Discuss the destructive impact of male sexual desire in ‘The Snow
Child’
Angela Carter’s anthology ‘The Bloody Chamber’, a poignant piece of feminist gothic
literature, provides an insightful and chilling commentary on the destructive impact of male
sexual desire, corrupting both female and male characters, and ultimately resulting in
fatality. Published at the height of second wave feminism, the brutally laconic vignette ‘The
Snow Child’, manifesting Carter’s aim of putting ‘old wine in new bottles’, transforms the
Brothers Grimm’s fairy tale – ‘Little Snow White’ into a tale delving into male sexual
psychology in relation to its effect on women, death imagery and the female jealousy to
highlight the destructive impact of male sexual desire.
Carter immediately establishes an ominous tone with the laconic triplet “Midwinter –
invincible, immaculate”, with the stark nature of the opening mirroring the impending
emotionless violation of The Snow Child and thus signposting to the reader that the vignette
will directly confront the harmful masculine actions that ravage society. Nina da Vinci
Nicholls stated that "Gothic danger lies in susceptibility as much as circumstance…tenebrous
settings and mysterious places victimize heroines as fully as do villains", and Carter similarly
calls on such devices to integrate this sense of danger into her own work. The pathetic
fallacy of midwinter- with strong connotations to death, could be a sign that this is a low
point in the anthology, where misogyny has finally taken a firm grasp over the heroines of
the tales. However, this may also be twofold and suggest that in fact this tale does not
describe merely the death of a girl – but of misogyny – and instead marks a change in the
overall tone, where the subsequent tales are ones of more hope. Whilst the text rapidly
shifts to the past tense, it begins in the present with – “The Count and his wife go riding”,
giving the impression that this is not merely a singular incident of damaging male sexual
desire, but a timeless story of the destructive impacts it has had, has, and will have, unless
as a society we make a drastic and collective change. Carter’s work is still highly relevant as
acts uncannily like the ones in this vignette are still present such as the recent case of Sarah
Everard.
As the vignette develops, the theme of male sexual desire comes to the forefront through
the Count’s construction of what Christina Bacchilega coins, his ‘Masculine Fantasy’, shaping
her to his desires with “white skin, a red mouth, black hair, and stark naked”. This argument
can be developed by viewing the Count as a quasi-pornographer (much akin to the Marquis
in ‘The Bloody Chamber’), morphing young females into inanimate objects that fit their own
desires. This is enforced by the silencing of the Snow Child throughout the story. Not only is
she referred to as merely “the girl” – stripping her of all identity, but she begins her life
without clothes, and thus metaphorically, without power or authority. This silence extends
to her own sexual desires – left forgotten and negligible – and the same applies to the
patriarchal society. As a reader we are led to question whether this lack of authority is due
to her false creation, or simply because in a patriarchal society, she would be destined to
this fate regardless of her beginning. Furthermore, the recurring motif of snow imagery,
evident through “I wish I had a girl as white as snow”, gives a clear insight into the male
