Angela Carter - The Bloody Chamber and Other

Stories

From Angela Carter's short story selection, I

have chosen The Company of Wolves, Wolf
Alice, The Tiger's Bride and The Courtship of
Mr Lyon to be viewed from
a Dworkian perspective.

Carter is accepted as one of the most innovative writers of the postmodern period (1950s -'90s)
and is best known for her short story collections, one of which is my chosen The Bloody Chamber
and Other Stories, but is also a journalist, reviewer and playwright (Sim, 2001).
Written in 1979, at what some may call the peak of postmodernism, The Bloody Chamber series
offers a dark and satirical twist on everyone's favourite fairytales.

Postmodernism, as many literary periods are, is hard to define, but it is safe to say that
postmodernism arose from technological changes and increases, and the increased social mobility
and interactions, fluid borders, and the world-at-our-fingertips that stems from this (Malpas, 2005).
In terms of Carter's work, see below a list of postmodern features:

Systems and significance - signs and symbols

Intertextuality and metafiction

Pastiche

Against interpretation/misreading

Feminism that accepts gender binary

I will apply different works by Andrea Dworkin to four of Carter's short stories. Dworkin 'had a voice
like no other' and
'Perhaps the most prominent quality of Dworkin's writing is its ferocity: its relentless intellectual and
ideological confidence, its refusal to collapse into what Dworkin called "the quintessential feminine
pose"' (Levy, 2006, p.iii-iv).
Whilst Dworkin and Carter may not agree on some issues, it is easy to see a clear passion in both

writers about a subject in the upheaval of change, with Carter's 'telling of fairy tales [being] designed
to help kill giants in the everyday, patriarchal world' (Day, 1998, p.133).

YouTube videos
An introduction to Angela Carter:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81uU7TXH3YE
An introduction to postmodernism:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oL8MhYq9owo
Angela Carter Twitter feed via POWr through Weebly
Little Red Riding Hood GIF created by Hollie Glaves

References
Sim, S. (2001) The Routledge Companion to Postmodernism. London: Routledge.
Malpas, S. (2005) The Postmodern. New York: Routledge.
Levy, A. (2006) Foreword. In: Dworkin, A. (1987) Intercourse. New York: Basic Books.
Day, A. (1998) Angela Carter: The Rational Glass. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

The Company of Wolves

The Company of Wolves, part of

Carter's Wolf Trilogy, offers a transformation
of the 'fixed ideological and sexual dynamics
of the fairytale' (Bacchilega, 2010, p.51),
aimed obviously at adults.

The story begins by describing the wolves as grotesque and ruthless creatures, and talks of various
incidents with wolves whereby men transform into wolves, and back to human again once killed. The
second-person narrator actively tries to persuade the reader that the wolves are indeed evil by
addressing the reader directly, and switches from past to present-tense, immersing us there.
The story then turns to the specific 'Little Red Riding Hood' tale, but in true Carter-style, the wolf
does not win, and neither does the girl. The 'flaxen-haired', 'strong-minded' girl races the man (the
wolf) to her Grandmother's house, but here, instead of being manipulated by him, takes the power.
The original story (earliest version by Charles Perrault - Le Petit Chaperon Rouge and later by
the Brothers Grimm) is transformed into a seductive scene by Carter, where the girl undresses, 'since
her fear did her no good, she ceased to be afraid', and 'freely gave the kiss she owed him' as she
flung their clothes into the fire. As the story ends with the girl sleeping 'between the paws of the
tender wolf', the narrative changes to peaceful parataxis as the girl and the wolf are content.
Dworkin states, in her work Woman Hating (pdf here), that
'We ingested it as children whole, had its values and consciousness imprinted on our minds as
cultural absolutes long before we were in fact men and women. We have taken the fairy tales of
childhood with us into maturity, chewed but still lying in the stomach, as real identity' (1974, p.33)
Obviously, Dworkin has strong feminist views that Carter attempts to overturn and demonstrates
her retaliation to her own belief that 'as a woman, [her] symbolic value is primarily that of a myth of
patience and receptivity' (2015). However, both Carter and Dworkin argue for the equality of women
and often their ideas overlap. 'Carter blends the past with stark notions of sexuality and social
behaviour from the present' (Zipes, 1993, p.64) and works to make a significant point about the
changing attitudes towards women and sexuality in contemporary Western society. The story
actively objects Dworkin's view of the masculinity-repressed female by creating a character that
challenges the dominance and the power between the wolf and the girl are equal, by freely giving
herself to the wolf and openly showing her sexuality.
'Fairy tales are the primary information of the culture. They delineate the roles, interactions, and
values which are available to us. They are our childhood, and their fearful, dreadful content terrorizes
us into submission' (Dworkin, 1974, p.34-35).

