How do you respond to the view that in the stories in The Bloody Chamber Angela Carter presents a sinister distortion of family relationships?
How do you respond to the view that in the stories in The Bloody Chamber Angela Carter presents a sinister distortion of family relationships?
Within Carter’s short stories, she may present a sinister distortion of family relationships by subverting ‘typical’ family roles, perhaps in a way that has a harmful or negative outcome for particular family members. She could appear to do this through the presentation of the parent and child relationships in The Snow Child, or the husband and wife relationship in The Bloody Chamber. The Gothic element of the stories is emphasised through the ‘sinister’ aspect of these distortions, as the relationships Carter presents can be somewhat disturbing. However, in some of her stories it appears that family relationships are not distorted, such as the mother and daughter relationship in The Bloody Chamber or the father and daughter relationship in The Courtship of Mr Lyon.
In The Snow Child, Carter may subvert the typical expected roles of parents as the behaviour of the Count and Countess towards their ‘child’ is deemed very unusual. The Count behaves in a particularly alarming manner, portraying an obvious sexual attraction to the girl who appears before him after listing the qualities he desires. She is a clear manifestation of his fantasy, and is described as the “child of his desire”, which immediately signals abnormality for the reader as “desire” perhaps suggests a sexual element whilst “child” reminds us that she fulfils the family role of a daughter, thus highlighting her childlike innocence. The girl is described as “stark naked”, implying an eroticism about her, and alluding to the idea of female nudity as a part of male fantasy which is disturbing and sinister for the reader considering the Count is a father figure to her. Also, after the child’s death Carter describes how the Count “thrust his virile member into the dead girl”, and this explicit, shocking description of the sexual act emphasises the disturbing
Within Carter’s short stories, she may present a sinister distortion of family relationships by subverting ‘typical’ family roles, perhaps in a way that has a harmful or negative outcome for particular family members. She could appear to do this through the presentation of the parent and child relationships in The Snow Child, or the husband and wife relationship in The Bloody Chamber. The Gothic element of the stories is emphasised through the ‘sinister’ aspect of these distortions, as the relationships Carter presents can be somewhat disturbing. However, in some of her stories it appears that family relationships are not distorted, such as the mother and daughter relationship in The Bloody Chamber or the father and daughter relationship in The Courtship of Mr Lyon.
In The Snow Child, Carter may subvert the typical expected roles of parents as the behaviour of the Count and Countess towards their ‘child’ is deemed very unusual. The Count behaves in a particularly alarming manner, portraying an obvious sexual attraction to the girl who appears before him after listing the qualities he desires. She is a clear manifestation of his fantasy, and is described as the “child of his desire”, which immediately signals abnormality for the reader as “desire” perhaps suggests a sexual element whilst “child” reminds us that she fulfils the family role of a daughter, thus highlighting her childlike innocence. The girl is described as “stark naked”, implying an eroticism about her, and alluding to the idea of female nudity as a part of male fantasy which is disturbing and sinister for the reader considering the Count is a father figure to her. Also, after the child’s death Carter describes how the Count “thrust his virile member into the dead girl”, and this explicit, shocking description of the sexual act emphasises the disturbing