The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter
**The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter: Overview**
"The Bloody Chamber" is a short story by Angela Carter that explores themes of sexuality, power, and the uncanny through a modern retelling of classic fairy tales. The narrative follows an unnamed young bride as she embarks on her wedding night journey to her husband's secluded castle. At just seventeen, she is innocent and inexperienced, contrasting sharply with her older, wealthy husband, the Marquis, who has a dark past marked by the mysterious deaths of his previous wives. The story unfolds as the bride discovers the castle’s hidden secrets, including a forbidden chamber containing the bodies of her husband's former spouses.
Carter's work delves into the complexities of female identity and agency, particularly as the bride grapples with her husband’s controlling nature and her own burgeoning sexuality. The use of rich imagery, such as the ruby choker that symbolizes both beauty and danger, enhances the story's exploration of desire and fear. Ultimately, the narrative culminates in a dramatic confrontation, leading to the bride's liberation with the unexpected arrival of her mother, who intervenes just in time. "The Bloody Chamber" serves as a provocative commentary on the intersection of femininity and violence, encouraging readers to reflect on the roles of women within both fairy tales and society.
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The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter
First published: 1979
Type of plot: Fantasy
Time of work: The twentieth century
Locale: Paris and Brittany
Principal Characters:
The narrator , the protagonist, a gifted young pianistThe Marquis , her wealthy sophisticated husband, whose first three wives have diedHer widowed mother , a brave and strong womanJean-Yves , a blind piano tuner
The Story
An anonymous narrator remembers her wedding night and the events that ensued. On that night she lies in her train berth too excited to sleep, as she goes from her mother's small Paris apartment to the Breton castle of the man she has just married. Her husband sleeps in an adjoining berth; they have agreed to delay consummating the marriage until they arrive at the castle.
The narrator scarcely knows her husband, except for the facts that he is older, richer, and more experienced than she. She is only seventeen, and quite innocent, whereas the Marquis has already been married three times. She does not love him, she tells her mother; but she does want to marry him. She remembers when he took her to the opera the night before the wedding. He insisted that she wear one particular item from the trousseau he had bought—a thin white muslin shift, tied under the breast—as well as his wedding gift, a choker of rubies that resembles "an exquisitely precious slit throat." When he stared lasciviously at her, she averted her eyes until she caught sight of herself in a mirror, suddenly seeing her own body through his eyes and sensing in herself, for the first time, "a potentiality for corruption."
At dawn they arrive at his castle, which the tide cuts off from the mainland half of each day. Her husband introduces her to the sinister housekeeper, displays his other wedding presents—a piano and a portrait of St. Cecila—and leads her to a bedroom filled with mirrors, funereal lilies, and an enormous bed. There he undresses her, examines her, and fondles her until she begins to respond. Suddenly, he leaves her to explore the house on her own while he attends to some business. In the music room, she discovers that her new piano is out of tune. In the library she discovers a collection of pornography. When her husband finds her there, aghast, he leads her back to the bedroom, makes her don the choker of rubies, and deflowers her.
After their lovemaking, the telephone rings: Urgent business calls her husband to New York for six weeks. After he breaks this news to her, he gives her a huge set of keys, one for each lock in the castle, so that she may take care of things in his absence. One key, however, she must not use. He tells her that it is the key to his heart, or rather to his hell—the "dull little room" where he might sometimes go to imagine that he is not married.
After her husband leaves, the new bride tries to distract herself. She meets Jean-Yves, a blind young man hired to tune the piano. She then calls her mother and finally begins to search the castle "for evidence of [her] husband's true nature." Eventually, inevitably, she seeks out the forbidden chamber, unlocks it, and enters. There she finds the bodies of her husband's first three wives, each apparently murdered in a different way: one strangled, one hanged, and one pierced to death in the Iron Maiden. Startled, the narrator drops the key into the pool of the last wife's blood. Then she picks it up, slams the door, and flees the room. She cannot leave the castle, however, until morning, when the tide goes out and the castle is again connected with the mainland. To calm herself, she plays her piano; when the tuner creeps in to listen to the music, she finds herself telling him what has happened. Jean-Yves determines, by the sound of the sea, when it is beginning to recede. However, when she looks out the window, she sees her husband's car heading toward the castle.
She tries to wash the blood from the key but to no avail. Her husband demands the keys and finds the bloodstained one, his face displaying "a terrible, guilty joy." He presses the key to her forehead, transferring the stain there. Then he tells her to put on her white muslin shift and ruby choker and prepare for decapitation. All the servants have left, except Jean-Yves, who can provide little help. As the narrator glances desperately at the window, she sees a magnificent horsewoman riding furiously toward the castle; it is her mother. At the moment that the Marquis's sword is about to fall, her mother shoots him dead with a single bullet.
Now, the narrator tells us, she lives quietly and happily in Paris with her mother and the piano tuner. She has given away most of the Marquis's wealth, and his castle houses a school for the blind.