Feminism In Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber

A feminist approach to Angela Carter 's 'The Bloody Chamber ' (1993, 1st ed.) can expose the exploitive and precarious position of females within patriarchal society. Within the story, Carter has shown how the narrator is submissive to her husband, which highlights the problematic societal relationship between the sexes. The use of the submissive women and the dominant man within the marriage is used as an extended metaphor of the patriarchy and implies that women can overthrow the patriarchy through the death of the Marquis.

According to David Carter, Feminism within literature is used to reveal how men are considered dominant within patriarchal society (Carter 2006 pp.86) Throughout 'The Bloody Chamber ', Carter uses specific language to give the husband …show more content…
The narrator objectifies herself throughout the story, with words such as 'purchase ' that demonstrate how she viewed herself as a commodity. Being a 'purchase ' resulted in possessiveness and violence from her husband. This hence shows how the ancient act of marriage was still for status and not for love. It created the narrator to be co-dependent on her husband as she viewed herself as his property. One major power imbalance within the text is that the man has a name, whilst the woman remains nameless. This is a way of showing how the women 's name is irrelevant to her husband as she is further used as an object. The narrator further shows her submission through obeying her husbands commands, even if this resulted in her death, 'So I must go to the courtyard where my husband waited ' (Carter, 1993 pp.37). Carter also exploited her narrator by constantly referring to her as a 'child ' or 'little girl ', which in turn shows how the narrator viewed herself and gave power to