the bloody chamber critics

what did patricia duncker say in 1994? (key words: enchantment & subjectivity)

carter cuts through the patriarchal enchantment of feminine passivity and empowers the female protagonists psychologically through an evolving active subjectivity

what did patricia duncker say in 1994? (key words: metamorphosis & undomesticated)

the metamorphosis which the female protagonists undergo at the end of each tale allows them to reject a self-effacing subjectivity, and embrace an exuberant and undomesticated one without subconscious fear of being devoured and succumbing to the conservative patriarchy

what did simpson say in 2006?

the heroines of these stories are struggling to break out of the strait-jackets of history and ideology and biological essentialism

what did zipes say in 1979? (2 parts)

...fairy tales have the most clear and distinct representation of children's anxieties and unconscious fears' -> carter subverts the ideologies and anxieties (representative of these dangers associated with an active female sexuality) of the classic fairy tale which had originally to control that sexuality

what did melinda fowl say on the lady of the house of love in 1991?

to the countess, humanness offers freedom from gothic timelessness, its repetition of oppressive patterns, of victimisation, unsatisfied hunger, perfect beauty, loneliness, silence and eternal youthfulness... humanness here is related to the experience of imperfection, change and time

what did ozum say on the snow child? (key word: killing)

the snow child's death is not killing of women, but rather a killing of masculine representations

what did ozum say on the snow child? (key word: weak)

the snow child is not weak because she is a woman; she is weak because she fits the un-maintainable masculine idea of female perfection, good, loyal, and submissive

what did cristina bacchilega say on the snow child? (key word: fantasy)

the snow child is a masculine fantasy

what did cristina bacchilega say on the snow child? (key word: fragment)

the snow child was only ever a fragment of the count's libido

what did cristina bacchilega say on the snow child? (key word: object)

the count created the snow child as a sexual object

what did cristina bacchilega say on the snow child? (comparison to the bloody chamber)

like the marquis in the bloody chamber, the count in the snow child is a pornographer; he, clothed, imagines and then creates a sexual image of a naked woman that he can deflower and in fact defile

what did cristina bacchilega say on the company of the wolves? (key word: sad)

carter reminds us that werewolves are not simply devilish creatures devoted to witchcraft and cannibalism, but also sad creatures

what did cristina bacchilega say on the company of the wolves? (key word: flesh)

by acting out her desires - sexual, not just for life - the girl offers herself as flesh, not meat

what did cristina bacchilega say on the company of the wolves? (key word: demonized)

just as the girl had slipped out of her overdetermined and victimizing propriety, so now is the wolf, that excluded and demonized other, allowed to slip in

what did lewallen say on the bloody chamber?

of all the tales in the volume I found the bloody chamber most troubling in terms of female sexuality, largely because of the very seductive quality of the writing itself; as readers, we are asked to place ourselves imaginatively as masochistic victims in a pornographic scenario and to sympathise in some way with the ambivalent feelings this produces

what did kaiser say on the bloody chamber? (in reponse to lewallen)

carter uses the language of the story not to lull the reader into ignoring the dangers posed by bluebeard but instead to heighten the reader's awareness of the threat posed by the sadomasochistic underpinnings of much of decadent culture, which created a dangerously passive and readily victimized feminine ideal