Women In The Bloody Chamber

not just the Marquis staring at her, but many men looking directly at her, causing the heroine to feel like a piece of meat or a trapped prisoner on display. The heroine of the story is not the only character in the text that the Marquis sexually objectifies and constantly stares at, but also his dead wives. When the heroine opens the locked room, she discovers “the opera singer [lying], quite naked, under a thin sheet” (Carter 28), a skull that hangs “disembodied, in the still, heavy air” (Carter 29) and in a coffin, the latest Romanian countess lying “pierced, not by one but by a hundred spikes” (Carter 28). The heroine puts the readers into perspective of a heterosexual man and portrays women as erotic objects. Instead of having his wives

She poses the idea that not every fairy tale needs to end in marriage or women being controlled by men, but that they can be their own person. In “The Bloody Chamber,” the female character defies societal norms when she decides to take “the forbidden key from the heap” (Carter 27) and open the locked door. It is not until this moment that she forgets her role as the obedient and passive wife that she begins to develop her independence and courage to act on her own. In addition, when the Marquis realizes what she has done, he tells her that she must die. Instead of submitting and accepting her punishment, she asks, “‘Who can say I deserve or no?’ […] ‘I’ve done nothing; but that may be sufficient reason for condemning me’” (Carter 37). She goes against the image of the “ideal” women by fighting back and questioning her husband’s decision and presents herself to be more conflicted and angry than scared. Furthermore, the heroine is not the only female character in the story, but there is also the mother. In the end, her mother, “without a moment’s hesitation, [raises] [the heroine’s] father’s gun, [takes] aim and put[s] a single, irreproachable bullet through the [Marquis’] head” (Carter 40). As a result, the story ends in a non-traditional way by having her mother come to save her, rather than another male figure. In “The Erl-King,” the female protagonist also manages to break free from the stereotypical gender norms and discover her “true” self. Thorughout the story, she finds herself fully absorbed in his masculinity and charm and it is not until the end that she says, “I loved him with all my heart and yet I had no wish to join the whistling congregation he kept in cages” (Carter 90). This is the first moment in the story that she expresses her inner emotions and decides for herself the path that she wants to take. In the same