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The Bloody Chamber Essay

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'Transgression is often an important element in Gothic writing'. Compare its uses and effects in 'The Bloody Chamber'. Angela Carter celebrates transgression through the form of short stories. The gothic element is the understanding of going beyond boundaries and testing the limits of oppressive power structures. Moreover, the publication in 1979 took action during the second wave of feminism, where political beliefs became more radical, which Carter projected through her twisted retellings of fairy tales. The importance of transgression presents through escaping and surviving the rules enforced in marriages. Carter challenges societal expectations to liberate women from the constructs of marriage. The young protagonist has a conflicted journey: …show more content…

Carter breaks down social norms and stereotypes, commonly noticed in cautionary tales tailored specifically for young girls. This is the retelling of beauty and the beast, which centre on transformation from beast to human, yet Carter twisted this idea to have beauty become the beast and equal with the tiger. The transformations gothic element became her transgression, as beauty rebelled against society's ‘baulked situation of life’, her current version she felt trapped and not adapting to her bestial nature, the simulation of life didn’t bring her anything but trapped her in the rules of society. The gothic element of ‘otherness’ is embraced, becoming perceived as a threat from her surroundings in society, by being with the tiger she feels comfortable not being alone. Overall, showing the significance of transgression as going beyond boundaries and rebelling against what is deemed as a threat. The ending presents The anticipated of the protagonist:‘Slowly, slowly’, showing an exhilarated feeling to once be true to her nature, also adding: ‘he will lick the skin of me!’ This exclamatory term brings an exhilarating shrill that she never thought to experience, she lets her past go by not returning to her father and sending her simulation in place of her. Beauty realises each layer comes off to see her ‘beautiful fur’, becoming a rebirth in life, she accepts her true nature and is liberated from uncovering her mask. Carter projects the importance of transgression through the transformation being themselves, as contemporary society enforces unrealistic beauty standards, forcing young women to lock away to fit whats beautiful, Carter enforced this needed change and using an authorial intrusion: ‘tigers will never lie down with the lamb, the lamb must learn to run with tigers’ carter messages to readers that they should proceed to action, not become needed for

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Throughout the story of the Bloody Chamber, the idea of innocence is explored. At the start, the narrator innocently dreams of a romantic marriage with a loving husband and family. However, as the story progresses, the narrator slowly loses her innocence to her new husband. Once the narrator loses this matures, she is no longer attractive to her husband. Overall, Carter use of innocence is like a veil, it covers the eyes of the innocent from the world.

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The first transformation carter presents in this story is in the creation of the snow child, after the count wishes for a girl “as white as snow/as red as blood/as black as that birds feathers” Carter implies there is a transformation between the objects and the snow child “as soon as he completed his description there she stood”. Carter uses both the power of paternal and sexual love of the count to transform the objects into the snow child; she uses this transformation to highlight the objectification of women in both 1970s British society and the gothic genre itself. Moreover, when the snow child transforms into her original objects after the bite of the rose, carter uses the roses to not only represent the negative aspects of womanhood and the way a woman is deemed worthless when her virginity is taken but to also represent the cynicism of love –in all its forms- and how it is never gained without a consequence. Similarly, in the Courtship of Mr Lyon Carter uses the love Beauty has for the beast’s true form to transform him into a human, unlike The Tiger’s Bride where the female character is transformed into a beast so that the she can be like him and quell his loneliness, in The Courtship of Mr Lyon, the lion possess human qualities and animalistic qualities unlike the tiger who just wants to be human, for instance in The Tiger’s Bride the tiger is translated by his valet whilst in the Courtship of Mr Lyon talks by himself.

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