ipl-logo

Corruption In The Marquis's 'The Bloody Chamber'

1301 Words6 Pages

The narrator, though a young girl who seem to be inexperienced in the outside world is not that naïve and innocent as she is depicted. Her ideas showcase a potentiality for corruption and evilness within her. I saw him watching me in the gilded mirrors with the assessing eye of a connoisseur inspecting horseflesh, or even of a housewife in the market, inspecting cuts on the slab. I'd never seen, or else had never acknowledged, that regard of his before, the sheer carnal avarice of it; and it was strangely magnified by the monocle lodged in his left eye. When I saw him look at me with lust, I dropped my eyes but, in glancing away from him, I caught sight of myself in the mirror. And I saw myself, suddenly, as he saw me, my pale face, the way the …show more content…

I saw how much that cruel necklace became me. And, for the first time in my innocent and confined life, I sensed in myself a potentiality for corruption that took my breath away (5). The chamber described in The Bloody Chamber is a “chamber of hell” where the Marquis’ most dark, vulgar and sadomasochistic behavior is depicted. The description of this chamber is the most grotesque part of the story. The forbidden chamber to the narrator could be directly connected to the theory of abjection as proposed by Kristeva in her book Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection. When analysed from the perspective of the theory of “abjection”, the chamber in Carter’s tale opens up to a broader understanding of the tale. Kristeva, describes “abjection” as something which “disturbs identity, system, order” and “does not respect borders, positions, rules” (4). Kristeva draws her theory of abjection from Freud’s and Lacan’s psychoanalytic theories. Kristeva points out that we first experience “abjection” when we separate ourselves from our mother. “Abjection” is recognized as a revolt against that which gave us

Show More
Related

Summary Of Speak By Laurie Halse Anderson

578 Words | 3 Pages

Laurie Halse Anderson’s realistic fiction book Speak depicts the life of Melinda Sordino, a 9th grader who called the police at a party after being raped and is now a social outcast. The pain from the memories of being raped keep her silent as she struggles through a powerful depression and the problems that go with being in high school. Anderson uses mirrors as a motif throughout the story to portray the stages of depression Melinda goes through. At the start of the story Melinda leads a very depressed hidden life; Anderson uses the mirror to represent this.

Read More

Summary And Figurative Language In 'The Damage Done'

534 Words | 3 Pages

These events shape the audiences response to the novel and manipulate how we perceive these issues. Figurative language has been used in this text to portray the horrific scenes depicted in the prologue. Fellows’ most gruesome experience is illustrated through similes which enables the reader to visualise the horrid experience. He explains how the “wound opened up like a flower… worm-like creatures oozing and wriggling out of it like spaghetti” which compares this unthinkable experience to items we are more familiar with. By incorporating this simile, Fellows is able to manipulate the audience into being shocked and disgusted by the conditions of this prison.

Read More

Comparing Cask Of Amontillado And The Tell-Tale Heart

168 Words | 1 Pages

Poe’s stories “Cask of Amontillado” and “The Tell-Tale Heart” display the dark romantic theme of a man’s soul by the development of the setting, plot, and characterization. As both stories begin, the initial device used to advance the theme is setting, which remains grim and sinister throughout the duration of both stories. Accompanying these physical details is the plot, each of which includes the murder of an innocent man. Most notably, the characterization of each piece’s narrator allows the audience to fully understand their internal struggle and its final resolution. While “Cask of Amontillado” contains an overall intriguing and unexpected plot as well as setting, the narrator’s characterization proves this story to conclude in a less

Read More

Night Inhumanity Analysis

1074 Words | 5 Pages

And we were forced to look at him close range.” (pg.65). This hanging is the pinnacle of inhumanity within ‘Night’. A young boy, who is stripped of all innocence, dies painfully and slowly on the gallows for something he might not have even done. A man, even asks, “‘For God’s sake, where is God?’”

Read More

Overview Of C. S. Lewis The Screwtape Letters

789 Words | 4 Pages

In C.S. Lewis’ acclaimed “masterpiece,” The Screwtape Letters, an uncle and the devil’s worker by the name of Screwtape wrote an abundant amount of letters to his nephew, Wormwood. Both Screwtape and Wormwood are “tempters” who are trying to lead Wormwood’s “patient” into their “father’s home,” also known as hell. The Screwtape Letters, greatly told during a crucial time in Europe, portrays the main characters as imperfect, conflicting uncle and nephew, who’s biggest conflicting issue are themselves. The Screwtape Letters, written in the perspective of Screwtape, helped depict the three main characters’, Screwtape, Wormwood and “The Patient” personalities and actions throughout the story.

Read More

James Weldon Johnson Literary Devices

290 Words | 2 Pages

In this passage of James Weldon Johnson's novel reflects on his youth and his infatuation with an older girl from his church. Through the use of literary elements, such as imagery and symbolism, Johnson conveys the narrator's complex response to his crush and the emotions that it inspires in him. One of the literary elements that Johnson employs in this passage is imagery. The narrator uses vivid descriptions to convey the physical appearance of the girl, creating an almost ethereal image of her in the process.

