Detailed and comprehensive notes of 'The Bloody Chamber' from Angela Carter's anthology 'The Bloody Chamber'. These A* level notes select key quotations from the story and analyse them in depth, in a clear layout, making up all the foundations for a powerful essay.
The Bloody Chamber
Context
Originally from Charles Perraut’s 1697 tale, ‘Bluebeard’
Carter’s is set in France in 1900 during the Third Republic, a time known for its
decadence and corruption, links into Carter’s socialist mantra
Mother is a socialist figurehead
In Bluebeard, a wealthy and unattractive aristocrat kills three wives, new one finds
chamber. Her brothers save her. (men save women)
Marquis de Sade (1740-1814) - a French aristocrat, revolutionary politician,
philosopher and writer, famous for his libertine sexuality. Best known for his erotic
work such as Justine (1791), which combined philosophical discourse with
pornography, depicting sexual fantasies with an emphasis on violence, criminality
and blasphemy against the Catholic Church. Elements of sadomasochism attached to
his work. 120 days of Sodom explores ideas of destructive male sexual desire and the
grotesque sexual nature of powerful and wealthy men. Comprised of “simple”,
“complex” and “criminal” passions. These three passions are reflected within the
Bloody Chamber.
Carter wrote “The Sadeian Woman and the Ideology of Pornography”, Angela Carter
(1978) . A feminist re-appraisal of the work of de Sade. Carter sees him as the first
writer to see women as more than mere breeding machines, as more than their
biology and, as such, finds him liberating.
Carter suggest women too readily identify with the images of themselves as a victim
of patriarchal oppression
She provokes questions rather than answering them
“a moral pornographer would not be the enemy of women perhaps because he
might begin to penetrate to heart of the contempt for women that distorts our
culture even as he entered the realms of obscenity as he describes it.” – Carter
Lacan Theory (1936)
Vladimir Propp’s Archetypes (1928) – damsel in distress
Phallocentricism (1927)
Analysis
Opening is a metaphor for leaving adolescence and entering marriage
“delicious ecstasy of excitement” – desire for marriage
Train metaphor picked up in Tiger’s Bride – anthology a train journey beginning on
male terms (“thrusting” and “pounding”)
Mother is very atypical “eagle” is a bird of prey, subverting roles
Carter’s own mother was very overprotective, so the mother is Carter – an example
of what a feminist mother should be
“Are you sure you love him?”…”I’m sure I want to marry him”, marrying for money
and status
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