Book Review of The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories by Angea Carter

Angela Carter’s ” The Bloody Chamber And Other Stories” is a collection of short stories written in the style of traditional fairy tales. The thrust of these stories is the objectification of women. Carter uses the fairy tale style as a way of exploring female power, desire and sexuality and adeptly uses the fantasy framework to explore feminist ideas.
Throughout these stories, young females are portrayed as passive beings in the beginning of the stories but it becomes clear in each that passivity is not celebrated in women.
The first of these stories, “The Bloody Chamber” is based on the Bluebeard tale in which his wife is forbidden from entering a particular room in the castle and when she does discovers the dead bodies of his former wives. In this story, the Marquis finds out that his wife has entered the room and decides to kill her but with the help of her mother and the blind piano tuner the Marquis is killed and the heroine inherits all of his money. She gives the estate away and lives the rest of her life with her mother and the blind piano tuner.
The next stories are cat tails, the first two of which are based on Beauty and The Beast. The third is called ” Puss-in-Boots”, a very funny piece with the cat as narrator. Following that there are three stories what are thematically similar in that lovers are portrayed as lethal partners and sex leads to death. Finally the last three stories are werewolf stories loosely based on the tale of Little Red Riding Hood.
Transformation is a common these in all of these stories. In fact these stories act as reminders that human beings can change. In “The Courtship of Mr. Lyon” or “The Tiger’s Bride” the heroine struggles to experience herself as an individual instead of an ob...

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...ses, as a symbol of purity but also as a way of reflecting the dangers of objectification. Pricking of the finger on a rose thorn, for example, acts as a reminder that objectification hurts.
Through the fairy tale genre Carter is able to present violence, power and sexuality in a way that makes them feel like a normal part of existence. Within the fantasy, those characteristics are not questioned. They are accepted as part of the story.
Overall, in these fairy tales Carter succeeds in delivering a feminist message and provides a counter argument for the moral message of traditional fairy tales in which young women were encouraged to remain obedient and pure. Unlike in earlier fairy tales, in these stories it is the straying from the path that results in transformation and releases women from the subjugation that women over history have been subjected to.