Objectification Of Women In The Bloody Chamber By Angela Carter

Angela Carter’s “The Bloody Chamber,” is a visually intricate and feminist text; this feminism is portrayed through gender roles. The narrator is a young child who transitions into a woman searching for identity, and her husband’s masculine power defines it. In other words, this short story depicts gender roles and personal identity through the use of objectification of women. The deeper meaning behind the roles the men and women have may reflect Carter’s deconstruction of gender norms. The narrator enables the deconstruction by acting as a link; she conjoins two opposing ideas, like masculinity and femininity. These two opposing ideas create the deconstruction of gender norms that Carter elaborates on throughout her short story. Masculinity

The young narrator is not rescued by another male figure, but by her mother instead. Carter signifies that woman can be strong and independent: “Now, without a moment’s hesitation, she raised my father’s gun, took aim and put a single, irreproachable bullet through my husband’s head” (Carter 45). The narrator’s mother shows how she is independent and did not rely on a man to save her daughter; thus, embracing how Carter breaks the gender norm. The mother’s qualities are found in the narrator, as the narrator learns to become a woman like her mother: “Although Carter does not explicitly mention curiosity as a trait the mother has and might have modeled, the mother’s active, devil-may-care life indicates she may possess this trait” (Manley 76). The narrator is very curious, and her curiosity helps her towards becoming a woman. The narrator is curious about the locked door, but also about the femininity she posses about marriage and sex. The narrator searches for an identity in the transition of becoming a married woman. The narrator experiences being a true woman by losing her virginity to the Marquis, as she partakes in sex for the first time. The narrator learns how to appease her husband as she learns how to utilize the act of sex to her advantage. As seen later in the short story, when the keys to the chambers are given to her by the Marquis, she is able to explore the forbidden room where she

As a result of the horror installed in the Marquis’s masculine dominance, the narrator objectified herself to discover her personal identity. The transition from being a child into a married woman allows the narrator to be curious and gain knowledge that she may not have had before. The knowledge that the narrator gains challenges the masculine dominance that her husband has restricted on her. Through this lens, the intention that Carter may have is to deconstruct gender norms. In “The Bloody Chamber,” masculine dominance was the end for some individuals, but just the beginning for others to