In the first narrative of 'The Bloody Chamber', it is the narrator who embodies the seductress and the trembling victim- for example towards the end of the narrative, after the narrator has seen the "bloody chamber" filled with the Marquis dead wives, who are ornamented in a passive, grotesque and perverse manner, that she learns the Marquis has returned home and she knows that to stay alive she must force herself "to be seductive" otherwise she will end up in a simular situation to his previous wives. It's at this point she understands that to live she must manipulate her husband through the use of her body, due to the patriarchal system, as she is bound to him and simply cannot leave due to the tie of marriage.
In contrast to the seductress is the innocent virgin, a moment that captures this is when she and the Marquis are at the Opera at the start of the narrative and she has "his wedding gift" "clasped" around her throat. The "choker of rubies" is significantly symbolic as it is used to foreshadow how the Marquis plans to decapitate her. This is forewarned when the reader learns it was the Marquis' Grandmothers who wore it to show she had "escaped the gulliotine" at the time of the French Revolution. It is that she is blissfully unaware of its irony and more aware of how it "became" her that she is seen as innocent and naïve.
Although the Gothic genre typically uses stock characters based on stereotypes due to our patriarchal society and its values of how a gender should be culturally constructed, Cater disregards this Gothic structure towards the end of the narrative (and displays it in her other narratives such as 'The Erl King' or 'The Lady of the House of Love') by deconstructing the stock character to enable her to exploit her own literary purpose of being a post-modern feminist writer. This is shown through the use of the narrators mother becoming the "avenging angel" as she liberates herself from the conventional gender role to a female predator who hunts and kills the Marquis, "without a moment's hesitation". Originally in 'Blue Beard' (the fairytale the narrative is based upon) it is her brother, a male who saves the damsel in distress, but Carter may have used the mother for two purposes: the first could be to expose the uncomfortable truth of how we have been conditioned to think patriarchally through the use of fairy tales from a young age, a view supported by Bettle Heime, or to challenge the hegemonic ideology that has entrapped women and men in certain roles and duties within society. By making the normal marginalised and making what was marginalised normal, she is able to exploit what we know and challenge our way of thinking, making us question what we know. But a problem with 'marginalising' the centre of our 'normal values' and making the marginalised become a normal value, is that the marginalised will always become central if literary Gothic writers keep using this technique to try to shock the readers, this means that it won' have the effect on readers that it would of orignally had (for example in the Victorian Era).
In contrast to the seductress is the innocent virgin, a moment that captures this is when she and the Marquis are at the Opera at the start of the narrative and she has "his wedding gift" "clasped" around her throat. The "choker of rubies" is significantly symbolic as it is used to foreshadow how the Marquis plans to decapitate her. This is forewarned when the reader learns it was the Marquis' Grandmothers who wore it to show she had "escaped the gulliotine" at the time of the French Revolution. It is that she is blissfully unaware of its irony and more aware of how it "became" her that she is seen as innocent and naïve.
Although the Gothic genre typically uses stock characters based on stereotypes due to our patriarchal society and its values of how a gender should be culturally constructed, Cater disregards this Gothic structure towards the end of the narrative (and displays it in her other narratives such as 'The Erl King' or 'The Lady of the House of Love') by deconstructing the stock character to enable her to exploit her own literary purpose of being a post-modern feminist writer. This is shown through the use of the narrators mother becoming the "avenging angel" as she liberates herself from the conventional gender role to a female predator who hunts and kills the Marquis, "without a moment's hesitation". Originally in 'Blue Beard' (the fairytale the narrative is based upon) it is her brother, a male who saves the damsel in distress, but Carter may have used the mother for two purposes: the first could be to expose the uncomfortable truth of how we have been conditioned to think patriarchally through the use of fairy tales from a young age, a view supported by Bettle Heime, or to challenge the hegemonic ideology that has entrapped women and men in certain roles and duties within society. By making the normal marginalised and making what was marginalised normal, she is able to exploit what we know and challenge our way of thinking, making us question what we know. But a problem with 'marginalising' the centre of our 'normal values' and making the marginalised become a normal value, is that the marginalised will always become central if literary Gothic writers keep using this technique to try to shock the readers, this means that it won' have the effect on readers that it would of orignally had (for example in the Victorian Era).
Carter also presents the predatory male who pursues the the trembling victim in the Marquis, a powerful man who smells of "leather and spice" and walks on "soles of velvet", a true predator to catch the female prey who are allured to his power and presence. Carter shows the reader how dominant and predatory the Marquis is by revealing how he enjoys to refiey women. For example when the reader learns how he goes away to hunt "young girls" with "dogs". The reason why Carter may be using 'strong' and 'upsetting' imagery, is to reveal how women are seen- as the weaker sex. And as women are seen as sterotypically feble and docile, due to the passive, patriarchal gender roles of society, it means that they are prey to male predators who wish to tarnish their purity or simply enjoy the chase.
