Timed Essay ^.^

'Drawing upon at least two stories from The Bloody Chamber explore the ways in which Carter might be considered to re-interpret gothic conventions'


AO1: Coherence of argument & Clarity of expression


‘Bloody Chamber’ & ‘The Snow Child’



There are many ways in which Angela Carter takes the concept of the ‘gothic genre’ and simply makes it her own by branding the conventions of gothic with her own unique style and views on the gothic genre. In respect to this, you could argue that her short stories do not follow the classic conventions of typical gothic novels such as ‘Macbeth’ or ‘Frankenstein’ however, I feel that her differences in taking something like a children’s fairy-tale and making it shocking to the point where it can simply be described as nothing else but gothic is justification enough to me as a spectator.

In ‘The Bloody Chamber’, the story introduces us to a young girl who is to marry a wealthy count who the audience are aware has murdered two or more of his previous wives from other marriages. The count is shown to the audience to be a very masculine man. Carter also shows us that this man can be quite perverse in reminding us as an audience that the girl is very young in comparisons to the Count who continuously refers to her as ‘baby’ throughout the story. Carter arguably has added her own brand of gothic here because she has not only taken an innocent child’s fairy-tale and tainted it, but in the story itself she uses the young girls innocence, her virginity, and uses it as a gothic convention.

One part in ‘The Bloody Chamber’ that Carter re-interprets gothic conventions in her stories are when the girl enters the bloody chamber. She uses the imagery of the Iron Maiden, the blood and other various torture devices which could be seen as very classic gothic artefacts. By taking the classic gothic elements and branding them with her own style, it takes you upon a whole different experience that I haven’t often come across in other novel, especially in short stories by other author of the same gothic genre. You can clearly visualise what the young girl herself is seeing.

Reflection on this short story for me brings the realisation that it was odd and different from classic gothic novels, for example whilst reading ‘The bloody chamber’ I felt incredibly fearful for the young girl, I was tense throughout which are some of the clearest indications that the novel is of the gothic genre, but at the same time I was left puzzled by some of the characters actions and some of the more in depth parts of the novel in the way that I could see that they were undoubtedly gothic but they were different from the classic gothic genre I was use to reading. So I’m guessing it must be simply the way in which Carter re-interpreted classic gothic conventions and made them her own which I feel was personally her way of differing herself from other gothic authors.

I felt the same when reading ‘The Snow Child’. This very short story I found to be extremely gothic but not in the classic sense, only in Carter’s interpretation of gothic. Evidentially this story is somewhat based on the classic children’s Fairy-Tale ‘Sleeping Beauty’ although it is well covered by Carters interpretation of gothic. Again, she uses the innocence of a child’s fairy-tale mixed with the innocence of a dead child, with incest and necrophilia to shock the audience. I think this short stories is one of the best for seeing Carters own interpretations towards the gothic conventions in the sence that not many other authors would dare vary into this world of dark, controversial topics.

Clearly in this story there is a theme of innocence, which isn’t unusual in many of Carters short stories. I think based on her topics of choice; it takes the gothic genre to that next level, a level which can be quite uncomfortable for a spectator to read. Yet it still retains its status as a gothic novel because the all have clear, underlining, classic gothic conventions within them such as spirits, gargoyles on bedposts, mirrors, blood, death, love, revenge but all of them also have a more sinister truth which I feel is Carters own way of interpreting the classic gothic conventions and making them her own.

‘The Snow Child’ however didn’t stand out to me in the way that others have, This short story and also ‘Wolf Alice’ were completely different to any other novel of their kind. ‘Wolf Alice’ in particular quite literally isolated me as a reader, I didn’t connect with any of the characters personally, and felt as if the point of the story was to leave me unaware of what was truly happening. Maybe this is simply another way of Carter interpreting the gothic elements in her own style. ‘The snow child’ is similar to this in respects that I never fully feared for the girl because the count seemingly didn’t wat any harm to come to her despite the countess wanting her dead. Therefore I felt as is she was protected from the dangers set before her by the countess. I think I felt more sympathetic towards the count himself even whilst he was raping the girl of her innocence when she was in fact dead. For an audience to read this, its quite uncomfortable to take it in on conclusion because its simply so shocking.

By re-interpreting the gothic conventions in this way, I personally get the impression that it’s done to differ herself and her style of writing from other classic gothic horror writer. She takes such shocking topics and blends them which the innocence children’s fairy-tales with the innocence of Disabled people, young girls or the subject of virginity. I think it is very effective in the way that after reading them it seems as if for an audience, your innocence in believing that fairy-tales end happily ever after is a lie and much more sinister dark things happen.


Daniel Lodwidge




(I’m Sorry if this wasn’t what you wanted; the question perplexed me for a while)