolf, robbing the graveyard of the village of recently deceased corpses and feeding on them. Whereas Alice is completely human but has the essence of a wolf, the Duke is a literal junction of the both. People in the village start to get more and more suspicious and disgusted by the habits of The Duke, especially when he steals and feeds on the body of a young bride. The Duke is hurt by the young widower and only when he returns and lays injured in his grim bed, does Alice feel for the first time the human instinct of empathy, licking him as if he were a member of her wolf-pack. Wolf-Alice now takes on the role of the tiger ( in " The Tiger's Bride or the British soldier in " The Lady in the House of Love", transforming another through a kiss (or lick). The Duke, who in representation of his non-human state does not until this point have his image reflected in the mirror, becomes fully human by appearing in the mirror, through the compassion of Wolf-Alice.
This heroine and her story stand out from the rest of the other short-stories in " The Bloody Chamber", mainly by being a story where the main character develops her identity and achieves self-realization without being forced or brought to that achievement by a romantic or sexual relation. On the contrary, only when Alice herself physically and mentally recognizes her own sense of self is she able to share empathy or feelings for another. Ultimately, "Wolf-Alice" is a rich, layered narrative that challenges traditional notions of human versus animal, highlighting the fluidity of identity and the power of self-discovery.
Sources
The Bloody Chamber:
Rathi, M. A. (2020). Twisted fairy tales: A reinterpretation of classical fairy tales. International Journal of English Literature and Social Sciences (IJELS), 5(4), 1304–1309. https://dx.doi.org/10.22161/ijels.4422
Kovačević, L. (2017). The influence of fairy tales on children's personality development. University of Rijeka, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. Retrieved November 16, 2024, from https://www.unirepository.svkri.uniri.hr/islandora/object/ffri:1412/datastream/PDF
Carter, A. (1979). The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories. London: Gollancz.
Wolf Alice:
Interesting Literature. (2023, March). Angela Carter's "Wolf-Alice": Summary and analysis. Retrieved from https://interestingliterature.com/2023/03/angela-carter-wolf-alice-summary-analysis/
LitCharts. (n.d.). Wolf-Alice summary and analysis: The Bloody Chamber. Retrieved from https://www.litcharts.com/lit/the-bloody-chamber/wolf-alice
The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories, Angela Carter, 1979