Carter demonstrates a strong-willed girl that goes against the traditional fairytale and societal views
of women, and doesn't conform to the Grimm's depiction of the child, and shows the girl as
someone that 'can fend for herself in the woods and tame the wolf. The savagery of sex reveals its
tender side, and the girl becomes at one with the wolf to soothe his tormented soul' (Zipes, 1993,
p.64). By showing her sexuality and sexual decision, Carter shows that a woman can and should be
able to make sexual choices, and should not be endangered or punished by doing so, like the child in
the story.

The Company of Wolves quotes slideshow includes:

Wolf description: as cunning as he is ferocious; the eyes of wolves shine like candle flames,
yellowish, reddish; luminous, terrible sequins stitched suddenly on the black thickets; Those
slavering jaws; the lolling tongue; the rime of saliva on the grizzled chops; lean, grey, famished
snout questing under the door; came slinking out of the forest; those phosphorescent eyes.
Wolf and girl content: Snowlight, moonlight, a confusion of paw prints; All silent, all still;
Midnight; and the clock strikes. It is Christmas Day, the were-wolves birthday, the door of the
solstice stands wide open, let them all sink through; See! Sweet and sound she sleeps in grannys
bed, between the paws of the tender wolf.

A brief survey of the short story part 48: Angela Carter

The Guardian article here
The real legacy of Andrea Dworkin
The Guardian article here
Feminism Through the Ages:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQzzFfxZ9Zs
The Company of Wolves 1984 film

References
Bacchilega, C. (2010) Postmodern Fairy Tales: Gender and Narrative Strategies. Pennsylvania:
University of Pennsylvania Press.
Carter, A. (2006) The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories. London: Vintage.
Carter, A. (2015) The Sadeian Woman: An Exercise in Cultural History. London: Virago.
Dworkin, A. (1974) Woman Hating. London: Penguin Group.
Zipes, J. (1993) The Trials and Tribulations of Little Red Riding Hood. London: Routledge.

Wolf-Alice

Wolf-Alice, also part of Carter's Wolf Trilogy along with The Werewolf, follows the story of a feral
child raised by wolves.
'Could this ragged girl with brindled legs have spoken like we do she would have called herself a wolf'
(Carter, 2006, p.140).
Unable to be controlled after being found by a group of nuns, the feral girl is sent to live with the
were-wolf Duke, where she uses basic cleaning skills taught by the nuns. As months pass, the girl's
menstruation (a favourite topic of Carter's) makes her aware of time-passage, 'she had, as yet, no
direct notion of past, or of future, or of duration, only of a dimensionless, immediate moment'
(p.144). This, and becoming aware of her own reflection in the mirror as a representation of her
true-self as in Lacan's mirror-stage, makes Wolf-Alice become more human.
The girl's transformation from wolf to woman brings forth the ideas of what makes
humans human and reminds us that without culture and ideologies, we are all merely beasts. Carter
shows the influence of gender boundaries and ideologies and how they can change our perceptions
of ourselves, as Wolf-Alice becomes more immersed in human life, she becomes more aware of her
own gender and the gender constructs of society as she 'dragged out his grandmother's ball dresses'
(p.146) and began to wear petticoats, standing on two legs.
Although much of Dworkin's work is now outdated in the contemporary 2016 world, her anti-porn
work Pornography: Men Possessing Women (1979) still offers an insight into the male-power in
society and women's roles.
'A system of dominance and submission, pornography has the weight and significance of any other
historically real torture or punishment of a group of people because of a condition of birth; it has the
weight and significance of any other historically real exile of human beings from human dignity, the
purging of them from a shared community of care and rights and respect' (Dworkin, 1989, p.xxxviii).
Dworkin believes that women are demeaned, removed of their dignity and exploited by a patriarchal
society that allows and accepts pornography with disregard for the women involved. The influential

nature of pornography, given the immense scale of both popularity and profit, gives society a certain
view on women (1989). Wolf-Alice, as she becomes part of the gender identity culture and acts out
societal expectations of women, shows that without these influences, we are just beasts which are
free, not trapped.
[The story] achieves, more fully than any other tale in the collection, the resolution toward which
every tale is groping: how women may exist fully and as heterosexually sexualized of our
culture... Wolf-Alice is not strictly a fairy tale, but perhaps it is a perfectly self-conscious expression
of what fairy tale could and should be (Tiffin, 2009, p.98-100).

