The motivations and identity of the narrator of Angela Carter's short story 'The Bloody Chamber has long been debated by critics, and still remains unclear. Is she the innocent virgin of fairytale legend, horrified by the depravities her husband offers her, or a knowing, sexual woman with a "potentiality for corruption"? In fact, I propose that she is neither; in her revision of the classic story of Bluebeard, I argue that Carter depicts an immature, rather selfish woman rejecting the traditional roles of wife and mother but eventually finding her own way towards accepting the strength of these roles through an equal partnership.
The narrator certainly attempts to depict herself as an innocent virginal girl before her marriage, carefully inserting references such as "little nun" and "white, enclosed quietude" into her recount of events, but there is a wealth of evidence within the text to contradict this. Carter's use of exaggerated sexual language in the opening of the story, mocking erotic literature, emphasizes the narrator's longing for sexual fulfillment. Even after her first sexual encounter, which "infinitely" dishevels her, she still longs for the "renewal of his caresses." Even more telling is her careless mention of the "most pornographic" "etching" her husband has shown her before they were even married, which leaves her "stirring"; hardly the language of a girl who says she "knows nothing of the world."
The narrator may not be innocent, but Carter takes care to emphasize her youth and inexperience of the world. Her husband refers to her as his "little love", his "baby", even his "child." Quite apart from the Freudian overtones, his language shows that he regards his new wife as emotionally immature, and she hardly does anything to disprove his view to the reader. When he abandons her on her honeymoon, she takes a childish delight in surprising the overbearing "housekeeper", and then races "crazily" around her new home seeking diversion in "the costume of a student"; her eloquence in describing her actions are belied by the childlike nature of them.
Her immaturity is coupled with her refusal to accept the "practical aspects of marriage." She turns her back "pettishly" on the realities of the world, refusing to hear about her new husband's previous three wives and even when she arrives at her new home, wants to displace the new and bring back the old, in the shape of the forbidding "housekeeper" and her "old nurse." When left to run a household and maintain order, she makes it clear that she expects instead to spend her time in "the picture gallery". She eschews the costume of a wife, remaining in the "costume of a student" and rejects her "luncheon" and "dinner" in favor of "sandwiches and a flash of coffee"; essentially she rejects all the responsibilities of her new life, but freely enjoys the pleasures.
This rejection of responsibility and costume is a metaphor for her rejection of the role of wife and mother. The "practicalities of marriage" are symbolized by the Marquis's sadistic pornography, symbolically representing the dominance of man over woman in a traditional marriage, and the narrator is left with "painful, furious bewilderment" at this realization. She pities the wives she finds in the bloody chamber, who have willingly allowed the Marquis to assert his dominance over them but has no intention of allowing him to do so to her.
The issue of sacrificing for love is referenced several times; the narrator recounts how her mother "beggared herself for love" but seems only to focus on how this brought both "poverty" and a "legacy of tears". When traveling towards her husband's home, she describes it as having "walls made of foam", with a "melancholy" "mermaiden" inhabiting the sea surrounding in. Carter, queen of intertextuality, is clearly referencing the classic fairytale 'The Little Mermaid', whose roots are utterly different to that of its modern, cartoon incarnation. In the original, the mermaid falls in love with a prince of the land above. She sacrifices her voice for legs, even though every step she takes causes her agonizing pain; when she finds her prince, despite all her sacrifice, he is marrying another woman. Her sisters urge her to return to the sea, the only way to do so being to stab her lover through the heart, but instead she uses the knife they give her to kill herself. The narrator's attitude, almost mocking the "mermaiden", waiting for a lover who died "long ago", makes it clear she has no intention of sacrificing herself for love.
The narrator's attitude to motherhood is also one of the most challenging and intriguing aspects of the texts. Helen Simpson sees Carter's version of Bluebeard as not being particularly interested in "the perils of childbirth" (see her introduction to Carter's collection of short stories, also entitled 'The Bloody Chamber') but I have to disagree. The "practicalities of marriage", particularly in the world of the narrator (which is clearly some time ago) could easily be taken to represent the fact that many women died in childbirth; the ultimate sacrifice for love.
