Bloody Chamber Research Articles

“Exploring Gender and Identity in 20th-Century Literature: Feminist Perspectives in Doris Lessing's The Golden Notebook and Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber”

This research investigates the themes of identity and gender in twentieth-century literature, with an emphasis on the role of feminism in Doris Lessing's The Brilliant Notebook )1962) and Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber (1979). The research aims to examine how the two writers question and dismantle conventional gender roles, featuring the impact of women's activist ideas in molding female identity inside the setting of the sociopolitical changes of the 20th 100 years. The objectives are to examine the women's perspectives introduced in every text, research the depiction of female independence, and investigate the crossing point of gender, power, and personality in the account structures. The methodology is a relative scholarly examination, using women's activist and gender theory structures to examine the texts. Essential sources, including the two books, are broken down closely by optional academic deals with women's activist scholarly analysis. Key subjects like female freedom, the disruption of man-centric designs, and the rehash of personality are investigated through character development, narrative techniques, and imagery. The outcomes show that both Lessing and Carter utilize their attempts to challenge regulating gender builds, with Lessing's The Brilliant Notebook focusing on the fracture and remaking of female identity, and Carter's The Bloody Chamber utilizing Gothic and fantasy themes to scrutinize conventional gender roles. The conversation underlines how each creator adds to women's activist artistic talk by offering complex, nuanced depictions of ladies who explore, oppose, and eventually reshape the jobs forced upon them by man-centric culture. This study concluded that Lessing and Carter, through their specific strategies, offer tough women's dissident assessments that continue to reverberate in contemporary discussions on gender and identity. Their novels feature the phenomenal ability of writing to test gender principles and advance feminist ideologies. Keywords: Gender, Identity, Feminism, The Golden Notebook, The Bloody Chamber

DEPICTION OF WOMEN IN CARTER’S THE BLOODY CHAMBER AND ELLIS’S AMERICAN PSYCHO

Women have always been an important part of literature, no matter how were they presented. They are key characters in the development of the plots in works of all literary periods and literary movements. They are presented as victims, villains, weak, strong, intelligent, and sacrificing. This paper will bring a comparative outlook how women are presented in Bloody Chamber and American Psycho. Both Carter in Bloody Chamber and Ellis in American Psycho have women as main protagonists, and no matter these works belong to the postmodernist period, the images of women have a lot of traces from the earliest times. It means, we see women as victims of patriarchal society and families, we see them as sexually submissive and undervalued gender. They try to point out if these women are able to do something to change the way their actions and behavior are judged and how the society views them. This paper gives a comparative outline of these famous literary works, presenting a part of English and American Literature. This is what is presented in this paper, hoping that it will give a glimpse of not only women, their role and position in the society, but the whole society as well, presented in British and American literature.

THE HEROINE’S JOURNEY IN ANGELA CARTER’S THE BLOODY CHAMBER AND OTHER STORIES

Over the past decades, cis-women have obtained opportunities to demonstrate their skills and voice their opinion in what had predominantly been male-dominated settings, estab- lishing that there is no such environment unbefitting of their presence. However, this develop- ment in gender equality carries the question whether people of all genders are conditioned to change their innermost self in order to feel welcomed in Western societies which are predicated on masculine principles. In The Heroine’s journey: Woman’s Quest for Wholeness Maureen Mur- dock utilizes Jungian archetypes to examine the methods in which collective and one’s individual femininity keeps being suppressed in favor of traditionally established masculine traits. Outlin- ing each stage of the heroine’s journey, a psychoanalytic model of her own making, Murdock asserts that each individual must strike the balance between masculinity and femininity within themselves in order to complete their own, and others’, quest for wholeness. Considering that in The Bloody Chamber Angela Carter transforms masculine-driven fairy-tales into those celebrat- ing the aforementioned quest for balance, the purpose of the paper is to provide a detailed exam- ination of how Carter’s anthology follows the heroine’s journey. The paper establishes that each story corresponds to a stage in the heroine’s mythic quest, and that Murdock’s interpretation of Jungian archetypes echoes the character arcs of Carter’s heroes and heroines.

Angela Carter and Recreating Femininity in The Bloody Chamber: A Semiotic Analysis

Angela Carter's "The Bloody Chamber" stands as a transformative work in feminist literature, challenging entrenched gender norms and reshaping the landscape of contemporary storytelling. This paper delves into Carter's narrative prowess, exploring how her reimagining of traditional myths serves as a potent critique of patriarchal structures. Employing a qualitative research approach, this study utilizes a comprehensive literature review to analyse Carter's contributions to feminist discourse and the critical reception of her seminal work. Drawing on postmodern literary theories, particularly Roland Barthes's theory of myths, the paper examines Carter's deconstructive approach to storytelling and its implications for feminist literary criticism. Through meticulous analysis of Carter's narrative techniques, thematic preoccupations, and engagement with feminist discourse, this study offers fresh insights into the enduring relevance of "The Bloody Chamber" in contemporary literary studies. Ultimately, this paper contributes to a deeper understanding of Carter's literary interventions and their broader implications for gender representation and cultural discourse.

