The Lady of The House of Love Quotes

‘‘beauty is a symptom of her disorder, of her soullessness’’

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‘‘special quality of virginity’’

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‘‘end of exile is the end of being’’

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‘‘most rational mode of transport’’

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‘‘treated for nervous hysteria…photophobia’’

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‘‘dark fanged rose I plucked from between my thighs, like a flower laid on a grave.’’

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‘‘his regiment embarked for France’’

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‘‘bright bead of blood form a drop’’

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‘‘bride-groom bleeds on my inverted marriage bed’’

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‘‘melodramatically creaking hinges’’

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‘‘he was no child frightened of his own fancies’’

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‘‘I’ll grind his bones to make my bread’’

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‘‘girl who is both death and the maiden’’

‘‘white lace neglige stained a little with blood’’

‘‘he can see her she is real’’

‘‘an inbred highly strung girl child fatherless, motherless, kept in the dark too long ‘‘

‘‘pale as a plant that never sees the light’’

• suggests that she needs the light to live as plants do to photosynthesise - women need to control of their lives as well as their sexuality - she could easily kill herself in the light

• alternatively, suggests how men think they know women’s bodies better than themselves as she actually cannot go outside

‘‘he puts his mouth to the wound. he will kiss it better for her as her mother’’

‘‘her huge dark eyes almost broke his heart’’

‘‘queen of terror…horrible reluctance for the role’’

‘under the eyes of the portraits of her demented and atrocious ancestors…project[ing] a baleful, posthumous existence’

posthumous - beyond death

baleful - menacing

the male gaze continues even in the liminal kind of state they are in

‘in her dream, she would like to be human’

‘she must have set her pet lark free…to sing him its ecstatic morning song’

the lark can finally experience morning, symbolises countess

compare lark to erl king - both used to represent girls, girls who seek freedom

‘in death she looked far older, less beautiful and so, for the first time, fully human

finally gets to reject society’s norms

‘no room in her drama for improvisation’

‘the handsome bicyclist brings the innocent remedies of the nursery’

‘the lack of imagination gives his heroism to the hero’

not recognising societal figurative constructs?

fear of otherness is a social construct

‘like a doll…a ventriloquist’s doll, or more like a great ingenious piece of clockwork’

‘powered by some slow energy of which she was not in control…been wound up years ago’

patriarchy established back then that haunts us to this day

‘now you are at the place of annihilation, now you are at the place of annihilation’

pitiful really