In Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber, the theme of transformation appears throughout the short story cycle. The hero/heroine’s virginity acts as a source of strength that protects them from harm. Their lack of fear also saves them from death. Virginity acts as power of potentia, either literally or symbolically and results in a release of an observed transformative power. The bloody chamber serves a different symbolic purpose of transformation for Beauty in “The Courtship of Mr Lyon”, the heroine in “The Tiger’s Bride” and the Countess in “The Lady of the House of Love”. Each of these characters will embark on a journey that questions their selfhood in circumstances that are presented to them and ultimately each will go through a transformation involving maturation of the self, love, loss or magic.
In “The Courtship of Mr Lyon” Beauty’s father breaks a white rose from a rosebush and the Beast appears beside him and “[shakes] him like an angry child shakes a doll” (Carter 44). After this incident, the Beast allows him to take the rose home to Beauty, but in return he must bring her back for dinner. This is the beginning of Beauty’s journey that leads to her transformation. Beauty is portrayed as a pure ideal figure, associated with images of whiteness, virginity and purity. She is described as a “lovely girl, whose skin possess the same, inner light so you would have thought she, too, was made of all snow…white and unmarked as a spilled bolt of bridal satin” (41). Beauty is susceptible to change and corruptibility through access to material wealth, flattery, living in the city and the possibility of being independent of obligations to the Beast. These blind her to ideas of true value. When Beauty looks into the Beast’s eyes, she ...
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... to her pure better self, our heroine transforms into a tigress and the Countess is transformed into a human. They each enter their own destined selfhood through self reflection. However, each being must individually endure the reality of the battle and suffer in order to be reborn again and become what they are meant to be. Regardless of being human, beast or vampire, each undergo a transformation that encounter instances of loss, magic love and maturation.
Works Cited
Carter, Angela. The Bloody Chamber. New York: Penguin Books, 1993. Print
Carter, Angela. “The Courtship of Mr Lyon.” The Bloody Chamber. New York: Penguin
Books, 1993. 41-51. Print
Carter, Angela. “The Tiger’s Bride.” The Bloody Chamber. New York: Penguin
Books, 1993. 51-67. Print
Carter, Angela. “The Lady of the House of Love.” The Bloody Chamber. New York:
Penguin Books, 1993. 93-108. Print
Transformation is present in both Mad Shadows and Beauty and the Beast. Transformation and change go hand in hand in order for suffering to be understood. Suffering is understood throughout Beauty and the Beast when an evil fairy transforms the handsome prince into a hideous beast, in order to teach him a valuable lesson. The prince, “. . . remained in [the form of a beast]. . .” (41), which reflected his ugly behaviour, to teach him that there is more to life than just appearance. Therefore, he was ultimately punished for his temper and shallow behaviour. It was only when Beauty acknowledged that, “it is neither good looks nor great wit that makes a woman happy with her husband, but character, virtue, and kindness. . . .” (40). Beauty realized the importance of virtue and the transformative power of love, which freed the prince from his curse, and in the end he acknowledged the value of essence over appearance. Suffering is understood in Mad Shadows when Louise, a selfish mother, who is mesmerized by her beauty, develops a deadly disease, “Cancer! Cancer of the cheek!” (93). It is only then that she begins to accept that her pride, her beauty, is fading as the cancerous puss on her face, portrays the vile, self-centered and ...
Elizabeth Bathory is known by many different names; ‘The Bloody Lady of Čachtice’, ‘The Blood Countess’, ‘Countess Dracula’, and not without reason. In the 16th century this murderess became obsessed with achieving mastery over nature; the countess had forsaken her humanity by drinking the blood of virgins for vitality and bleeding them dry to bathe in it for her skin to be clear of imperfections and signs of aging. Often the vain become delusioned that beauty and youth preserves the body forever, when in fact, life can just as easily be ripped away young than it is when old. With torture and a side of cannibalism, Countess Bathory was not the poster-woman for mental health, but her fear of death was what drove her to go to such extremes. Humans will go to endless lengths to maintain the illusion of mastery over nature and control over life and death. Throughout Oryx and Crake, Margaret Atwood explores human nature and puts forth that humans are driven by knowledge and fear of their own mortality. She argues that humans seek to play a divine role to control their own fate and in the process, sacrificing morals and ethics to quell that fear.
In the book The Descent of Alette by Alice Notley, the book is a twist to what readers would expect. In the story, a girl name Alette is chosen for a certain mission and she goes in not knowing what to expect. Alette goes on these journey and face with challenges that she must overcome, but it is more about the destination then than the journey itself. One of the important theme throughout the book is transformation.
After meeting with the knight, La Belle allows him to temporarily make her his object of affection. Quite coyly, she returns this affection with her looks of love and "sweet moans" (19, 20).
Villeneuve uses personification in her writing to show that Beauty made her own conscious decision to stay and love the Beast, it was not because she was suffering from an illness where she falls in love with her captor. The first way that Villeneuve uses personification is when she brings monkeys into the fairy tale. She writes these monkeys to be servants to Beauty, waiting for her orders (Villeneuve 70). Villeneuve’s original version includes the birds and monkeys to have these human traits because when the fairy originally turned the prince into the Beast, another fairy turned the prince’s servants into monkeys and birds and everyone one else who was a witness of the transformation into stones, right where they stood. According to
Ladies should be depicted as strong, gracious, beautiful beings that every man needs and respects, although Meyers portrayal of this strays away from other novels based on vampires such as Bram Stokers’ Dracula. Stoker’s women are Independent and describe the perfect picture of a heroine which is defined as “‘a woman distinguish...