Examination of Marriage, Power, and Female Liberation in Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber

This article offers a critical reading of Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber, highlighting her portrayal of marriage in patriarchal societies as an institution rooted in control and submission. Carter illustrates that women under this oppressive institution are reduced to possessions manipulated by men. The mother who defies the stereotype of the passive woman presents a vision of liberation led by women themselves. This study explores the way Carter uses strong female figures to deconstruct and challenge the traditional narratives and aligns with feminist perspectives that advocate for women’s autonomy, resilience, and self-realization.

Improvisation and Radical Objectivization Identities in Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber: A Lacanian Reading

This research applies Lacanian psychoanalysis to scrutinize the use of improvisation and radical objectivization in Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber. Drawing on Lacan's theory of the "mirror stage," the work argues that Carter's use of these literary techniques disrupts the reader's sense of identity and challenges their preconceived notions of self and other. Through close analysis of key passages from the text, the research demonstrates how Carter's use of these techniques creates a sense of alienation and fragmentation in the reader, as they are forced to confront the unsettling and often disturbing aspects of the stories. The work also explores how Lacan's concept of the "phallus" is invoked in Carter's work, as she challenges traditional gender roles and subverts the dominant male gaze through the use of powerful female protagonists. Further, it maintains that Carter's use of these techniques, offers a powerful critique of patriarchal norms and invites the reader to engage with the complex and often contradictory nature of identity and desire. By disrupting traditional fairy tale tropes and challenging patriarchal norms, Carter invites the reader to engage with the complex and often unsettling nature of identity and desire, and offers a powerful critique of the ways in which these concepts are shaped and constructed by dominant cultural narratives.

The Significance of Colour Symbolisms in Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber (1979)

The paper seeks to critically explore Angela Carter’s use of colour symbolisms in her short story “The Bloody Chamber” (1979). By focussing on the recurrent invocation of three major colours, namely red, black and white, the paper studies how chromatic coding becomes a potent rhetorical device through which the psychological and physical implications of gendered violence are negotiated in Carter’s story. Paying close attention to the protagonist’s interaction with an aesthetically stimulating narrative world, steeped in visceral colours, the paper attempts at problematizing the politics of victimisation and female agency that underlies the entire narrative. Carter’s deployment of colour symbolisms has a quasi-theatrical dimension that tends to visualise the subversive implications of the text. Keeping that in mind, the paper seeks to crack the chromatic codes at multiple levels; for instance, red is studied in context to patriarchal violation of female bodies, as an embodiment of female desire and a manifestation of female bonding. Black is read through the lens of motherhood where it becomes a visual trope that deconstructs the prototype of an ideal mother and individualises her as a redemptive and rebellious figure. Finally, by paying attention to Carter’s use of the colour white, the paper seeks to trace its dual purpose in perpetuating invisibilization of female desire and charging the act of seeing with an agential import.

Gender, Genre and the Female Gothic: Resisting Patriarchal Norms in Angela Carter’s “The Bloody Chamber” and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”

The female gothic reinterprets works by female authors by fusing feminism and the study of gothic literature. In actuality, it represents a significant advancement in the study of gender in Gothic literature. In works written in the gothic style by women, the oppression of women in patriarchal society is reflected, and the destruction of women at the hands of patriarchy is emphasized throughout gothic art; in this sense, the resilience of the female gothic protagonists in the face of adversity symbolizes their maturation as women. Based on this context, this research attempts to compare "The Bloody Chamber" by Angela Carter with "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman from the standpoint of the feminine Gothic fiction. The dark tragedies that await women in patriarchal culture are explored by Carter and Gilman in ways that transcend beyond the normal boundaries of the gothic genre. By contrasting the narratives, this study aims to show how women begin to question and even demolish patriarchal chauvinism and move away from their subservient position in patriarchal society.

PHSYCOANALYSIS LACAN IN HEROINE CHARACTERIZATION ON “BLOODY CHAMBER” BY ANGELA CARTER

The Novella title "The Bloody Chamber" is a fairy tale story that is a fairy tale novel that takes a feminist point of view. This study aims to explore the characterization of the Heroine in the story through psychoanalysis Lacan. the method used in this analysis is the library research method with feminist criticism. The researcher found that the three-phase pass by Heroine in the story 1. the real phase when Heroine first feels married and feels an undescribed feeling. 2. Imaginary phase, when Heroine begins to identify her surroundings and discover her identity. and 3. the symbolic phase, when Heroine discovers the reality of the Marquise and the Bloody Chamber

Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber: A Hermeneutic perspective.

Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber: A Hermeneutic perspective.

Introduction: Angela Carter and Japan—A Global Perspective

There was a dreadful confusion of expectations and I never knew what was going to happen next, because of the confusion. It was both an enriching and a devastating experience, and in many ways it was an affair with Japan itself. (Angela Carter, qtd. in Bell 27) Since her premature death in 1992, Angela Carter has become recognized as one of the most important writers in the English language, with numerous edited collections, theater adaptations, documentaries, and The Bloody Chamber now on the A-Level syllabus cementing her legacy as the “white witch of English Literature” (Day 3). However, while her work has attracted both significant academic interest and popular acclaim, there is a danger that her radical feminist politics have been simplified and even sanitized in the rush to canonize her as a fairy godmother figure, locating her only in a Western literary tradition. What this special issue demonstrates is the importance of not underestimating the impact of Carter’s formative experiences in Japan on her feminist and political consciousness as a writer. The BBC documentary Angela Carter: Of Wolves and Women (produced by Jude Ho, 2018) concurs: “while Carter’s early work drew on her creepily claustrophobic childhood and miserable early marriage, it was her experience of living in Japan in the 1970s that liberated both her writing and her sexuality” (BBC). Yet the impact of Carter’s transformative experience in Japan has been critically overlooked. This special issue addresses this imbalance by bringing together a range of new readings and perspectives on the influence of her life in Japan on her writing and its politics.

Animal Tricksters from Japanese Folktales in Angela Carter’s Work

AbstractThis article explores the role of Japanese folktales in Angela Carter’s oeuvre, focusing especially on the figure of the Japanese fox trickster that appears in Fireworks, Love, and The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman. In these works, the shape-shifting body of the East-Asian fox becomes a site of conflict between contrasting categories (male/female, European/Asian, human/animal) and mirrors the process by which the characters are turned into commodified, fictionalized representations of gender and race. The trickster’s ability to shift across the animal–human border also provides Carter with a narrative device to interrogate the cultural boundaries that define both sexuality and humanity (as opposed to bestiality)—a topic that prefigures her critique of patriarchal and anthropocentric hierarchies in The Bloody Chamber.

Imperial Beast Fables: Animals, Cosmopolitanism, and the British Empire

Imperial Beast Fables: Animals, Cosmopolitanism, and the British Empire

As Red as Blood: Women's Temporality and Pain in Angela Carter's "The Bloody Chamber"

As Red as Blood: Women's Temporality and Pain in Angela Carter's "The Bloody Chamber" The story begins with a young girl. She’s lanky, shy, and doesn’t know her body, a fact which becomes apparent the morning she wakes to find blood on her sheets for the first time. My adolescent years were painful, awkward, and bloody. Nonetheless, I learned how to wash the stains from my sheets and take care of my body when it was hurting. I learned that becoming a woman was something to be celebrated, but quietly. A woman’s menstrual cycle is used by society to dictate womanhood. It is difficult, however, to control something that is so persistent. Women’s pain is timeless—it is present each month whether society deems it acceptable or not. Fairy tales, too, are timeless, consistent in their punishment of women’s pain. Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber reinvents the fairy tale, encouraging us to ask more of those traditional stories by allowing women’s time to expand—much like a womb—making room for pain and desire. Between countesses with a taste for blood and girls who are more wolf than woman, Carter embraces the cultural anxiety that becoming a woman is a threatening and monstrous process. My paper blends research with the fairy tale genre to offer a performative analysis of The Bloody Chamber, asking readers to reach beyond the boundaries of academic writing, much like Carter’s retellings. Here, becoming a woman is a thing to be celebrated, and loudly. Here, we are allowed to exist, blood and all.

The Use of Intertextuality in The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories

The Use of Intertextuality in The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories

Fade In: Spiral biting a pinkie cuticle and Other Poems

The following corpus of four poems indicates a knowledge and engagement with the retelling of antiquated myths in art and fiction. Chew and Swallow was informed by Francisco Goya’s Saturno devorando a su hijo (Saturn Devouring his Son), painted between 1820 and 1823. The poem investigates acts of masochism in terms of male-centric violence. It was a pity about her eyes is directly inspired from readings of John Polidori’s The Vampyre: A Tale (1819) and Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber (1979). Like Chew and Swallow, this poem explores acts of cannibalism, masochism and violence. However, It was a pity about her eyes is an exploration into the traumatic effect of sexual violence caused by men. I wrote Fade In: Spiral biting a pinkie cuticle in the form of a free verse poem that is aesthetically structured in the format of a script/screenplay. The truest moment of reflection is a palindrome; therefore, lines are repeated in descending order towards the end to demonstrate a reflective conversation between the speakers. The selected poems focus on intricate themes of the self, horror and violence and the speakers go through a psychological process related to their mythological intertexts as each poem goes on. I close many of the poems with affirmed definitive statements reflective of newfound ideas.

