Puss-In-Boots - Genre

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• Magic realism - Magic realism or magical realism is a genre of fiction in which magical elements blend with the real world. (The Ogre) 

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• Contains fantastical elements 

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• The fantastic elements may be intrinsically plausible but are never explained 

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• Characters accept rather than question the logic of the magical element 

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• Exhibits a richness of sensory details 

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• Uses symbols and imagery extensively. 

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• Emotions and the sexuality of the human as a social construct are often developed in great detail 

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• Incorporates legend or folklore 

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• Picaresque novel -The Picaresque novel is a sub-genre of prose fiction which is usually satirical and depicts, in realistic and often humorous detail, the adventures of a roguish hero of low social class who lives by his wits in a corrupt society (The Cat) 

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•  usually a first-person narrative, relating the adventures of a rogue or low-born adventurer (Spanish pícaro) as he drifts from place to place and from one social milieu to another  

‘In The Bloody Chamber, childhood fairytales become the stuff of adult nightmares.’

All of the tales included in Angela Carter’s 1979 collection of short stories: “The Bloody Chamber” are loosely based on children’s fairy tales. Fairy tales have the aim of amusing their young reader with a fantastical story whilst providing a moral message. Due to Gothic elements incorporated into Carter’s stories, each has been given a severe twist to alarm the older reader as it puts forward adult themes such as sexuality and identity to make her stories linger and play on the reader’s mind.Carter’s use of Gothic symbols and setting add a disturbing aura to her subverted children’s stories.                                                                                                      

In the obscure Little Red Riding Hood story: “The Company of Wolves”; there is the gothic setting of a dark forest which traps “the unwary traveller in nets as if the vegetation itself were in a plot”. The personification of the forest as a scheming monster creates a sinister and eerie feel to the natural environment; this could alarm the reader as there is a sense of being cut off from civilisation and this instils a sense of isolation. Moreover, the forest could be viewed as a metaphor for the protagonist moving towards adulthood with all its fears and dangers of the unknown. The “unwary traveller” can be assumed to portray ‘Everyman’ and it is this theme of identity that is different to the original tales and what makes these tales uncomfortable for adults and not children. “The Snow Child” is loosely based on Snow White and follows the story of a Countess and her husband; a Count who wishes for his own perfect form of a girl. The tale; although not of great length is full of gothic motifs such as blood and gore. Instead of the well-known line from the original fairy tale “lips as red as blood” the line: “I wish I had a girl as red as blood” is contrastingly violent as it refers to the body of the girl and provides heavy fixation on blood to add a dark quality to this children’s story. The gothic symbol of blood is a focal point in “The Snow Child”; the girl “…pricks her finger on the thorn; bleeds; screams; falls.” These two examples of imagery help to enhance the original tale of Snow White which is more innocent and childlike. The single words separated with semi-colons are to be read quickly and as a result these lines are quickly flowed through forcing the reader to swiftly digest the information with great impact. The blood which is constantly referred to reminds the reader of the virginity of the young girl, hence her innocence and purity is heightened and the read is made even more uncomfortable for the adult reader.

Furthermore, Carter omits information from her stories thus adding a sense of ambiguity which can disturb the reader, the lack of excess is key to the apprehension felt. In “The Snow Child” the incestuous necrophilia of the Count is shortened to one sentence which is expressed in a clinical way thus making it even more alarming for the reader. He “unfastened his breeches and thrust his virile member into the dead girl” the laconicism increases the brutality in this sentence and the verb “thrust” has a dissonant sound which again heightens the matter of fact tone of the sentence.  The adjective “virile” juxtaposes with the death of the girl intensifying the violence and provokes unease as it goes against what is accepted and advocated by mainstream society.

