The Bloody Chamber
Context
France 1900, Third Republic = decadence + corruption
Gilles de Rais – 15th century French marshal, baron of Brittany – crimes
inspired Bluebeard tale.
“Le Barbe Bleue” – 1697 Charles Perrault = moral tales against curiosity/
dangers of challenging power of aristocracy. “Curiosity may only be
satisfied at the price of a thousand regrets.” Irony “No modern husband
would dare be half so terrible.” “It’s easy to see which of the two is the
master.”
Carter = ‘sexual awakening’ parodies erotic literature strong
statements about violence, exploitation, alienation, loneliness in
contemporary relationships. Doesn’t presume wife is always master.
Foreword to translation of Perrault’s tales “each century tends to create
or re-create fairy tales after its own taste.”
Suffering = source of enlightenment
“The Cabinet of Edgar Allan Poe” – Elizabeth and Virginia Poe, mother and
wife
Stylistic tour de force = grotesque overstatement and excess. Original
Renaissance, Bakhtin = “grotesque realism”
“The Sadeian Woman” – cultural significance of life and writings of de
Sade. Twentieth century Madame d’Aulnoy
Fantasy – Fireworks and Nights at the Circus (women with wings)
Lush, erotic, rhythmic prose
Tension = ironic quality - know from start that narrator survives –
overwhelming suspense when conditions for it are non-existent –
simultaneously intense emotional involvement + detached admiration for
storytelling skills.
Dance of death and the maiden – maiden wins
Interpenetration of death with richly positive facets of life – wealth,
beauty, youth, sexuality
The Sadeian Woman: myths – “consolatory nonsense” goddess images =
women flatter themselves into submission
Dementer-Persephone myth – archetypal descent into hell of the self,
slaying of monstrous keeper of realm of riches
Girl rescued = turns tables on age-old literary tradition of Love in the
Western World
Bluebeard – woman’s actions defined by husband’s will – silent + obeys
him/ tempted to disobey actions = reaction to his instructions.
Fragmented page layout “The next day, we were married” – gap = isolation in
marriage, loss of domesticity and childhood, physical and emotional.
Narrative voice
Unlike traditional fairy tale – heroine narrator 1st person, has voice,
empowers woman, traditionally male-dominated role of storyteller and
survivor.
, Unnamed – Rebecca
Mother
Amazon Tribe lived without men, cutting off right breasts to use
weapon better = added later = adopting masculine traits disfigures
women = unnatural
“Adventurous” “indomitable”
Pirates, plague, man-eating tiger
Poverty b/c marrying for love, widowed (marriage bad thing?)
Deus ex machine – contrived but apt for narrative style of fairy tale
Usurps male in Bluebeard tale where brothers save protagonist
“Are you sure you love him?” normally mothers want marriage for
children.
Female – direct speech – says something important and intelligent
Nemesis: goddess of Greek mythology of retribution and vengeance,
punished mortals who set themselves against the gods.
Memory of father = sadness of losing him “a legacy of tears that never quite
dried.”
Feminist revisions of mythic archetypes described by Estella Lauter in Women as
Mythmakers
Acknowledges glamour of sado-masochistic self-annihilation, brutality, ugliness,
misogyny = absolute necessity of feminist redefinition of pleasure
Heart on forehead
Shame and courage, broke patriarchal tattoo with love
Fear of love = obstacle to freedom, Carter: “It is in this holy terror of love
that we find…the source of all opposition to the emancipation of women.”
Inversion of medieval tradition – bloodstain = virtue and innocence
Guilt and sin
Mark of Cain
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter: Hester Prynne wears a scarlet
letter “A” = adulterer
Magical element = fairy tale
Celebration of heroine’s vitality, sensuality, thirst for adventure, love of
experience. Shame and guilt = coming to terms, acceptance of responsibility
First paragraph = feverish tone “delicious ecstasy”, “burning cheek”, “pounding
heart”. Penis envy Clichéd phallic imagery of train’s “great pistons ceaselessly
thrusting”. Detached narrative
Journey/Rebirth
Metaphor for emotional and physical journey
Leaves security of childhood home into “unguessable country of
marriage” – Hamelt – death = “undiscovered country from whose
Context
France 1900, Third Republic = decadence + corruption
Gilles de Rais – 15th century French marshal, baron of Brittany – crimes
inspired Bluebeard tale.