Early on, the narrator clearly shows that she has little respect for the institution of motherhood. Her own mother is "indomitable" but her daughter dismisses her as "eccentric" and recounts how she "teased" her for her insistence on carrying a gun; ironic, in light of the events that transpire. She recounts her mother's "adventurous girlhood" proudly, but it seems clear that to her, her mother lost her importance on becoming a mother, and only gains status (in the form of a "black silk" dress) when her daughter is married. Her relationship with her mother, which is traditionally seen as rather intimate, is apparently so distant that she is keen to "defer" her call to her mother for as long as possible and earlier "would say no more" on the subject of marriage. Surely a 'close' mother and daughter would do absolutely nothing but discuss said topic? The narrator even goes so far as to dismiss her mother as a "poor widow", hardly a term of praise or endearment.
Not only does the narrator have little respect for motherhood, she actively fears what she sees as its inevitable outcome; death. "One day, I might bear an heir" she says, without a hint of emotion in her tone. The passionless attitude to having a child comes just moments after Carter makes the association between marriage and 'The Little Mermaid; taken in juxtaposition, the reader is forced to make the association between marriage, childbirth and agonizing pain and sacrifice. Her "bony hips" contrast with a description of one of the Marquis's previous wives (who sacrificed herself for her husband gladly), where Carter uses animal imagery and references to a "jungle" to create an image of lush fertility. Her attachment to her childhood, her longing to "cling" to her husband and take "comfort" like a "child" all signify her reluctance to accept adulthood and with it, motherhood. Later, she even more clearly indicates her distaste for motherhood by associating the words "queasy" and "tainted" with "pregnant women" and "dark" with "newborn." The image of the "fat stems" of the lilies floating in "greenish water" brings to mind the classic Gothic movie image of a fetus in a jar; an image that Carter, so fond of intertextual and cultural references, could have created accidentally. Later, Jean Yves reinforces the narrator's fears by saying "no bride should suffer so much, so early in her marriage", the implication being that no bride truly suffers until she sacrifices herself to childbirth, later "in her marriage."
However 'The Bloody Chamber' is a journey, a woman's journey from a selfish "seventeen year old girl" to a mature woman ready for marriage. The pivotal moment for this transformation, fitting for a modern fairytale, is when the errant wife enters her husband's "enfer", the "Bloody Chamber" itself. She discovers the fate of the three wives, who were, it seems, only too happy to submit to their husband's dominance, fulfill the role of a traditional wife and make the ultimate sacrifice for love. She is utterly horrified by her husband's expectations, and repulsed by the smile on his previous wife's "dead lips"; her horror stems from the fact that she is being asked to submit and sacrifice herself willingly for her husband's love. She returns to her chamber, rejecting motherhood once again with her wish to wake in the "morning", "once again a virgin".
Here, Jean Yves is introduced. His name is significant, standing in opposition to the "Marquis", with its masculine and sinister overtones. Jean Yves is a more feminine name to English readers, and it is significant that he is the only character, the only alive character at least, to be given a first name. The narrator's choice of words to describe him as in stark contrast to the "heavy" "leonine" Marquis. She directly compares the "irredeemable bulk" of the Marquis with the "slight, stooping figure" of the piano tuner (a rather unpretentious choice of career, too), who is also "lovely" and "a boy", words which hardly bring to mind strength and masculinity. He readily admits he can offer only "comfort", and he also offers a new perspective on relationships to the narrator. "He would come with me, if I would lead him" she says, realizing that he offers the possibility of an equal partnership.
Her discovery also leads to another, more subtle, discovery. As Jean Yves enters her chamber, she refers to herself as her "mother's daughter", seemingly accepting her role and expressing respect and deference for her mother. She admits that "courage" makes her think of her "mother" and symbolically, motherhood itself. Most significant is Carter's metaphorical reference to a "curious child" bringing about the final events of the text. Gone is the "dark newborn", now the "child" brings about her salvation. She gives her castle up to "children" and lives happily with her "piano tuner", finally having found a way to be married without sacrifice.
To conclude, in 'The Bloody Chamber', Carter creates a journey of 'self-discovery', a woman finding that she cannot survive within the traditional strictures of marriage, cannot sacrifice herself to give her husband a heir, and cannot live with a husband who desires to dominate her entirely. This discovery changes a selfish, immature "little girl" into a woman prepared for the "practicalities of marriage"; one can almost imagine that Carter, who married young and divorced only to find love again later in life, and became a mother in her second marriage, drew from her own experiences and essentially created 'The Bloody Chamber' as a metaphor for her own experiences with love and marriage, framed within the fairytale.
