The Bloody Chamber

Front 1

What is marriage identified with in The Bloody Chamber tales?

Back 1

The past, corruption and deception.

Front 2

What impression do the tales as a whole offer of sexuality?

Back 2

An equally frightening and exciting aspect of adult behaviour.

Front 3

How does Carter create an erotic tone in the first paragraph?

Back 3

Through the use of phrases such as 'delicious ecstacy', 'burning cheek' and 'pounding...heart.'

Front 4

How is human sexuality conceived by Carter?

Back 4

As something that is dangerous and animalistic.

Front 5

How is male sexuality mostly represented?

Back 5

As being aggressive and selfish.

Front 6

What does the exclusively female view on sexuality present a challenge to?

Back 6

The prevailing attitudes of the 1970s.

Front 7

What do the roots of Carter's portrayal of women's fears of sex lie in?

Back 7

An awareness of the long history for women of sexual activity being a calculated risk with possibly fatal consequences.

Front 8

What accompanies all the experiences of the young women in these tales as they find themselves confronted by strange man who exert power over them of one kind or another.

Back 8

The thrill of risk-taking.

Front 9

What does metamorphosis mean (in this context)?

Back 9

Changing the forms of things to reveal some idea of truth.

Front 10

A recurring theme in the stories is that beauty...

Back 10

...can but should not be purchased or owned by those who control vast wealth.

Front 11

What type of symbol does the forest serve as in these tales?

Back 11

The forest serves as a paradoxical symbol in the stories that feature that setting or employ a variation on that image of a world that is not within human control.

Front 12

The 'bloody chamber' may be viewed as a symbol...

Back 12

...of female identity, or even the womb itself, a wider metaphor of the female embodiment of life.

Front 13

What quote could be said to have sadomasochistic connotations?

Back 13

'My darling, I cannot wait for the moment when you may make me yours completely'.

Front 14

Through which quote does Carter utilise the ideas of horror evoked by 'mutilation' and 'annihilation'?

Back 14

'There is a striking resemblance between the act of love and the ministrations of a torturer'.

Front 15

What is the character of the mother established as early on?

Back 15

'Adventurous' and 'indomitable'.

Front 16

The narrator's memory of her father is only the sadness of his loss;

Back 16

'a legacy of tears that never quite dried'.

Front 17

What does the 'gold band' symbolise?

Back 17

The ownership of the woman and the price agreed between the mother and the Marquis for the exchange.

Front 18

What does the symbol of the wedding ring represent and what is it introduced with?

Back 18

It represents marriage and is introduced with a 'pang of loss' for the girl's youth and freedom.

Front 19

What is the Marquis's first grand gesture to the female, gothic protagonist?

Back 19

A wedding dress 'wrapped up in tissue paper and red ribbon like a Christmas gift of crystallized fruit'.

Front 20

What kind of admirable acts did the mother carry out in her youth?

Back 20

She 'outfaced a junkful of Chinese pirates, nursed a village through a visitation of the plague [and]...shot a man-eating tiger with her own hand'.

Front 21

What description of the Marquis's kiss does the daughter give?

Back 21

'His kiss, his kiss with tongue and teeth in it and a rasp of beard...'

Front 22

How does the Marquis seem like a lily?

Back 22

He is 'Possessed of that strange, ominous calm of a sentient vegetable...curled out of a flesh as thick and tensely yielding to the touch as vellum'.

Front 23

An early religious reference.

Back 23

'The whispering crowd in the foyer parted like the Red Sea to let us through'.

Front 24

Which words does the narrator use to describe herself negatively in her youth?

Back 24

"Precociously", "sticky", "bony", "nervous"...

Front 25

A quote from the Hebrew Bible included in the text?

Back 25

"My cup runneth over'.

Front 26

Which pieces of jewelery does the Marquis give his bride?

Back 26

'A choker of rubies...like an extraordinarily precious slit throat' and a 'fire opal that glimmered like a gypsy's magic ball'.

Front 27

A recollection of the girl's father, which seems to be symbolic of the Marquis's actions?

Back 27

'he would hug me in a warm fug of Havana, when i was a little girl, before he kissed me and left me and died'.

Front 28

An example of the girl's fanatic thinking {and Carter's detailed richness of imageric language)?

Back 28

'And we drove towards the widening dawn, that now streaked half the sky with a wintry bouquet of pink of roses, orange of tiger-lilies, as if my husband had ordered me a sky from a florist'.

Front 29

A detailed description of the Marquis's castle (symbolic of the girl's naivety)?

Back 29

'And, ah! his castle. The faery solitude of the place; with its turrets of misty blue, its courtyard...with the melancholy of a mermaiden who had drowned far away, long ago. That lovely, sad, sea-siren of a place!'

Front 30

What does the Marquis say when the girl finds his pornographic books?

Back 30

'My little nun has found the prayerbooks, has she?'

Front 31

An example of Carter's clever use of mirrors to create an illusionary, detached effect?

Back 31

'A dozen husbands impaled a dozen brides...'

Front 32

What lover's recitative brings the girl's 'tears in a flood'?

Back 32

'My dear one, my little love, my child, did it hurt her? He's so sorry for it, such impetuousness, he could not help himself; you see, he loves her so...'

Front 33

How had the Marquis amply indulged his taste for the Symbolists?

Back 33

With paintings, such as 'Sacrificial Victim' and 'The Foolish Virgins'.

Front 34

Why does the girl think the Marquis chose her?

Back 34

'because, in my innocence, he sensed a rare talent for corruption'.

Front 35

What religious connotations do the key to The Bloody Chamber and the Marquis's castle have?

Back 35

The key seems to be symbolic of the apple Eve bit into and the castle symbolic of the Garden of Eden.

Front 36

When does the mother think that something is wrong?

Back 36

When the girl cries over 'gold bath taps' on the telephone.

Front 37

A description of the bloody chamber personified;

Back 37

"The walls of this stark torture chamber were the naked rock, they gleamed as if they were sweating with fright'.

Front 38

What does the girl say sent her mother 'running headlong from the telephone to the station after i had called her, that night'.

Back 38

'maternal telepathy'.

Front 39

The girl reports the Marquis 'kiss[ing her]...nape' twice. When are these two occasions?

Back 39

When they are making love and when he tries to kill her.

Front 40

An erotic description of the heroic mother?

Back 40

'her white mane, her black lisle legs exposed to the thigh...one hand on the reins of the rearing horse...'

Front 41

An erotic description of the heroic mother?

Back 41

'her white mane, her black lisle legs exposed to the thigh...one hand on the reins of the rearing horse...'

Front 42

As well as the Garden of Eden what else is The Bloody Chamber associated with?

Back 42

Hell.

Front 43

Who is the Marquis directly associated with?

Back 43

'Bluebeard'.