Here is my a-level revision notes on Dracula and The Bloody Chamber context relevant for the time along with links to other Gothic texts and I always received a high B to A grade in my essays using this
The Bloody Chamber Context
● Angela Carter’s main influences for The Count in The Bloody Chamber was true
crimes committed by two men known for their sadistic murders and affluent power
● Marquis De Sade was a French nobleman who became infamous for his introduction
of Sadism. He committed acts of sexual violence on women and children, usually
prostitutes, he was imprisoned but wasn’t sentenced to death due to his status. He
continued abusing women, using his servants to recruit people to torture, on multiple
occassions he had to run from facing prosecution. His wife was even linked to being
passive in the murder and abuse of young women. While imprisoned he wrote the
works of Juliete and One Hundred and Twenty Days of Sodom (since its publication
has been made into a movie which has since been banned). Despite his crimes he
was able to work for the Revolution in France and his writings were banned until the
1960’s. Carter supported Marquis de Sade in her book the Sadein Woman, praising
him for providing him sexual liberation to women.
● Gilles De Rais a French nobleman who served in the Hundred Year War with Joan of
Arc. He was one of France’s wealthiest noblemen and spent his money recklessly.
He used his power and influence to intimidate the families of the young boys he
kidnapped to torture and assualt the young boys. Gilles De Rais also dabbled in the
occult and alchemists. It was revealed after his arrest that he had tortured and
murdered over one hundred young boys along with the compliance of his servants.
The Lady of the House of Love
● The Lady of the House of Love is set in Transylvania, Romania the same setting as
Bram Stoker’s Dracula
● The use of tarot cards are used in the occult and supernatural as ways to
communicate with the occult. Tarot cards are used to predict the future, they predict
love, marriage, career and wealth
● Vlad the Impaler is the Vampire Queen’s ancestor, a man known for his violence and
brutality. Vlad the Impaler even killed his own son in a fit of rage and mistreated his
wives. He was taken prisoner along with his brother by the Ottoman Empire as a
child to have power over his father. He was able to reclaim his throne after his father
and brother were assassinated and for years was known for his brutal massacres of
villagers in which he would leave his victims impaled in battlefields and villages he
attacked.
The Snow Child
● The Snow Child is inspired by the Grimm’s fairytale of Snow White, a young girl who
is imprisoned and abused by her Step Mother, attempted to be killed and then saved
by a prince
● Angela Carter uses the Snow Child to comment on the male domination and
patriarchal control women are subjected to
● Birth control was introduced to women in the UK in the sixties and raised many
debates of the rights of women and whom qualified for the right to have their fertility
controlled. In the seventies a rise in womens liberation resurged along with the right
to practice rights over their own autonomy and abortion was legalised in 1967.
Angela Carter could be commenting on the rejection of motherhood that women now
had the right to exercise over themselves
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