Angela Carter “The Bloody Chamber”

Consider the questions below for your posting to the discussion board. (Again, you don’t have to answer all of the questions. Just make sure your posting is beefy enough, i.e. use examples from the text.)

1. How does Carter use literary allusions in “The Bloody Chamber”? How are these significant?

2. What are the similarities between “The Bloody Chamber” and the “Yellow Wallpaper”?

3. How does Carter use the techniques of gothic fiction to build suspense?

4. Why do you think an enduring literary style that is very popular with women (the gothic) relies so heavily on fear as a theme?

5. In what ways is this story contemporary? In other words, how did she update the story?

6. What is the effect of the story’s pornographic and sadomasochistic elements?

7. Were you satisfied with the ending?

“The Bloody Chamber” reminds me a lot of “Bluebeard,” but lengthier and with more detailed description. The literary allusions between “The Bloody Chamber” and “Bluebeard” are that they are both about a young, “innocent and confined” girls, marrying for the first time, being swept away by an older man with riches, jewels, a mansion, money, and power and influence. The girl in “The Bloody Chamber” said, “all had conspired to seduce me so utterly,” speaking of all the riches her husband had to offer. Both stories the women are naïve and foolish to fall for men with such huge secrets, which is about all the previous wives they’ve had and all their dead bodies locked up in a room in their mansions.   

Some of the things the girl in “The Bloody Chamber” reminded me of similar attitudes and emotions of the woman in “The Yellow Wallpaper.” They experienced loneliness and content attitudes in situations they didn’t like or agree with. They knew there was something wrong and off about their husbands.