Book Review: The Bloody Chamber
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The Gothic genre has become immensely popular during the 21st century, so much so that it is now a module for many A Level and University courses in English Literature. Classic texts, such as ‘Wuthering Heights’ and ‘Macbeth’, are widely studied. However, more radical, risqué texts have also come out of the woodwork. In particular, Angela Carter’s ‘The Bloody Chamber’. This is a collection of short stories which ultimately shock. Twisting many fairy tales into completely new stories, including ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ and ‘Puss in Boots’, this is a highly evocative and interesting read.
One of the most unusual tales in this collection is undoubtedly ‘The Snow Child’: the shortest story of all, but potentially the most shocking. On a ride out with his wife, a Count describes what he believes to be the perfect woman – someone who is as white as snow, and as black as a bird’s feather. The girl of his dream appears, but it does not go quite as imagined. After giving this girl everything his wife owns, she becomes jealous and asks the girl to pluck a flower for her. The girl does so, pricking herself and dying, before the Count ‘thrust(s) his virile member into the dead girl’.
Other tales tell of a ‘bloody chamber’ in which instruments of torture are kept, used against many women, and acting as the cause of their deaths. As well as this, there are multiple stories involving animals falling in love with a human and vice versa. This is not a typical collection of short stories.
It seems that Carter often takes a feminist approach in her stories, in particular ‘The Company of Wolves’, which is a drastic twist on Little Red Riding Hood. Rather than both the granny and the child being devoured by wolves, the young girl takes it upon herself to seduce the wolf and spend her life in his company. While this does appear to be a completely modern take on the tale, original versions did actually follow a similar path, with many sexual undertones – the girl being asked to throw her clothes into the fire, or tricking the wolf and escaping.
If you enjoy the Gothic genre but you want a bit more gore and confusion than in other texts, then ‘The Bloody Chamber’ is a definite must-read. It does not follow the traditional route of Gothic fiction – where the supernatural and hauntings are often a prominent addition – but adds a much more interesting layer to the usual read.