Angela Carter’ın Kanlı Oda adlı Kısa Öyküsünde Homme Fatale Erkeğin Portresi

Angela Carter’s “The Bloody Chamber” is her most anthologized short story among all her other short stories. The importance of this story stems from the fact that it shows the writer’s most talented art of short story writing and also the most interesting themes a postmodern writer would ever deal with. One of the most interesting themes of this short story is the role of the homme fatale. This word homme fatale is derived from French, which means the fatal or destructive man. This man first tempts his victims and then enjoys killing them. Carter’s entire story is concerned with the Marquis’ acts of torturing and killing his wives. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to examine the role and the portrayal of the main villain of the short story, the Marquis, and his monstrous acts of torturing and killing his wives very sadistically. As an homme fatale, the Marquis first seduces his wives and entraps them in order to marry him, then after enjoying them sexually he tortures and kills them. The only survivor of his wives is in fact the narrator of this story, who shows aptly the real features of the Marquis.

“Castration or Decapitation?” A Feminist Reading of Two Stories by Angela Carter

This article examines two stories by Angela Carter, “The Bloody Chamber” (1979) and “The Executioner’s Beautiful Daughter” (1974) to account for Carter’s unique and ambivalent dismantling of patriarchal myths. Carter conflates two patriarchal tropes, castration and decapitation, to figure the oppression of women while allowing for an avenue of resistance. Using the French version of feminism, the work of Hélène Cixous in particular, the psychoanalytic theories of Freud and Lacan, and the postmodern critique of Linda Hutcheon, the article contends that Carter uses the trope of decapitation to link beheading to loss of agency and thus to serve her project of exposing violent patriarchal and sexual structures. She utilizes decapitation to interrogate female inferiority and project its castrating impact on those women who are threatened with this punishment. Decapitation, however, becomes a means of undermining patriarchal logic from within since Carter reverses its targets and logic just as she does with castration. Carter’s act of conflating castration and decapitation and unsettling their connotations revises power structures and challenges attributing castration to men and decapitation to women, offering a postmodern critique of patriarchal fixities, oppressive boundaries, and negative gender constructions imposed on women.

ДЕМИФОЛОГИЗАЦИЯ КУЛЬТУРНЫХ КОНСТРУКТОВ ВОЛШЕБНЫХ СКАЗОК В РАССКАЗАХ АНЖЕЛЫ КАРТЕР

The paper focuses on culture stereotypes embodied in fairy tales and the ways of their representation in twice-told tales. The awareness of pressure of stereotypes in culturally central texts led to their persistent revision by the 20th century women writers. In “The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories”, Angela Carter appropriates some of Charles Perrault’s classical plots calling it a “demythologizing business”. The paper studies “social fictions” regarding women scrutinized in Carter’s reinterpretations of Beauty and the Beast plot. As their overall structure analysis testifies, critical approach to conventional culture’s concepts of gender predetermines the mode of narration - “stories about fairy stories” and female character perspective. These allow for the use of metacommentary that centres on economic issues concerning young women. Alongside with their fears, these issues are thematised by foregrounding recurrent motifs and law words. As the research shows, the major female character’s motivations that their flat prototypes lack are exposed; the 1st person narration also absent in the pretext permits the author to articulate criticism of “social fictions” underlying classical fairy tales through the female character’s mouthpiece in feminist terms. The introduction of a foil triggers the female character’s self-discovery and the multiple reinterpretations of the same plot shattering its ruthless changelessness provide new life scenarios for her.

DEMYTHOLOGISING SOCIAL FICTIONS IN ANGELA CARTER’S REINTERPRETATIONS OF FAIRY TALES

The paper focuses on culture stereotypes embodied in fairy tales and the ways of their representation in twice-told tales. The awareness of pressure of stereotypes in culturally central texts led to their persistent revision by the 20th century women writers. In “The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories”, Angela Carter appropriates some of Charles Perrault’s classical plots calling it a “demythologizing business”. The paper studies “social fictions” regarding women scrutinized in Carter’s reinterpretations of Beauty and the Beast plot. As their overall structure analysis testifies, critical approach to conventional culture’s concepts of gender predetermines the mode of narration - “stories about fairy stories” and female character perspective. These allow for the use of metacommentary that centres on economic issues concerning young women. Alongside with their fears, these issues are thematised by foregrounding recurrent motifs and law words. As the research shows, the major female character’s motivations that their flat prototypes lack are exposed; the 1st person narration also absent in the pretext permits the author to articulate criticism of “social fictions” underlying classical fairy tales through the female character’s mouthpiece in feminist terms. The introduction of a foil triggers the female character’s self-discovery and the multiple reinterpretations of the same plot shattering its ruthless changelessness provide new life scenarios for her.