Angela Carter was a writer in the 1970s during the third wave of feminism that influenced and encouraged personal and social views in her writing. This is demonstrated through her own interpretation of fairy tales in The Bloody Chamber. She combines realism and fantasy to create ‘magic realism’ whilst also challenging conventions of stereotypical gender roles.
He is willing to sacrifice himself so his daughters can live in peace. Beauty offers herself up to the Beast. Poor, kind-hearted Beauty could not bear for her father to be at the Beast’s mercy, so she goes in his place. Beauty is a strong, compassionate girl who will risk her life for the ones she loves. When Beauty is with the Beast she is content with her life. She thinks the Beast is ugly and not that smart, and is still fearful of him, but she grows comfortable in his presence. As she spends more time with the Beast she also becomes more comfortable with herself and what she wants. Beauty isn’t afraid to ask Beast for something she wants, like seeing her father. While Beauty has been with the Beast her father has been dying of grief, with no one to take care of him. Beauty makes a promise to return to the Beast after a week, but her jealous sisters manipulate her into staying, and, of course, gentle Beauty just can’t leave her family behind. When Beauty finally returns to Beast she confesses to loving him, flaws and all, and Beast turns into a handsome, smart, man for Beauty to live with and
Which is caused by the narrator having a male perspective. The narrator does not give the women and credit or redeeming qualities. All the women follow a general stereotype. If they tried to break away from the stereotype, they would me more important and influential characters. Paquette, a chambermaid in the Baron’s castle, is described as “a pretty and obedient brunette” (5). She is identified obedient not because of her job as a chambermaid, but because she is willing to exploit her soul and body to the men around the castle. In regards to the old woman, she doesn’t even have an actual name, which does not matter since is ugly and useless. The old woman has the mindset that she is; an object; a mistake; a disgrace. That her time has passed as a beautiful useful woman. All the rape and abuse has physically affected her and she is out of luck. In fact, she is lucky if men talk to her, or even look at her without
In "She Walks in Beauty" the character describes a woman. He is so taken by her beauty, that it is not even her physical appearance that captures him; it is her mere presence. In his description of her, the author draws comparisons and descriptions to this woman's beauty from everywhere in nature. In the first stanza of the poem he gives her a kind of a mystical and dream like quality by comparing her to the night. The description of the eyes and the face of this phantom of the night is breathtaking, yet, somehow disturbing. "And all that's best of dark and bright / Meet in her aspect and her eyes", a face that belong to a saint and a sinner at the same time is not meant to be seen by the human eyes (Byron, lines 3-4).
Unfortunately, Mrs. Gordon, Squire Gordon’s wife, had an illness that was diagnosed by a doctor. They were forced to move to a warmer climate, moving out of England, and sell all of their horses and land. This was when Beauty’s happy life ended, when he was sold to many harsh farmers and owners. When he became a horse-for-hire, he killed a groom that was drunk. Obviously, Beauty was blamed, moving him down to the ranks of horse hierarchy, and ruining his
From Cupid & Psyche to Cocteau’s film and finally to Disney’s portrayal of this classic theme, not much has changed in the idea of Beauty and the Beast. All versions of this story have stressed the importance of being good and have even dwelled on the importance of looking behind appearance to see a person’s true nature. In order to convey his ideas and themes, Cocteau uses the beast as a lurking figure whose lack of appearance on the screen ultimately has a great effect on the viewer. The Beast that Cocteau portrays is a model for modern storytellers and has been vital in stressing the theme of genuine nature versus appearance throughout society.
Social factors have always encouraged the idea that men embody masculinity and women embody femininity and, thus, certain gender-norms are expected accordingly. In the past, such expectations were traditional and to go against them was frowned upon by the general public. Contemporarily speaking, there is more freedom to avail oneself of today than there was once upon a time. Jeanne-Marie LePrince de Beaumont’s fairytale adaptation of ‘Beauty and The Beast’ was published in 1740. During this time, men and women were compelled by the social conventions associated with their gender. When analyzing the literary work, the reader can grasp what gender roles are eminent in the characters identity and motives. By exploring the choice of language being
Marian Belle is the main character, she lives with her father who is considered by the town a loony man therefore, Belle is also looked upon the town as being a little out of the ordinary. Even so, she is the most beautiful girl in the town, her name means beauty and it is shown with her wonderful appearance throughout the duration of the movie. Gaston a very courageous and dignified worrier, who is in love with Belle and wishes to marry her. Moreover every women and man in the town look up to him and would do anything for him. Nonetheless, Belle sees right through his beauty and recognizes him as a mean and conceded fool who does not know how to love. Meanwhile there is a prince in a near by castle who wakes up to a widow knocking on his door. When he answers she offers him a rose for shelter out of the cold. When he consistently said no the widow turned into a prices. He tried to apologize but it was too late. The curse of the flower turned him into a beast. Consequently, the curse can not be broken until he finds a woman to love him from within instead of just his outside appearance.
...e ability to achieve anything in life. Hopefully, readers would learn from this novel that beauty is not the most important aspect in life. Society today emphasizes the beauty of one's outer facade. The external appearance of a person is the first thing that is noticed. People should look for a person's inner beauty and love the person for the beauty inside. Beauty, a powerful aspect of life, can draw attention but at the same time it can hide things that one does not want disclosed. Beauty can be used in a variety of ways to affect one's status in culture, politics, and society. Beauty most certainly should not be used to excuse punishment for bad deeds. Beauty is associated with goodness, but that it is not always the case. This story describes how the external attractiveness of a person can influence people's behavior and can corrupt their inner beauty.