Tiffin, author of Marvelous Geometry: Narrative and Metafiction in Modern Fairy Tale (2009)
discusses how Wolf-Alice avoids using any psychoanalytic complexities in the characterisation (such
as Lacans mirror-stage) and excessive language (another Carter favourite), and therefore establishes
a tale of how women may exist fully and as heterosexually sexualized individuals under the
structure of our culture. Being the last story in the collection, Wolf-Alice finds a balance lacking in
earlier tales, whose intertexts and linguistic games become part of the cultural problem (p.100) and
provide a sub-text for the last tale (2009).

Read The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories here

Ryan Frank: Illustrations for The Bloody Chamber
YouTube video:
Feminism:
The award-winning 2015 Suffragette film
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HdQ0iVrl2Y

References
Carter, A. (2006) The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories. London: Vintage.
Dworkin, A. (1989) Pornography: Men Possessing Women. London: Penguin.
Tiffin, J. (2009) Marvelous Geometry: Narrative and Metafiction in Modern Fairy Tale. Michigan:
Wayne State University Press.

The Courtship of My Lyon and The Tigers

Bride

Both The Courtship of Mr Lyon and The Tiger's Bride call upon the classic Beauty and the
Beast fairytale by French novelist Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve, published in 1740. Both
short stories refer to the young and, well... beautiful, girl as Beauty, and a more unsightly creature as
Beast, as in the original. In true Carter style, many aspects of the traditional tale are carried over
(such as the rose symbol and the demanding Beast, to name a few) but with a typical unconventional
twist. The Courtship of Mr Lyon is both first (protagonist) and third-person narration and the switch
between the two is subtle, and The Tiger's Bride is also first-person narration from the protagonist to
create an air of sympathy and immersion.

The Courtship of Mr Lyon expresses Beauty as being a commodity of her father, one which he can
simply exchange and use. The whole story alludes to the 'masculine conspiracy to deny women the
chance of ever reaching autonomous, self-responsible adulthood' (Day, 1998, p.136), highlighted by
the father's immediate agreement with the Beast to bring Beauty to dinner, to save purely himself.
Beauty's father here 'accedes to an agreement based on the idea of an impersonal, unalterable law
of contract' (ibid.) and giving no thought to his daughter, shows the powerlessness of Beauty, and
women, in the male-dominated system.

'Should a young girl be marketed by her father just so he can survive? Should a young girl
sacrifice her body to protect her family?' (Zipes, 2013, p.140)
The exchange of Beauty by males and being revoked of the chance of self-determination and choice
is a strong point made by Carter.

'Women, in those bad old days, were chattel. That is, women were property, owned objects,
to be bought, sold, used, and stolenthat is, raped. A woman belonged first to her father
who was her patriarch, her master, her lord' (Dworkin, 1975, p.26).
Nowadays, and in the past few hundred years, this kind of trade of women has become almost
redundant in the Western world, but the idea of women being possessed or owned is still a common
ideology in some societies. Dworkin, in her 1975 work Our Blood: Prophecies and Discourses on
Sexual Politics (pdf here) states 'A good woman is to be taken, possessed by a gallant knight, sexually

forced into a submissive passion which would, by male definition, become her delight' (p.28).
Although the Beast does not enforce sex or imprisons Beauty, he possesses her in another way: the
Beast plays on Beauty's 'femininity' and 'her sentimental susceptibility to sickness in the male and
her stereotypical recoil from destruction' (Day, 1998, p.136). What Day refers to here is the
stereotypical features of women and how the Beast uses emotional blackmail against Beauty: 'A
combination of economic dependency and conditioned emotional susceptibility condemns Beauty to
continuing impairment and possession by the male' (ibid.).
As Dworkin states, if women were to rebel against these feminine features or if 'any woman
develops any one of these faculties [intellect, moral discernment, creativity, imaginationall are
male], we are told either that she is striving to behave like a man or that she is masculine' (1975,
p.52). Therefore, women face the challenge of being socially accepted by being what is expected, or
to rebel and be what they wish and be frowned upon. However, as with many of Dworkin's ideas,
this is now slightly outdated as feminism allows almost true equality.

Unlike The Courtship of Mr Lyon, The Tiger's Bride features a fiercer protagonist Beauty, who, when
gambled away, pricks her finger on the rose asked for by her father, showing her purity and virginity,
but also the pain caused by her father's gambling. Beauty shows her strong-willed and fierceness as
she refuses to reveal her naked-self for the Beast unless he pays, making her own choices (to an
extent) and refuses the male-figure.