 It could be argued that it is the “reversal of values … that occurs via the Gothic genre” that unnerves the reader, unlike the typically conventional characters in fairy tales, the clear separation between good and evil is distorted in Carter’s stories. Unease is provoked by polarization; the blurring of boundaries which is prominent in “The Werewolf” whereby Carter narrates the story of how a girl murders her grandmother and inherits her riches “Now the child lived in her grandmother’s house; she prospered” The final clause of the sentence places emphasis on the word "prospered” which gives an disturbingly nonchalant reaction to the violent murder of an old lady, who is stereotypically a vulnerable character. The clinical style of writing omits the aversion that the reader would feel at this and is therefore unnerving as the broken social boundaries are observable. The duality of human nature is brought to question and the reader may start to question their own identity thus unease is created. An adult may also feel this is nightmarish as one can see the younger generation overpowering the older, this presentation of youth being the ruling class may unnerve some readers. In “The Company of Wolves” our young female protagonist ends up “between the paws” of a beastial man “with red eyes in whose unkempt mane the lice moved" The red of the wolf’s eyes suggest that passion and fury are entwined, this in addition to the grotesqueness of the male character leaves us questioning the motive of the girl. As a participant in the 1970’s feminist movement Carter may have been putting forward her positive view of sexual freedom and independence for women, in the 1970s this may have been an implication that many women did not want to hear.

To conclude, the original fairytales lacked most of the nightmarish and terrifying aspects of Carter’s modernized versions however, Carter believed that all the content she used to write her own stories was “latent” in the original ones. I would agree that Carter has withdrawn aspects of these tales which play on the human psyche and make them unnerving for adult readers. 

Marxism in "The Tiger's Bride"

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• The Beast is wealthy and has "bought solitude, not luxury, with his money." 
• Furthermore, the Tiger is seen as a regal creature and connotes royalty and so may represent the top of the animal kingdom, whereas Horses are often associated with labour and hard work, therefore representing the working class. Having the horses living with such a creature is a complete inversion of society and would please the Marxist readership.  
• Looking toward the end of the story when the tiger licks the Beauty’s skin, the Marxist philosophy suggesting that we are all essentially free and of the same nature is literally portrayed through the revealing of the narrators fur and how she too becomes a beast.  
• Marx’s “Das Kapital” is reflected through the deterioration of the Beast’s wellbeing upon refusal by the Beauty to take her clothes off.  
• Moreover, the Beast’s attempts to join human society are proved through his disguise as a human. However, the state of the house as "dismantled, as if its owner were about to move house or had never properly moved in” and with the horses in the living room. 

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Gothic Signifier/Symbols

Use of colour – black, white, red

Darkness, light, snow, blood

Forest

Ruined castle

Labyrinth/ dungeon

Mirror

Mother, step mother, grandmother

Journey

Animals – bat, raven, wolf

Moon

Nature

The Lady of the House of Love : Themes

Purity/Virginity : The soldier is a virgin, this leads to saving him as he is not scared of the Countess

Sadness : The Countess can never really be happy because she can see men only as objects

Solitude : The Countess doesn't like being alone, she longs to be human and when she finally becomes human     she dies

Curiosity : The soldier is curious of the Countess and why she is so unnatural and of the house >> the Countess is curious of the Soldiers purity in his soul and that of his virginity

Love, Solitude and Objectivity: The Countess is the only heroine who manages to objectify a man instead of being objectified herself. She is condemned never to be happy with a man because her insatiable hunger causes her to kill her potential mates. The Countess's story lets us see the other side of objectification; it harms the objectifier as well as the object. All she wants is fulfilling love, yet all she can conceive of is objectifying love.

Sacrifice : The soldier (like every other man who crosses her path) is a human sacrifice to the Countess to keep her living

Guilt : The Countess is feeling guilty because she doesn't want to end his life for her own dependencies.

Death : The Countess is a vampire and a symbol of death >> the Countess creates death and the house keeper plays a part

War : The man that the Countess falls in love with is a soldier, he goes to fight in WW1

Nature : Roses are used throughout the story. At the end of the story the rose is still living even though it has travelled a long way  > The rose is a symbol of love , the revived rose could be a symbol of the love the two characters have for each other 

Jeff Vandermeer : The Scriptorium

"her characters are forever escaping, socially, mentally or physically, the traps laid by men"

Fred Botting "Aftergothic: consumption, machines and blackholes'

"In her late twentieth-century fiction, Carter powerfully, and often critically, demonstrates the reversal of values and indications that occurs via the Gothic genre. Otherness takes centre stages: sexual transgression, dark desire and fantastic deviance wonderfully subvert the restrictive orders of reason, utility, and paternal morality ... In gothic times margins may become the norm and occupy a more central cultural place"