“Le Barbe Bleue” – 1697 Charles Perrault = moral tales against curiosity/
dangers of challenging power of aristocracy. “Curiosity may only be
satisfied at the price of a thousand regrets.” Irony “No modern husband
would dare be half so terrible.” “It’s easy to see which of the two is the
master.”
Carter = ‘sexual awakening’ parodies erotic literature strong
statements about violence, exploitation, alienation, loneliness in
contemporary relationships. Doesn’t presume wife is always master.
Foreword to translation of Perrault’s tales “each century tends to create
or re-create fairy tales after its own taste.”
Suffering = source of enlightenment
“The Cabinet of Edgar Allan Poe” – Elizabeth and Virginia Poe, mother and
wife
Stylistic tour de force = grotesque overstatement and excess. Original
Renaissance, Bakhtin = “grotesque realism”
“The Sadeian Woman” – cultural significance of life and writings of de
Sade. Twentieth century Madame d’Aulnoy
Fantasy – Fireworks and Nights at the Circus (women with wings)
Lush, erotic, rhythmic prose
Tension = ironic quality - know from start that narrator survives –
overwhelming suspense when conditions for it are non-existent –
simultaneously intense emotional involvement + detached admiration for
storytelling skills.
Dance of death and the maiden – maiden wins
Interpenetration of death with richly positive facets of life – wealth,
beauty, youth, sexuality
The Sadeian Woman: myths – “consolatory nonsense” goddess images =
women flatter themselves into submission
Dementer-Persephone myth – archetypal descent into hell of the self,
slaying of monstrous keeper of realm of riches
Girl rescued = turns tables on age-old literary tradition of Love in the
Western World
Bluebeard – woman’s actions defined by husband’s will – silent + obeys
him/ tempted to disobey actions = reaction to his instructions.
Fragmented page layout “The next day, we were married” – gap = isolation in
marriage, loss of domesticity and childhood, physical and emotional.
Narrative voice
Unlike traditional fairy tale – heroine narrator 1st person, has voice,
empowers woman, traditionally male-dominated role of storyteller and
survivor.
, Unnamed – Rebecca
Mother
Amazon Tribe lived without men, cutting off right breasts to use
weapon better = added later = adopting masculine traits disfigures
women = unnatural
“Adventurous” “indomitable”
Pirates, plague, man-eating tiger
Poverty b/c marrying for love, widowed (marriage bad thing?)
Deus ex machine – contrived but apt for narrative style of fairy tale
Usurps male in Bluebeard tale where brothers save protagonist
“Are you sure you love him?” normally mothers want marriage for
children.
Female – direct speech – says something important and intelligent
Nemesis: goddess of Greek mythology of retribution and vengeance,
punished mortals who set themselves against the gods.
Memory of father = sadness of losing him “a legacy of tears that never quite
dried.”
Feminist revisions of mythic archetypes described by Estella Lauter in Women as
Mythmakers
Acknowledges glamour of sado-masochistic self-annihilation, brutality, ugliness,
misogyny = absolute necessity of feminist redefinition of pleasure
Heart on forehead
Shame and courage, broke patriarchal tattoo with love
Fear of love = obstacle to freedom, Carter: “It is in this holy terror of love
that we find…the source of all opposition to the emancipation of women.”
Inversion of medieval tradition – bloodstain = virtue and innocence
Guilt and sin
Mark of Cain
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter: Hester Prynne wears a scarlet
letter “A” = adulterer
Magical element = fairy tale
Celebration of heroine’s vitality, sensuality, thirst for adventure, love of
experience. Shame and guilt = coming to terms, acceptance of responsibility
First paragraph = feverish tone “delicious ecstasy”, “burning cheek”, “pounding
heart”. Penis envy Clichéd phallic imagery of train’s “great pistons ceaselessly
thrusting”. Detached narrative
Journey/Rebirth
Metaphor for emotional and physical journey
Leaves security of childhood home into “unguessable country of
marriage” – Hamelt – death = “undiscovered country from whose