Furthermore the Marquis revels in their suffering as he performs his ritual on the women "branding" their forehead with the "mark of Cain" which orginates from Genesis 4 in the bible. The mark was placed on Cain's head for killing his brother Abel, this mark warned people not to kill or harm Cain as if they did it would come back on theirselves sevenfold.
It could be said that the Marquis may perform this act to mentally torture the women, to make them fear and anticipate their oncoming death which makes them subordinate. But it may also be performed to show his addiction to the feeling of dominance and power over women- by performing the same act as God he is userping the power from a feared religious figure and making himself at the same status quo. This could be Carter making a mockery of religion which capitilism is structured from, as a Marxist would believe man has used religion to force women in obedient and dominanted gender roles. Or to create the imagery of a formal finality of their death, resulting in a lack of hope as they believe in the illusion that they cannot defy the power of a God.
In addition, when the narrator discovers the "bloody chamber" she also discovers what happened to his past wives. Throughout the narration there was an ambiguity about what happened to his wives, and Carter structurally builds the tension by increasing the prominence of the Marquis 'sick', 'twisted' and 'psychopathic traits' to the reach the climax of discovering the dead bodies of his wives ornamented in his torture chamber. The women were "strung up", "disembodied" and "denuded of flesh" highlighting how even in death the women were still his possessions, still his prey. This shows how the Marquis is a predatory male who pursues the trembling victims, but Carter takes this stock character further by showing what he enjoys doing after the persuit- stripping away any form of power they may have had and displaying them perversly in a seductive manner.
Furthermore the Marquis revels in their suffering as he performs his ritual on the women "branding" their forehead with the "mark of Cain" which orginates from Genesis 4 in the bible. The mark was placed on Cain's head for killing his brother Abel, this mark warned people not to kill or harm Cain as if they did it would come back on theirselves sevenfold.
It could be said that the Marquis may perform this act to mentally torture the women, to make them fear and anticipate their oncoming death which makes them subordinate. But it may also be performed to show his addiction to the feeling of dominance and power over women- by performing the same act as God he is userping the power from a feared religious figure and making himself at the same status quo. This could be Carter making a mockery of religion which capitilism is structured from, as a Marxist would believe man has used religion to force women in obedient and dominanted gender roles. Or to create the imagery of a formal finality of their death, resulting in a lack of hope as they believe in the illusion that they cannot defy the power of a God.
In addition, when the narrator discovers the "bloody chamber" she also discovers what happened to his past wives. Throughout the narration there was an ambiguity about what happened to his wives, and Carter structurally builds the tension by increasing the prominence of the Marquis 'sick', 'twisted' and 'psychopathic traits' to the reach the climax of discovering the dead bodies of his wives ornamented in his torture chamber. The women were "strung up", "disembodied" and "denuded of flesh" highlighting how even in death the women were still his possessions, still his prey. This shows how the Marquis is a predatory male who pursues the trembling victims, but Carter takes this stock character further by showing what he enjoys doing after the persuit- stripping away any form of power they may have had and displaying them perversly in a seductive manner.
Although the Marquis embodies the predatory male in Carter's first narrative of 'The Bloody Chamber', it is not completely true that the males presented are wholly predatory. For instance, the Marquis may commit these heinous crimes as he is burdened by the forced legacy that was left by the other males generations before him, i.e his Grandfather, the narrator even "pities" him after seeing the torture chamber and knowing she will be in it next. This shows a different side to the Marquis. It could be said that he himself is a victim as he may not want to "hunt" or "kill" the women but feels obligated to continue on the family tradition. Moreover, a psychoanalytic critic may suggest that as he was brought up with these morals which were enforced by a strong authority figure, in which case he wouldn't have a clear concept of what is right or wrong.
But in contrast to the Marquis is Jean-Yves, the narrator's "lover" who he is a passive character due to his blindness, as he cannot actively seek women. Jean-Yves displays what would be classed as a stereotypically feminine trait- for example he is sensitive and his "tender look" makes the narrator feel "faint". This is Carter once again deconstructing the stock character to enable her to challenge the dominant ideology that men should be strong and women should be weak. A Marxist may raise the point that Jean-Yves is presented weaker then the Marquis due to his lower class status, this could be due to Capitilism which is a system that structurally keeps the upper and lower classes separate and gender roles enforced which are taken originally from Religion (e.g women cannot be priests).
It is true that in the first narrative of Angela Carter's collection 'The Bloody Chamber', the women can be presented as trembling victims and the males as predatory pursuers which takes the same form as original Gothic, but in contrast Carter manipulates the Gothic form in order to achieve a feminist perspective on a formally patriarchal fairytale which is embodied in the narrators mother, the "avenging angel" and the "lovely blind humanity" of the piano tuner. Which, in conclusion, shows that this narrative does not wholly present the stock characters that are used in original Gothic genre.