'In addition, rape is our primary emblem of romantic love. Our modem writers, from D. H.
Lawrence to Henry Miller to Norman Mailer to Ayn Rand, consistently present rape as the
means of introducing a woman to her own carnality. A woman is taken, possessed,
conquered by brute force and it is the rape itself that transforms her into a carnal
creature. It is the rape itself which defines both her identity and her function' (Dworkin, 1975,
p.29).
Here, Beauty goes against this ideology and later, when the Beast undresses and reveals his true
beastliness, Beauty feels some sort of communion between animal and human. Beauty then chooses
to undress herself, although clumsy and blushing, she finds the animal nature within, against the
social constructs: 'the lamb must learn to run with the tigers'. Beauty allows her secual desire and
becomes a tiger herself.

'This girl/woman/Beauty is not being easily and lovingly transferred from

girlhood into womanhood. She is making the shift apprehensively... the contrasting rhetorics
of fear of animality and of superstition about sex on the other [hand]; together with an
awareness of her own role as a flesh-object in a commodity system and a determination to
play the game for all it was worth' (Day, 1998, p.140).

The Courtship of Mr Lyon: Beauty quotes

The Tigers Bride: Beauty quotes

This lovely girl, whose skin possess that same,

inner light so you would have thought she, too,
was made all of snow, absolute sweetness and
absolute gravity, as if her eyes might pierce
appearances and see your soul, she smiled
with both her mouth and her eyes, a young
girl who looked as if she had been carved out of
a single pearl

always the pretty one, with my glossy, nutbrown curls, my rosy cheeks, Now all I saw
was myself, haggard from a sleepless night,
pale enough to need my maids supply of
rouge, I was a young girl, a virgin, and
therefore men denied me rationality, I was
clumsy and blushed a little, for no man had
seen me naked and I was a proud girl, He
gibbered a little to see my fine furs and jewels
as if I were dressed up for the opera

The Courtship of Mr Lyon: Beast quotes

The Tigers Bride: Beast quotes

a mighty, furious roaring, vaster than the

house he owned, ponderous yet swift, and the
moonlight glittered on his great, mazy head of
hair, agate, on the golden hairs of the great
paws that grasped, Head of a lion; mane and
mighty paws of a lion, he reared on his hind
legs like an angry lion yet wore a smoking jacket
of dull red brocade, He sat, impassive as a
figurehead, at the top of the table

the yellow eyes that strayed, now and then

from his unfurled hand towards myself, I
never saw a man so big look so twodimensional, in spite of the quaint elegance of
The Beast, in the old-fashioned tailcoat, a
crude clumsiness about his outlines, thats are
on the ungainly, giant side, an odd air of selfimposed restraint, as if fighting a battle with
himself to remain upright, he wears a mask
with a mans face painted most beautifully on
it

Illustration for Beauty and the Beast by Walter Crane (1874)

Beauty and the Beast - Original trailer (1991
Disney adaptation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRlzmyveDHE

References
Carter, A. (2006) The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories. London: Vintage.
Day, A. (1998) Angela Carter: The Rational Glass. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Dworkin, A. (1975) Our Blood: Prophecies and Discourses on Sexual Politics. New York: Perigee
Books.
Zipes, J. (2013) Why Fairy Tales Stick: the Evolution and Relevance of a Genre. London: Routledge.

Resources

The Brothers Grimm collection of tales

209 tales here

READ Angela Carter and Neil Jordan's transcript of the 1984 The Company of Wolves film

Here is a (slightly) grown up Little Red Riding Hood game!

This is an alternate story of the Little Red Riding Hood in an innovative and magical platformer game
presented in slightly scary graphics.
Click here for game

Link to Scribd version

References
Bacchilega, C. (2010) Postmodern Fairy Tales: Gender and Narrative Strategies. Pennsylvania:
University of Pennsylvania Press.
Carter, A. (2006) The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories. London: Vintage.
Carter, A. (2015) The Sadeian Woman: An Exercise in Cultural History. London: Virago.
Day, A. (1998) Angela Carter: The Rational Glass. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Dworkin, A. (1975) Our Blood: Prophecies and Discourses on Sexual Politics. New York: Perigee
Books.

Dworkin, A. (1989) Pornography: Men Possessing Women. London: Penguin.

Dworkin, A. (1974) Woman Hating. London: Penguin Group.
Levy, A. (2006) Foreword. In: Dworkin, A. (1987) Intercourse. New York: Basic Books.
Malpas, S. (2005) The Postmodern. New York: Routledge.
Sim, S. (2001) The Routledge Companion to Postmodernism. London: Routledge.
Tiffin, J. (2009) Marvelous Geometry: Narrative and Metafiction in Modern Fairy Tale. Michigan:
Wayne State University Press.
Zipes, J. (1993) The Trials and Tribulations of Little Red Riding Hood. London: Routledge.
Zipes, J. (2013) Why Fairy Tales Stick: the Evolution and Relevance of a Genre. London: Routledge.