Finishing 'The Bloody Chamber'

Just a quick blog post today as I don't have that much to report. Last lesson, we finished reading 'The Bloody Chamber' (the story, not the entire text) and began questioning Carter's purpose in writing such a story - or rather retelling such a story. We discussed the protagonist's 'shame' as spoken of in the last line and wondered whether this shame was on account of her having allowed what happened to happen for so long or because she almost went along with the Marquis' rituals or because she wasn't strong like her mother. Interestingly, it seems the supposed 'role model' in the moral story is the mother who, unlike in the majority of fairytales, is the saviour as opposed to the 'wicked' character. It seems Carter is presenting the mother in The Bloody Chamber as the feminist figure, left to fend for herself and bring up her daughter alone, while the protagonist represents the 'normal girl' who learns from experience to adopt more feminist principles. The story isn't left on an entirely positive note as the last thing mentioned is the shame and the stain. The stain seems representative of the shame and the narrator's desire to hide the stain seems to reflect the need in human nature to create a facade to block out the bag things. Just as the bloody chamber is spoken of being 'sealed', it seems the bad things are hidden and are lurking but are, however, not destroyed. It's almost as if saying that, like the narrator, women have put up with male dominance for too long - it's important to note that Carter doesn't criticise men completely as the Piano Tuner is seen at the end of the story to be setting up home with the narrator - as was commented on in the lesson, however, the piano tuner is very boyish and almost feminine and submissive to the extent that the narrator can dominate him - to start off with, he literally does work for her. As explored in my piano tuner essay he does have some very positive qualities and influences on the narrator.



The fairytale-esque jump in terms of time scheme at the end of the story allows for the moral of the text to be brought in - with a nice fairytale-like rounding off of the 'happily ever after' (as mentioned previously, it's not so happy though!) The fairytale-esque jump also reminds readers of the fairytale nature and encourages readers to embrace the exaggerated nature of the story and the events rather than taking them too seriously or literally. We spoke also in the lesson about which bits of the story were people's favourites and least favourite moments. The least favourite moments seemed to be the moments in which suspension of disbelief was key - for example, the 'maternal telepathy' being the reason behind the mother's visit - prepared for a fight, shotgun in hand. Some elements of the story are somewhat far-fetched and ridiculous but, embracing the fairytale nature, one can respect the fact that it's rooted in human nature and real life but is exaggerated, as is the norm in the telling of fairytales, for entertainment purposes.



Also - here's a YouTube link to a kind of whizz-through-version of 'Into the Woods', the Sondheim musical centred around fairytales I referred to in my last post...note the wishes at the start...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsFx5835Qrg