Read More

Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl By Harriet Jacobs

1196 Words | 5 Pages

of mothers shrieking for their children, torn from their arms by slave traders? of young girls dragged down into moral filth? of pools of blood around the whipping post? of hounds trained to tear human flesh?” (Jacobs).

Read More

Examples Of Dehumanization In Night By Elie Wiesel

944 Words | 4 Pages

Eliezer, now fifteen-years-old looks at his reflection in a liberator’s mirror, the first mirror he had been given access to since he was twelve years old. Emotions overwhelm Eliezer as he sadly ponders, “From the depths of the mirror, a corpse gazed back at me. The look in his eyes, as they stared into mine, has never left me.” Eliezer saw a skeleton of the boy he once was. Three years of his life had gone by and in that time period, he had become unrecognizable to himself.

Read More

Theme Of Isolation In Laurie Anderson's Speak

736 Words | 3 Pages

To try to forget and move on from being raped, she needed to avoid looking at herself and seeing the person she has become. Ever since Melinda was raped, she has been frustrated with herself and has not been able to face her reflection. This shows that she could not face her feelings. Melinda’s coping strategy was to avoid others and avoid herself. The mirror is a symbol for her emotional struggles and that she cannot deal with them.

Read More

What Is The Mood In The Cask Of Amontillado

1054 Words | 5 Pages

The fictional short story “The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe takes place in the catacombs of Montresor’s palace, during the carnival’s climax. The story begins when Montresor, the villain of the story, vows revenge on Fortunato. Throughout the story, the author doesn't tell us what the revenge will be, but his choice of words in the details creates a mood in the reader. The author’s detailed description in the short story creates different moods in the reader like anger, satisfaction, curiosity, and victory because the chosen words connect with the audience.

Read More

The Running Man Character Analysis

905 Words | 4 Pages

By creating characters in the novel who are excluded and labelled the author demonstrates how cruel society can be to people. The purpose of this essay is to show how the author reveals the experiences of marginalised characters in society. Joseph Davidson is an introverted, fourteen year old boy who feels that he is trapped within his own world of chaos, and he too is a marginalised character in the book. It is suggested by the author that other characters believe that Joseph’s mother smothers him too much and his father has

Read More

Reflection In Fragonard's 'Allegory Of Prudence'

1676 Words | 7 Pages

Section I — Of Vanity and Reflection In Jean-Honoré Fragonard’s Allegory of Prudence, the viewer is presented with a young woman who gazes at a mirror. The painting conveys a moment of prolonged reflection and self-evaluation that encourages the viewer to pause, if only briefly, and utilize a moment of reflection in art to turn the viewing inward upon the self. Prudence’s moment of prolonged reflection is created by line, compounded by the color and lighting of the painting, and reinforced by the interactions of shape that emphasizes focus on the mirror. The painting utilizes the interaction of line, color, and scale to display the subject’s moment of reflection, but also to question the fine line between self-reflection and vanity.

Read More

Malfeasance In The Crucible

631 Words | 3 Pages

Abigail’s Malfeasance Lucius Annaeus Seneca, a Roman philosopher and writer, once said. For example, in the play The Crucible by Arthur Miller, Abigail blames and accuses others; however, she was really the center of the problem. Consequently, Abigail is the one person to blame for the Salem Witch Trials getting so out of hand. She systematically accuses more and more people, all for her agenda of being with John Proctor, and continually ramps up the hysteria whenever the villagers had reason to doubt her. Therefore, Abigail should take the blame for the Salem Witch Trials, not the town as a whole.

Read More

Sexual Anxieties In Bram Stoker's Dracula

650 Words | 3 Pages

This unsettling evokes some of the key features of the Gothic, such as the use of phantasmagoria, transgression, and excesses, all of which disturbed the reader by surrounding them with dark reflections of a reality portrayed through fiction. Pacts with the devil to obtain one’s desires, monks and aristocrats who revel in luxury — even if this means they must stain their hands with blood —, vampires and mad scientists: all corrupt one’s morals, all corrupt the false appearance of serenity. Likewise, the female vampires who torment Jonathan Harker disturb the harmony of the domestic sphere and unsettle the delicate balance between the private and the public domain. These vampiric women are marked by heightened sensuality and tacked to other fatal women that permeate art and European literature at the end of the nineteenth century. In this novel, fear and desire are often confused, a clue modern anxieties surrounding desire toward sensuous but degrading bodies.

Read More

The Pros And Cons Of Germline Gene Therapy

530 Words | 3 Pages

Human genetic engineering is a concept thought up by innovative scientists with the hopes to better the world by manipulating human genes. Somatic cell gene therapy involves the cloning of genes and reintroducing them into cells, other than egg and sperm cells. The manipulation of genomes that take place in sperm and egg cells is known as germline gene therapy and would alter the traits that a child is born with. This type of change would be inheritable and can be passed from generation to generation. However, the biggest concern with genetic engineering is its safety.

Read More

More about Corruption In The Marquis's 'The Bloody Chamber'

Related Topics

Open Document