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Analysis of The Tiger's Bride from 'The Bloody Chamber', with a supporting summary and quotes.
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The Tiger’s BrideSummary
"The Tiger's Bride" takes place in Italy. As in "The Bloody Chamber," the narrator is also the
heroine. She tells us, "My father lost me to The Beast at cards." She then sets the scene of her and
her father's journey to Italy. She says that to Russians like her, the South is supposed to feel like a
warm Eden; but the winter there is as cold and snowy as in the North. In addition to enduring the
cold, the heroine is forced to watch her father feed his gambling addition with countless games of
cards with The Beast. Even though she chose to visit this remote part of Italy because it had no
casino, she was unaware that every man who stays in the Beasts’ territory must play a hand of
cards with him.
The Beast is ashamed of his animal appearance and attempts to look as human as possible. He
wears a mask with a perfect man's face painted on it so only his yellow eyes are visible. He wears
old-fashioned clothing, including a wig, gloves over his uncannily large hands and a scarf to cover
his neck. He smells so strongly of cologne that the heroine wonders what sinister smell he is trying
to conceal. His actions are awkward because he forces himself to act human; the heroine says he
"has an air of self-imposed restraint, as if fighting a battle with himself to remain upright when he
would far rather drop down on all fours." Furthermore, he speaks in such an incomprehensible
growl that his valet must translate for him.
The heroine is a radiant beauty who was born on Christmas Day. She faults her father's gambling
and adultery for her mother's early death. As her father loses at cards, she tears apart a white rose
that The Beast gave her when she arrived at his house. When the heroine's father has lost all his
money to The Beast, he bets his daughter. As dawn breaks, the narrator's father loses her to The
Beast and she must her report to his estate the next day. Suddenly comprehending what he has
done, her father sobs, "I have lost my pearl, my pearl beyond price." The beast responds in a roar
that his valet translates to mean, "If you are so careless of your treasures, you should expect them
to be taken from you."
The valet arrives to take the heroine away, bearing a bouquet of white roses. When her father asks
for one as a sign of her forgiveness, she pricks her finger on it by accident and hands it to him "all
smeared with blood." She is furious to have to endure such "humiliation." The heroine wonders
what kind of creature The Beast is. She recalls her nursemaid's stories of a tiger-man who would
"gobble [her] up" if she was naughty and other tales of half-men-half-beasts. She is afraid to be
being married to and have sex with such a creature.
When the heroine arrives at The Beast's home, she finds that it is threadbare and dirty; he has
"bought solitude, not luxury, with his money." He keeps his horses in the living room and all his
furniture, including his chandeliers, under fabric. The portraits he owns are propped against the
walls so that their faces do not show. Many windows and doors are broken so that wind blows
through the house. The narrator describes the house as "dismantled, as if its owner were about to
move house or had never properly moved in."
The Beast summons the heroine to him, and the valet explains that his master's sole wish is to see
her virgin body naked. After that, he will return her to her father with all of his property and gifts.
The narrator laughs defiantly and tells The Beast that she will concede only to pull up her skirt for
him while hiding her head with a sheet. She says it is his choice whether he will pay her or not. To
her joy, she sees that she has hurt him; he cries a single tear.
The valet takes the narrator to a room that resembles a prison cell. When she threatens to hang
herself he replies, "Oh, no, you will not. You are a woman of honour." When he tries to give her a
diamond earring, she throws it into a corner. Then he introduces her to her companion, a wind-up
soubrette. It resembles the narrator so much that she calls it her "clockwork twin." In the little
mirror the soubrette holds, the narrator sees her own, tear-covered face as it was when she
arrived. He explains before locking her in the room that "nothing human lives here." Later, the
valet takes the narrator to see The Beast again. Seeing her dread at disrobing before him, The
Beast sheds another tear. For hours after that, she can hear him pacing outside her door. Then the
valet arrives with a second diamond earring. The narrator throws it into the corner with the other.
Then the valet tells her that The Beast has summoned her to come riding..
