Carter expanded on representations of sexual violence and her interest in the Marquis de Sade in The Sadeian Woman (1979). The Bloody Chamber depends for its interpretation on stories that have shaped Western culture and identity. The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter was published in 1979, a time when distinct patriarchal roles were present, and women were treated as objects in society. ENGL 2370 A Feminist Critique of Bluebeard In 1979, Angela Carter wrote “The Bloody Chamber,” a retelling of Charles Perrault’s famous children’s fairytale, “Bluebeard.” Like “Bluebeard,” Carter tells the story of a wealthy aristocrat with a sadistic compulsion to murder his wives. Carter called her variation on this story ‘The Bloody Chamber’, a title laden with significance. By Rosalyn Stilling. Consequently, Carter portrays powerful female sovereignty through the heroine and her brave mother, and therefore reconfigures the traditional motif of female weakness in traditional fairy tales. To begin with, the titles are strikingly distinct. The grand castle we see in numerous fairy tales is redefined and here becomes the larger container of the bloody chamber itself, it is seductively captivating, yet eerily isolated, it seems to exist “neither on the land nor on the water, [it is] a mysterious, amphibious place” (Carter ‘The Bloody Chamber’ 9), illustrating how Carter re-appropriates core elements of traditional motifs for her own purposes. She almost succeeds in seducing her husband, by using the male desire for innocence against him, “a dozen vulnerable, appealing girls reflected in as many mirrors… if he had come to me in bed, I would have strangled him” (Carter ‘The Bloody Chamber’). Alice Carter did not follow the stereotype of ignorant women. C@�Pa0�Tذ�A�� }����i�./a4�L�}� ZwT��V�~��0�)�i�R ���0��A��� When initially asked by her mother if she is certain she loves the Marquis, she replies, “I’m sure I want to marry him” (Carter ‘The Bloody Chamber’), thus demonstrating her initial fixation on marriage because it is the next stage in her socially conditioned female role. Indeed, Carter is redefining the basic associations of women in fairy tales, innocence is inferior to knowledge, sexuality is empowering not degrading and the knight in shining armour may be a “indomitable mother” (Carter ‘The Bloody Chamber’) riding to the rescue or even the heroine herself in her conquering of individual fears or social convention. R�A�����L�2��(`�XV0X0L�$.��Y��I��0BvP�2!=���,F�.V�������B""Z(0Dj0qDI!��'�DDh��Dh��&1]�N��;S���D��DDDG����V�K��it�����꿯�Ҭ}�}j�P�A��k��, ��}sB�% x�3�34R0 A#9������ ,�`fe ��= \�� � Each woman gives into her curiosity which is revealed by the blood stained key, yet while the previous wives are killed by Bluebeard and locked in the chamber, the cycle is broken when his current wife is rescued just in time and he is then killed. However, what Carter depicts in The Bloody Chamber and The Sadeian Woman is an alternative view of women’s sexuality as entirely unrelated from their reproductive and biological role. Coming from the European oral tradition, the first, and most famous, written version is Charles Perrault’s La Barbe Bleue, published … ( Log Out /  "The Bloody Chamber" has many of the same elements of Bluebeard… �=5���!��(OD3�T��!��O��gw�H/�� �M�a���!�Bm����@��h�z ��p�6�7�@���a�"mCH��0� �6�/J�ݺ���CI�uA7��E B!����6�o�I��A�頛P�H �tՆ����Q�@�:��M�O�7Ɠt�iAwI���i7��M�����~��ti&�]�o�W�����t��+V�Pҽ�Ӻ� b��m�/ +��z�n�t�b�j��6u�m]'�m&Ρ� [�A��ޓh �T���A�j��^���[ X@º��i�~���å�ZVa׆�Ҵ{T�d}��ï5]6������~������P����t�}7�I����n���j����_��~������m�t���I��[�Wa�? Coming to terms with her potential for corruption signifies her maturity and “acceptance of responsibility rather than destructive self-depreciation” (Lokke). Bluebeard, murderous husband in the story “La Barbe bleue,” in Charles Perrault’s collection of fairy tales, Contes de ma mère l’oye (1697; Tales of Mother Goose).In the tale, Bluebeard is a wealthy man of rank who, soon after his marriage, goes away, leaving his wife the keys to all the doors in his castle but forbidding her to open one of them. Nevertheless, the end of ‘The Bloody Chamber’ has caused some debate among critics. @�'��ȫ;�0��P�ڬu � �$q�N��Q�0d�1����)Z ������+"���@�@ʘ`��Q�b�,��d�!