‘In the original Gothic, women were often presented as trembling victims pursued by predatory males.’ How far is this true of the first narrative in Angela Carter’s collection, ‘The Bloody Chamber’?

To some extent the women in ‘The Bloody Chamber’ fit the traditional role of ‘trembling victims’ in the Gothic, for example through the mostly passive role the narrator takes in the story; similar to the passive role of Isabella in Horace Walpole’s ‘The Castle of Otranto’. However, as a feminist, Carter also challenges this role and makes the women in her story stronger; even able to overpower the male characters. This is most noticeable in the character of the mother. In addition to this, Carter also explores the role of men in the gothic. The Marquis takes the archetypal role of the predatory male villain of a gothic novel; comparable to Bram Stoker’s Count Dracula in his brutality. Despite this, the role of the gothic male is also challenged, mainly through the character of Jean-Yves who offers a more comforting, vulnerable male character who is almost the complete opposite of the Marquis. 

One way in which the women in ‘The Bloody Chamber’ are traditional stereotypes of gothic females is through the way in which they are passive within the story. The narrator herself is a passive character throughout much of the story, following what the Marquis wants her to do, for example pretending to be surprised just to please him, ‘I was forced always to mimic surprise’, which shows how she tries to please him. Furthermore, the extent of his control over her, symbolised by the ‘ruby choker’, also emphasises her passivity within the story. This motif is echoed later on within the book in ‘The Courtship of Mr Lyon’, with the dog wearing chokers as collars. This control echoes the control men hold over women and their passive nature within the traditional gothic. Another way in which the women follow the traditional role of gothic females is in how they are objects of desire for the male characters. The narrator describes the Marquis having ‘the assessing eye of a connoisseur inspecting horseflesh’ whilst he looks at her; showing how she is an object of his desire. The word ‘horseflesh’ objectifies the narrator and makes her seem like a commodity. In addition to this, the narrator also objectifies herself through the parts of herself that she describes, such as ‘breasts’ and ‘thighs’. In doing this, she is almost becoming masculine in her description, as she is focusing on aspects of herself that men tend to focus on. This in turn shows her passivity and complacency in the role that she is set in as a weak female, and emphasises her lack of action. The women in ‘The Bloody Chamber’ are also shown to be typical of the traditional Gothic through their emotional responses. The narrator is portrayed as being somewhat petty towards her nurse when she says that ‘opals are unlucky’; and turns away ‘pettishly’. In addition to this, the narrator also follows the typical pattern of feeling sympathy for the monster, similar to that of Mina in Dracula, as she talks about the ‘atrocious loneliness of that monster’. This sympathy is typical of Victorian Gothic women; reflecting the compassionate and caring nature a Victorian woman was expected to have.

Despite this, Carter also challenges these stereotypes created by the traditional gothic. The main character within this story that challenges this is the narrator’s mother, who is described as having ‘shot a man-eating tiger’ when she was younger. By doing this, she is showing her strength and bravery as a character. Furthermore, her strength is shown through the fact that she is the one who saves the narrator. In the original story, the heroine is saved by her brothers. By changing this, Carter is showing the reader that women can also take on positions of power. However, the mother has to take on a phallic symbol, the gun, in order to have power, which suggests that women have to take on masculine aspects in order to be powerful. In addition, despite being passive for a majority of the tale, the narrator becomes an active agent by the end. This can be seen through how she ‘runs to the assistance’ of Jean-Yves and helps him to let her mother in. Furthermore, it could also be argued that through opening and embracing the bloody chamber she is being active. This embracing of the bloody chamber is the narrator embracing and accepting the dark desires that Carter argues are within all of us, as shown by the way in which she touches the body of the opera singer. Another way in which the women differ from the traditional gothic is the way in which they take away power from the men within the novel, without being the stereotypical femme fatale. The narrator does this by controlling Jean-Yves. She physically does this when she ‘leads’ him down to the courtyard. Furthermore, her control extends to after the Marquis is dead, as she defies social convention and takes control of the money she inherits. Women also take power away from men through the fact that the mother kills the Marquis. Through taking power away from the male characters, Carter is criticising the usual fairy tale, as well as the traditional gothic, for the lack of female strength and independence. It could also be interpreted that, by giving her female characters more power, she is also giving them more of a voice within fairytales, rather than making them passive characters. This is emphasised throughout the collection, which acts as one entire story.

The male characters within ‘The Bloody Chamber’, particularly the Marquis, could be argued to be predatory for the way in which he ‘hunts’ for women. The narrator says that he ‘had been married before, more than once’ at the beginning of the story, which hints to the reader at his predatory nature. Furthermore, the range in type of woman he goes after, Romanian Countess, opera singer and model, hints at how he enjoys wooing and trapping them. His predatory nature can also be seen through how thought out and planned each murder is, for example he ‘strangles’ the opera singer and as a result takes away her voice; the thing that presumably drew him to her in the first place. This action could be interpreted as him trying to control them by taking possession of their best attributes or the things they enjoy the most. He also controls his wives through the jewellery he forces them to wear, in the ‘opal ring’ and ‘ruby choker’. The narrator says about the ring that ‘every bride who came to the castle wore it’, hinting not only at the Marquis’ need for control, but also at an ancestral need for control, which is further hinted at with the story Jean-Yves tells the narrator about an old Marquis who used to ‘hunt young girls’. The ruby choker, specific to the narrator, foreshadows the death that he plans out for her, as well as acting like a collar similar to that in ‘The Courtship of Mr Lyon’. Carter explores a need for control in her male characters later within the collection in ‘The Erl-King’ through his actions of turning women into birds. The Marquis is also predatory simply in his physical description. Carter uses leonine imagery, similar to that in ‘The Courtship of Mr Lyon’, for example his hair is described as a ‘curling mane’. Carter does this to evoke connotations of a predator, adding to his predatory nature, as well as making the narrator appear more innocent. 

However, as a feminist writer, Carter also challenges the gothic stereotype of a predatory male in order to make the characters more equal. The male character that most challenges this is the piano tuner Jean-Yves. As he is blind, he is unable to control the narrator through his male gaze, and therefore is less powerful than she is. Jean-Yves also offers comfort to the narrator, ‘I can be of some comfort to you’, in direct contrast to the threatening nature of the Marquis. It could also be argued that the Marquis somewhat challenges the gothic norm, as it could be considered that he cannot help but kill, or is reluctant to, much like the countess in ‘The Lady of the House of Love’. This is shown when the narrator says ‘it seemed to me he was in despair’, suggesting that he is stuck in his condition and, possibly, genuinely loved the narrator.

Overall, Carter uses a combination of modern and traditional gothic elements to create her characters. However, they mostly adhere to the stereotypes within the traditional Victorian gothic in order to lead the reader into the book, rather than simply starting with her more controversial ideologies.