As the heroine rides with The Beast and his valet, she suddenly feels as though she is more similar
to them and the horses they ride than to anyone else she knows. After all, don't men treat her as
, less than human because she is a girl? As she puts it, "I could see not one single soul in that
wilderness of desolation all around me, then the six of us-mounts and riders, both-could boast
amongst us not one soul, either, since all the best religious in the world state categorically that not
beasts nor women were equipped with the flimsy, insubstantial things..." Men objectify her and
treat her as "carelessly" as they do animals and inanimate objects. When they reach a river, the
valet explains that if she will not let The Beast see her naked, she must see him naked instead. She
consents out of fear. When she sees The Beast as he is, a tiger, she is overcome with emotion.
Then, as a gesture of equality, the heroine removes her shirt. The beast is embarrassed, so she
goes no further. He and the valet leave her to wander while they hunt. Then all three return to the
house. When the heroine peers into the soubrette's mirror, she sees her father sitting amongst his
belongings and money. The Beast has kept his word and is sending her home.
The narrator realizes that she does not want to leave. She strips naked, which she finds to be an
excruciating task, as if she were "stripping off [her] own underpelt." She dons her diamond
earrings, wraps herself in a fur that The Beast gave her, and runs to his chamber. On the way, she
meets the valet, who is also naked. He shows himself to be an ape, "a delicate creature, covered
with silken moth-grey fur, brown fingers supple as leather, chocolate muzzle, the gentlest creature
in the world." The narrator's fur turns into black rats, which flee. She finds The Beast pacing in his
urine-tainted, bone-filled room. As she approaches him, she realizes that he is terrified of her.
Then, seeing that she accepts him, he lumbers toward her, purring so loudly that the walls shake
and windows break from the vibration. He licks her with his rough tongue, stripping off layers of
skin to reveal her beautiful pelt.
Analysis
Like the heroine of "The Bloody Chamber," the heroine of "The Tiger's Bride" tells her own tale in
retrospect, therefore claiming control of both her life and the literary tradition. The first theme that
arises is the objectification of women, with the heroine's father losing her to The Beast at cards.
Arguably, we have seen a similar transaction in "The Courtship of Mr. Lyon," where Beauty's father
is forced to give her to the Beast because he stole the rose. However in that story, the father
agrees to 'trade' his daughter's company out of fear whereas in this story, the father wagers her
carelessly, as though she were a mere possession. Carter uses diction to emphasize that this
transaction, while seeming outdated and unlikely, is not far from the objectification of women seen
in our own society. How often does a woman blush happily to hear herself called "pearl" or
"treasure?" These words are considered compliments, but Carter reveals their objectifying
overtones by having both the heroine's father and The Beast use them, respectively, in the context
of her sale. From the story's beginning, we are aware that the heroine is seen as an object that can
be bought, sold, and leveraged for her owner's pleasure and advantage.
The heroine's objectification continues throughout the story, culminating with the surprise ending.
When out riding, the heroine contends that men see women as soulless, just as they see animals
as soulless; she says, "the six of us, mounts and riders both-could boast amongst us not one soul ...
Since all the best religions in the world state categorically that not beasts nor women were
equipped with the flimsy, insubstantial things." For this reason, she feels closer to Beast, the valet,
and their horses, than she ever has to a man. Instead of wishing for a soul, she denigrates them by
calling them "flimsy" and "insubstantial"; after all, the men who claim to possess souls consider her
no more than an item of physical worth.
Carter surpasses the heroine's comparison to animals by likening her to the soubrette. Not only is
the soubrette a doll, but she powders the heroine's cheeks so that she resembles one. This
symbolism is not lost on the heroine, who ponders, "that clockwork girl who powdered my cheeks
for me; had I not been allotted only the same kind of imitative life amongst men that the doll-
maker had given her?" Moore points out that the soubrette is a "social creation of femininity"; she
embodies the vanity and vapidity that characterize society's idea of a woman. The soubrette needs
someone to wind her up so that she can perform her maid's tasks; so too, women are thought
unable to think and act for themselves. Once the heroine begins to claim her own desires, she says
that she no longer resembles the soubrette. Since she can no longer submit to society's female
stereotypes, she plans to send the soubrette home in her place: "I will dress her in my own clothes,
wind her up, send her back to perform the part of my father's daughter." Carter tells us that this
view of women weakens their character and prevents them from fulfilling their potential.
In "The Courtship of Mr. Lyon," Beauty is unspoiled and content when she lives in the country,
away from society's influence. But when she moves to the city, she transforms into a petulant
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