%AK�hA�� `�T�. Carter’s marvellously gothic title story, ‘The Bloody Chamber’ is a feminist re-write based on Charles Perrault’s traditional fairy tale, ‘Bluebeard’. Such deconstruction results in an entirely new collection of stories which convey liberating realities for women, where they can live independently of patriarchal dominance or exist simultaneously through mutual desire, as shown in ‘The Tiger’s Bride’ or ‘The Company of Wolves’. She bursts out laughing and says “she knew she was nobody’s meat” (Carter) in response to the traditional exchange between the wolf and herself over the animals large teeth which are “all the better to eat you with” (Carter 138). Angela Carter’s “The Bloody Chamber” is a touchstone of postmodern fairy tale revisions, deftly marrying the latent content of Charles Perrault’s “Bluebeard” with her entrancing and opulent prose. “The Bloody Chamber” is a pulse-racing revision of the Bluebeard legend, and “Puss in Boots” had me laughing out loud at the bravado of the randy old cat. The mark is a constant reminder of her knowledge of the human heart and forces her to realise she need not give into marital convention just because it is socially acceptable or economically beneficial. Like Bluebeard, the Marquise entices each new wife to explore the forbidden chamber and then kills her once she has discovered his secret. This shifting focus towards the woman’s physical and mental journey is “foreign to the traditional fairy tale” (Lokke) and provides us with an exuberant reading experience that “actively engages the reader in a feminist deconstruction” (Makinen). He also had several wives and nobody knew what become of them. Carter then cleverly uses these inherent expectations to alter how we view the intensified sexual descriptions and violent images in her tale; subsequently we are forced to question rigid sexual binaries and gender definitions. Despite Duncker’s opinion that the girl from ‘The Company of Wolves’ simply sees rape as inevitable, “she wants it really, they all do.” (qtd in Gamble) and that Carter fails to transcend ideology, this particular reading of sexual awakening feels incomplete and limiting. ��0�>� �(:!�y8�@ >����4�2[����A���z�n �O�@���e��N����w�y�@��v�A�M׼,=S~��]��I�n�����oӪ��[���[�%Z]��S��O_���K��}^�ҿV����.��%����S���U�����K_�Ii.��W�����%�V���[�z����W]R�-~�t���֗��A}k���Z�]z����_�Ia�_T���W�����4ץ��KS�/;#2Y�(�A`���F��%yS�H�#! [��H�B��i�.� ���*�A���hL�P\��)|�N����hL�]�&� `� �fd�hYd�aL ��w@�2Xſ�I6ALai�� {o� ��O� We are thus forced to question the depictions of gender, violence and sex in traditional tales and motifs. The opening tale, "The Bloody Chamber," is a direct feminist retelling of the legend of Bluebeard. The Appropriation of Perrault’s “Bluebeard” in Carter’s “The Bloody Chamber” and “The Piano”. Jane Campion’s film The Piano (1993) also retells the Bluebeard story within the context of nineteenth-century New Zealand. The protagonist’s experiences in the castle continually transition between the sensual and the violent and the language is extremely perfumed and poignant. “I am all for putting new wine in old bottles, especially if the pressure of the new wine makes the old bottles explode” -Angela Carter. Jessamy Baldwin is an avid globetrotter and Bristol based freelance writer. Any support or donations you are able to give - however small - makes a huge difference and help us keep our rulebook open. The youngest daughter thought he was mighty civil gentleman even though he had a blue beard. This collection of bloody, erotic, feminist fairytales can be found a touchstone in many compilations of modern fairytales and feminist lit. 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