OCR A Level English Lit: The Bloody Chamber plot summary + quotes + setting
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Comparative and contextual study
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OCR
Book
The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories
WRITTEN BY AN A* STUDENT!! This document is a summary of the different stories in The Bloody Chamber. It also includes the relative key quotes and ideas on the setting each. It's condensed form makes it really easy to revise from.
Close References and Analysis of 'The Bloody Chamber' by Angela Carter
Summary The Bloody Chamber & Other Stories - The Gothic A-Level (OCR)
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The bloody chamber
- heroine on the train remembering her strong mother. She is going to an isolated castle which is
surrounded by a moat. Husband is called Marquis and he is older than her- she is 17. He had
given her an opal ring which the heroine’s nurse complained about saying it was bad luck- his
last three wives had worn it and they all died. Heroine is an inexperienced virgin and wonders
why she has been chosen as his fourth wife. The night before their wedding Marquis had taken
her out and shown her o , in a white dress and a ruby choker around her neck whcih was
supposed to look like a slit throat. At the event she saw herself in the mirror saying that she
looked like a “carnal avarice”. Saw how innocent she looked and her “potentiality for
corruption”. Next day she married Marquis. Get to the castle which is cut o from mainland at
high tide . Every room is luxurious, all with sea views and she imagines herself “queen of the
sea”. The bedroom is surrounded by mirrors and white lilies. Her husband undresses her all for
the red choker, and then leaves her. She is aroused but also scared. She plays the piano but it
is o tune. Marquis calls the heroine his “little nun” and “baby” mocking her innocence and
puts the choker back round her neck. They have sex - she looses her virginity- and she
describes it as being “impaled” and watches it in multiple mirrors. Marquis has to leave for new
york on urgent business. The heroine feels like a silly girl of no importance and realises that
marquis has had so many honey moons to think of this one as special. Marquis won’t let her
take of her necklace and says to her how he has never had a wife that was a virgin before. She
realises that that is all he wanted her for- her innocence.
- Marquis gives her the keys to all the areas in the house before he leaves and says she is
innocent with a “promise of debauchery” . The heroine blushes but feels her own corruption.
Later the heroine calls her mother and starts crying but insists that everything is ne. She then
goes to discover her husbands true nature searching his o ce rst and then going to his
forbidden room. In the room there is torture equipment. She realises that she has got her
mother’s courage exploring the depths of this area. She nds the embalmed body of his rst
wife in a co n, the skull of the second and the third pierced and still bloodied. She was
shocked and dropped her keys in the blood. She leaves and tries to call her mother for help but
the phone is dead. She plays the piano to calm herself, alarmed by the sound of the door but it
is only the piano tuner Jean- Yves. She is overcome by what she has learnt and faints. She is
helped by Jean-Yves and then tells him everything. Then Marquis comes back. She tries to
wipe the blood o of the keys but it won’t come o . She tries to hide it from him but gives them
to him in the end. He notices the blood, looks sad for a moment and then tells her to kneel,
pressing the key into her skin and says “prepare yourself for martyrdom” and says he will
behead her. She has to put on her white dress and red choker and he goes to sharpen his
ancestors sword. In the bath the heroine tries to get o the mark on her forehead but it won’t
come o . Heroine goes to the music room and nds jean - yves where he compares her to eve
in the garden of eden - she was only doing what marquis knew she would do like eve was
doing what God knew she would do. Heroine now calls Jean - Yves her lover comes with her to
where she will be beheaded.
- Marquis calls the heroine a whore demanding the opal ring back saying it will serve a “dozen
more ancees”. He says he will kill jean -yves in a less noble manner later. He cuts o her
dress. He lifts his sword as the mother arrives at the gate with her husbands revolver. This gives
heroine enough time to move from marquis who is shocked that his puppets “start to live for
themselves” and the mother shoots marquis in the head.
- In the future the heroine inherits marquis wealth but gave most of it to charity- the castle is a
school for the blind- and the bloody chamber is sealed o . The heroine does not know how her
mother got there except for some “maternal telepathy”- the mother had rushed as soon as she
had got that phone call. The red mark still remains on the heroine’s forehead and she is glad
that jean-yes can’t see it as she is ashamed.
Setting
- “that castle, at home neither on the land and nor on the water, a mysterious, amphibious place”
= the marquis’ home itself is in a liminal space, with nowhere that it belongs
- “The line was bad I could hardly make out her congratulations” = telephone call represents the
distance between the mother and daughter
- “This lovely prison of which I was both the inmate and the mistress and had scarcely seen” =
the ostensible power of the girl’s is really non-existence in the jail of the house
- “The walls of this stark torture chamber were the naked rock; they gleamed as if they were
sweating with fright” = the setting of the bloody chamber itself seems to exude fear
ff fi ff ffi ff ff fi ff ff fiff ffi fi ff fi ff fi
, Quotes
- “my eagle-featured, indomitable mother” = the girl’s initial description of her mother illustrates
her powerful nature
-
- “My satin nightdress… teasingly caressed me, egregious, insinuating, nudging between my
thighs” = the girl’s nightdress is a symbol of the dichotomy between her youth and her latent
sexual desires
-
- “I could see the dark, leonine shape of his head” = the Marquis’ head is animal-like
-
- “He was older than I. He was much older than I; there were streaks of pure silver in his dark
mane” = Carter employs the gothic trope of an older man and a younger girl, while still
focussing on the Marquis’ animalism
-
- “A choker of rubies, two inches wide, like an extraordinarily precious slit throat” = the wedding
gift of the marquis to the girl foreshadows her death
-
- “I sensed in myself a potentiality for corruption that took my breath away” = the girl is enticed
by the destruction of her innocence and the thrill the marquis o ers
-
- “I was aghast to feel myself stirring” = the girl is shocked to realise that she desires the marquis
-
- “Your thin white face, with its promise of debauchery that only a connoisseur could detect” =
the Marquis is entranced by his ability to corrupt his wife
-
- “But young, with a gentle mouth and grey eyes that xed upon me although they could not see
me” = from the start the piano tuner is presented as completely di erent to the marquis
-
- “I ran to the telephone; and the line of course, was dead. As dead as his wives” = the telephone
as been cut o , foreshadowing the girl’s death and that it has been planned
-
- “i knew I had behaved exactly according to his desires” = too late, the girl realises that she has
fallen into the marquis trap
-
- “I had played a game in which every move was governed by a destiny as oppressive and
omnipotent as himself.. and I lost” = the girls life is reduced to a mere game but one she lost to
a gure of godlike power
-
- “Decapitation’ he whispered, almost voluptuously” = the Marquis takes pleasure in the
anticipation of him killing the girl
-
- “A rider her black skirts tucked up around her waist… a crazy, magni cent horsewoman in
widow’s weeds” = in rescue of her daughter the mother is empowered and dominating
-
- “Do you think I shall lose appetite for the meal if you are so long about serving it?” = the
marquis is hungry for murder
-
- “She raised my father’s gun, took aim and put a single irreproachable bullet through my
husband’s head” = the mother becomes the heroic gure of the tale slaying the sadist marquis
-
- “I clung to him as though only the one who had in icted the pain could comfort me for su ering
it” = the girl looks to the marquis for support even though he is the one hurting her
-
- “The atrocious loneliness of that monster” = a sense of the con ict within the girl as she
seemingly pities the isolation of the marquis
-
- “Eyes that had always disturbed me by their absolute absence of light” = the eyes of the
marquis terrify the girl as they have no light behind them
fi
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