Tuesday, 17 June 2014

How do you respond to the view that, in the stories in The Bloody Chamber, Angela Carter presents a sinister distortion of family relationships?

Carter’s short stories offer a myriad of tales that actively subvert, a gothic tradition, or distort the original fairytales from which they have been adapted, as Carter suggested she attempted to “put new wine into old bottles, especially if the new wine made the old bottles explode”. It could be argued Carter distorts such relationships to highlight how many familial relationships are anything but fairytale. However, it could be argued by extracting the “latent content” from the original tales she has exposed the sinister nature of these fairytale relationships. Many of her characters and relationships are exaggerated or distorted beyond reality; so much so they become symbols, influenced by feminism Carter perhaps tries to demonstrate the exploitative nature of many family relationships, especially for women. It could be disputed she in fact paints a realistic picture of family relations in a patriarchal society, as the imposition of patriarchy have caused loving, mutually beneficial family relations to distort, it is perhaps with her sinister somewhat shocking reflections that we are able to see this reality.
One of her most sinister relations that could be argued as a pure distortion is that between Grandmother and Granddaughter in “The Werewolf”. This intergenerational relationship is distorted beyond reality perhaps to highlight capacity of females to be predators or have “tigerish” qualities rather than the commonly thought “lamb”. Through an extradiegetic narrator we see the villagers foolish reliance on superstition and their beliefs in “witches”, the mocking tone “oh, sinister!” leads readers to assume the villagers are gullible, this is particularly important at the end of the story. The young girl after realising her grandmother is a “werewolf” initiates her own grandmothers lynching and claims possession of her grandmother’s home. The monosyllabic last line of the story is perhaps the most sinister “now the child lives in her grandmother’s house, she prospered”, having witnessed her own grandmother’s execution the childs lack of emotion and remorse suggest that perhaps she has orchestrated her grandmother’s lynching, playing upon the villagers gullible minds in order to gain property. This chilling end to the story perhaps suggests the child is in fact the wolf in sheep’s clothing “sheepskin coat” suggesting her predatory nature and a complete distortion of a family relationship. The use of third person narrator not only reveals this orchestration but creates distance between the two characters further highlighting Carter’s sinister distortion as this relationship is completely devoid of love or nurture.
However, it could be argued Carter actually projects a realistic image of family relationships in her depiction of husband and wife in The Bloody Chamber. In a patriarchal society power lies with the husband, the power distribution in this tale very much conforms to this as the Marquis is the dominant male who exerts his power over his young bride “who knew nothing of the world” sexually and financially. Whilst this relationship is perhaps realistic to an extent, it is a sinister one as the Marquis wishes to add another wife to his gruesome display of objectified females in his bloody exhibition chamber. However, whilst Carter does not necessarily distort this relationship she does not advocate it, she subtly condemns this power distribution through violent and repulsive imagery. During the consummation of the marriage Carter portrays the sexual experience as both violent and one that is done to the young girl rather than one she is part of “a dozen husbands impaled a dozen brides”. The use of “impaled” projects a particularly sinister and harmful image whilst coupled with “kiss with tongue and teeth in it and a rasp of beard” is particularly repulsive. The violent imagery and protagonists revelations of the former brides could suggest Carter’s fairytale moral message of this tale is that patriarchal marriage for women is a death sentence, as she suggested “to be the object of desire is to be defined in the passive case, to exist in the passive case is to die in the passive case- that is to be killed”.  In highlighting a realistic example of marriage and family relations yet portraying it as unattractive, undesirable and ultimately harmful she reveals the sinister nature of family relationships.
Father figures in Carter’s tales could be argued to be distorted to the extent they are not fully-fleshed, believable characters but rather symbolic of patriarchy. Carter displays father-daughter relationships with contempt, for example in The Tigers Bride, the protagonist is gambled away by her father to a potentially dangerous Beast “my father lost me to the beast”. Rather than a protective father figure we may expect in reality and in fairytales, this father objectifies his daughter seeing her as a “possession” to pawn off to accrue wealth.  Carter similarly uses the symbol of the mirror to reinforce the notion of a sinister relationship, the girl sees her father’s image in the mirror before her own, this could suggest she is merely an extension of him lacking an identity exclusive to him. Her objectification causes her harm which is further shown through the symbol of a rose upon which she pricks her finger “he gets his rose all smeared in blood”, the blood perhaps symbolising the detrimental effect of objectification exchanged to her father as he is the cause. Carter’s richly symbolic text and distortion of a father figure suggests that he is just that, a figure, he perhaps symbolises the sinister, harmful and exploitative nature of patriarchy which is not isolated to between sexual relationships but platonic, family relationships.
Whilst Carter distorts father-daughter relationships to emphasise the sinister side of family relationships she conversely portrays a realistic mother-daughter relationship in the Bloody Chamber devoid of distortion and lacking sinister attributes. The protagonists “eagle-feature, indomitable” mother and her have a loving relationship, interestingly lacking a father, that is perhaps a realistic portrayal. Her mother, in the end of the story is her saviour, acting upon maternal instinct suggesting almost a telepathic, intimate relationship between the two as her mother instinctually felt her daughter was in danger. However, whilst this is possibly the only loving relationship in the collection it is not completely free of sinister aspects however depicted subtly by Carter. The protagonists family is “poor” and in marrying the Marquis she will experience social and financial elevation, this is possibly part of his power over her, in leaving her mother to go into the “unguessable country of marriage” she “ceased to her daughter in becoming his wife”. The use of the possessive determiners “hers” and “his” it suggests the daughter is exchanged like a commodity similarly to the Tigers Bride, moving from one owner to another perhaps highlighting the family environment is one of perpetual objectification for women. Despite arguably not distorting this relationship, Carter still manages to portray some sinister elements of family relationships.

Family relationships are a preoccupation in both fairytales and Carter’s tales, often fairytales highlight the need to move away and find an identity exclusive to the family as similarly Carter perhaps portrays the negative side of family relationships. Carter distorts family relationships to become sinister, particularly that in the Werewolf. However, whilst she distorts some it could be argued she portrays relationships between females and males within the family arena realistically, albeit a little exaggerated. Perhaps family relationships do have sinister qualities that are not merely part of Carter’s gothic tales but part of reality. 

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