The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter
‘Putting new wine in old bottles and watching them explode’ (Angela Carter)
“To be the object of desire is to be defined in the passive case. To exist in the passive case
is to die in the passive case – that is, to be killed. This is the moral of the fairy tale about the
perfect woman.” (Angela Carter)
- The Bloody Chamber
- The Courtship of Mr Lyon
- The Tiger’s Bride
- Puss-in-Boots
- The Erl-King
- The Snow Child
- The Lady of the House of Love
- The Werewolf
- The Company of Wolves
- Wolf- Alice
Key themes in the collection
- Sexuality
- Virginity/Purity
- Femininity
- Love
- Entrapment
- Desire
- Liminality
- Metamorphosis
- Male dominance/the patriarchy
- Victims and Predators
- Violence
- Corruption
General Critical Viewpoints
- Helen Simpson: ‘The Bloody Chamber is like a multifaceted glittering diamond
reflecting and refracting a variety of portraits of desire and sexuality’
- Patricia Dunker: ‘Carter rewrites the tales within the strait-jacket of their original
structures’ - a negative, cannot move
- Mariner Warner : ‘A fantasist with wings’
Context
, Based on Bluebeard, Charles Perrault. An ugly but wealthy guy uses his money to
lure women in and gives them a set of keys instructing them that they can enter any
room except for one. The one-room the cannot enter is filled with the bodies of his
previous dead wives. The last wife manages to slip away and the moral is to keep
your curiosity and temptation under control.
The Bloody Chamber
Summary:
The unnamed female narrator marries a wealthy marquis who lives in a grand castle on the
outskirts’ of town. She loses her virginity to him, finds a collection of sadistic pornography
and he then announces that he is going away on business, he gives her the keys to each
door in the house and instructs her not to go into one chamber. As she discovers she yearns
to learn more and more and eventually goes into the chamber. She is horrified to find three
dead women- each an ex-wife of the Marquis’ who has been brutally killed by him. The
heroine tells a young piano tuner what she says and then the Marquis returns and learns of
what she’s done. She tries to escape but the Marquis finds her and swung his sword to
decapitate her. The blood on the key becomes branded on her forehead and her mother
comes and saves her.
Character list:
- Heroine
- The Marquis
- Jean-Yves
- Heroine’s mother
- Housekeeper
- Opera Singer
- The Romanian Countess
Quote Page number Character Analysis
‘Away from girlhood’ 1 Narrator
‘Her face is common 5 3rd wife Wife objectified as a
property’ whore
‘Expose her flat 5 2nd wife Innuendo- exposing
breasts and herself. Narrator
elongated thighs to seems to be critical
his brush’ of her for her ‘free’
sexuality
‘That sumptuous 5 1st Wife Describes her as an
Diva… she burned arrogant performer.
from the stage! So The idea that tealent
that you could tell dies young
she would die young’
‘Eye of a 6 Marquis Just after he had
‘Putting new wine in old bottles and watching them explode’ (Angela Carter)
“To be the object of desire is to be defined in the passive case. To exist in the passive case
is to die in the passive case – that is, to be killed. This is the moral of the fairy tale about the
perfect woman.” (Angela Carter)
- The Bloody Chamber
- The Courtship of Mr Lyon
- The Tiger’s Bride
- Puss-in-Boots
- The Erl-King
- The Snow Child
- The Lady of the House of Love
- The Werewolf
- The Company of Wolves
- Wolf- Alice
Key themes in the collection
- Sexuality
- Virginity/Purity
- Femininity
- Love
- Entrapment
- Desire
- Liminality
- Metamorphosis
- Male dominance/the patriarchy
- Victims and Predators
- Violence
- Corruption
General Critical Viewpoints
- Helen Simpson: ‘The Bloody Chamber is like a multifaceted glittering diamond
reflecting and refracting a variety of portraits of desire and sexuality’
- Patricia Dunker: ‘Carter rewrites the tales within the strait-jacket of their original
structures’ - a negative, cannot move
- Mariner Warner : ‘A fantasist with wings’
Context
, Based on Bluebeard, Charles Perrault. An ugly but wealthy guy uses his money to
lure women in and gives them a set of keys instructing them that they can enter any
room except for one. The one-room the cannot enter is filled with the bodies of his
previous dead wives. The last wife manages to slip away and the moral is to keep
your curiosity and temptation under control.
The Bloody Chamber
Summary:
The unnamed female narrator marries a wealthy marquis who lives in a grand castle on the
outskirts’ of town. She loses her virginity to him, finds a collection of sadistic pornography
and he then announces that he is going away on business, he gives her the keys to each
door in the house and instructs her not to go into one chamber. As she discovers she yearns
to learn more and more and eventually goes into the chamber. She is horrified to find three
dead women- each an ex-wife of the Marquis’ who has been brutally killed by him. The
heroine tells a young piano tuner what she says and then the Marquis returns and learns of
what she’s done. She tries to escape but the Marquis finds her and swung his sword to
decapitate her. The blood on the key becomes branded on her forehead and her mother
comes and saves her.
Character list:
- Heroine
- The Marquis
- Jean-Yves
- Heroine’s mother
- Housekeeper
- Opera Singer
- The Romanian Countess
Quote Page number Character Analysis
‘Away from girlhood’ 1 Narrator
‘Her face is common 5 3rd wife Wife objectified as a
property’ whore
‘Expose her flat 5 2nd wife Innuendo- exposing
breasts and herself. Narrator
elongated thighs to seems to be critical
his brush’ of her for her ‘free’
sexuality
‘That sumptuous 5 1st Wife Describes her as an
Diva… she burned arrogant performer.
from the stage! So The idea that tealent
that you could tell dies young
she would die young’
‘Eye of a 6 Marquis Just after he had
