Skip to main content

In what ways do the stories in The Bloody Chamber challenge patriarchal values in society?

In The Bloody Chamber, Angela Carter’s collection of gothic, feminist retellings of classic fairy tales subverts patriarchal values by recasting women as the main protagonists of the stories rather than marginal characters on the periphery of the tales. By foregrounding the experiences of her female protagonists, Carter shows that the fairy tales that inspire her work uphold patriarchal values. Fairy tales often cast women as victims or monsters; she challenges these expectations by placing women in prominent roles in her gothic interpretations.


For instance, in “The Tiger’s Bride,” the young female protagonist is initially presented as a “damsel in distress,” as a victim. However, she shows a strength that is not typical of women in fairy tales. Indeed, when The Beast admits that he values her because she is a virgin, she sardonically thinks



“I wish I’d rolled in the hay with every lad on my father’s farm, to disqualify myself from this humiliating bargain” (61).



She disregards the norms surrounding normative femininity by being in touch with her dormant sexuality, until the sexual, powerful being within her emerges at the end of the text.


Likewise, in “The Werewolf,” Carter’s retelling of “Little Red Riding Hood,” Little Red is no longer cast as a victim. She instead emerges as a woman who is unafraid of violence, who can handle herself in a violent place. She wounds the titular werewolf in an altercation:



“It went for her throat, as wolves do, but she made a great swipe at it with her father's knife and slashed off its right forepaw” (169).



Thus, Carter’s recasting of fairy tales subverts the patriarchal values lodged in these stories.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...
Post a Comment
Read more

A man has a garden measuring 84 meters by 56 meters. He divides it into the minimum number of square plots. What is the length of the square plots?

We wish to divide this man's garden into the minimum number of square plots possible. A square has all four sides with the same length.Our garden is a rectangle, so the answer is clearly not 1 square plot. If we choose the wrong length for our squares, we may end up with missing holes or we may not be able to fit our squares inside the garden. So we have 84 meters in one direction and 56 meters in the other direction. When we start dividing the garden in square plots, we are "filling" those lengths in their respective directions. At each direction, there must be an integer number of squares (otherwise, we get holes or we leave the garden), so that all the square plots fill up the garden nicely. Thus, our job here is to find the greatest common divisor of 84 and 56. For this, we prime factor both of them: `56 = 2*2*2*7` `84 = 2*2*3*7` We can see that the prime factors and multiplicities in common are `2*2*7 = 28` . This is the desired length of the square plots. If you wi...
Post a Comment
Read more

What warning does Chuchundra issue to Rikki?

Chuchundra, the sniveling, fearful muskrat who creeps around walls because he is too terrified to go into the center of a room, meets Rikki in the middle of the night. He insults Rikki by begging him not to kill him. He then insults him by suggesting that Nag might mistake Chuchundra for Rikki. He says, "Those who kill snakes get killed by snakes."  He issues this warning to Rikki not to help keep Rikki safe but as a way of explaining why Rikki's presence gives him, Chuchundra, more reason to fear.  Chuchundra starts to tell Rikki what Chua the rat told him--but breaks it off when he realizes he might be overheard by Nag. He says, "Nag is everywhere, Rikki-Tikki." Rikki threatens to bite Chuchundra to get him to talk. Even then, Chuchundra won't overtly reveal any information. But he does say, "Can't you hear, Rikki-Tikki?" This is enough of a clue for the clever mongoose. He listens carefully and can just make out the "faintest scratch-s...
Post a Comment
Read more