‘The Bloody Chamber’ is from Angela Carter’s collection ‘The Bloody Chamber’ and other short stories written in 1979. This short story is the titular tale in the collection. Angela Carter was an English novelist and during the period in which she was writing, women were fighting for social, economic and political equality. Carter began writing fairy tales throughout the period of the second new wave in America. During this Second-new wave, feminists were fighting for equal rights and opportunities similar to those that men had. This wave of feminism was comprised of women who were not from high-class backgrounds. These women were mostly situated in a middle class which allowed them to be more involved in the rebellion. In Angela Carter’s works,
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Within the short story, there is a forbidden room in which she may not enter. This room itself can be a reference to either a murderous chamber or the womb of a woman, hence the name ‘The Bloody Chamber’. This foreshadows the ending of the story and how women and females are often victims of male violence. ‘The Bloody Chamber’ has associations to the female body, it symbolises a place of both violence and enlightenment. The violence is because the Marquis’ previous wives were killed in this room, and the enlightenment is because it is in this room where she finds out the truth about her husband. Moreover, a connection is made between sexuality and violence. A theme throughout this short story is the corruption of purity. This can be identified through the use of colours. The colour white in the chamber connotes her purity. In the line, “an armful of the same lilies with which he had filled my bedroom”. Lilies are often associated with funerals, they, therefore, symbolise that the soul of those who has passed has received innocence after …show more content…
Laura Mulvey’s ‘The male gaze’ in particular. The theory states that it is a way in which literature characterise the world and women from a male’s point of view, displaying women as objects of male desire. From the short story the line, “The opera singer lay, quite naked, under a thin sheet of very rare and precious linen,” already stands out to a reader and we can immediately apply this theory. The women are lying ‘naked’ in his Chamber. This implies that it is his one place where he is in control and he has the power over the women. The women lying there ‘under a thin sheet’ further implies that they are there for his enjoyment as he can visit them whenever pleases him as they will always be there. Carter has strong male antagonist characters in her stories and these men often have their sexual needs and desires represented in a beastly form. This beastliness that is embodied in the men is representational of our heroine’s sexual desires. Hence, when the female characters are engaging in these sexual activities, she is asserting her own needs and wants, allowing her to take charge of her own self. In ‘The Bloody Chamber’, Carter is encouraging her own beliefs of empowering women to get away from male domineering forces and behaviour, allowing them to reclaim sexual identity and deconstructing the patriarchal roles of society by recognising and allowing female
Within the short story, there is a forbidden room in which she may not enter. This room itself can be a reference to either a murderous chamber or the womb of a woman, hence the name ‘The Bloody Chamber’. This foreshadows the ending of the story and how women and females are often victims of male violence. ‘The Bloody Chamber’ has associations to the female body, it symbolises a place of both violence and enlightenment. The violence is because the Marquis’ previous wives were killed in this room, and the enlightenment is because it is in this room where she finds out the truth about her husband. Moreover, a connection is made between sexuality and violence. A theme throughout this short story is the corruption of purity. This can be identified through the use of colours. The colour white in the chamber connotes her purity. In the line, “an armful of the same lilies with which he had filled my bedroom”. Lilies are often associated with funerals, they, therefore, symbolise that the soul of those who has passed has received innocence after …show more content…
Laura Mulvey’s ‘The male gaze’ in particular. The theory states that it is a way in which literature characterise the world and women from a male’s point of view, displaying women as objects of male desire. From the short story the line, “The opera singer lay, quite naked, under a thin sheet of very rare and precious linen,” already stands out to a reader and we can immediately apply this theory. The women are lying ‘naked’ in his Chamber. This implies that it is his one place where he is in control and he has the power over the women. The women lying there ‘under a thin sheet’ further implies that they are there for his enjoyment as he can visit them whenever pleases him as they will always be there. Carter has strong male antagonist characters in her stories and these men often have their sexual needs and desires represented in a beastly form. This beastliness that is embodied in the men is representational of our heroine’s sexual desires. Hence, when the female characters are engaging in these sexual activities, she is asserting her own needs and wants, allowing her to take charge of her own self. In ‘The Bloody Chamber’, Carter is encouraging her own beliefs of empowering women to get away from male domineering forces and behaviour, allowing them to reclaim sexual identity and deconstructing the patriarchal roles of society by recognising and allowing female