Female Gothic in the Mid-Twentieth Century (Sue Chaplin)

• "women within the family structures posited as claustrophobic, oppressive and even dangerous"
• "malevolent Gothic spaces"
• Frankenstein "articulates through its narrative of monstrous transformation the problematics of feminine identity in a patriarchal culture which appropriates, and perverts, processes of physical generation".
• "for Carter, European myths and fairy tales .. encourage the notion that femininity is essentially passive, that female sexuality is simultaneously vulnerable and dangerous" 
• female in The Bloody Chamber "is both fascinated and repelled by sex"
• the Marquis "has her wear a tight ruby necklace - almost like a collar" a mark of sexual ownership - decapitation, ruby = blood. 
• "by positioning the narrator's mother as her 'macho' rescuer, Carter radically reworks the traditional fair tale representation of the maternal figure"
• "The Bloody Chamber can be seen to offer an alternative to traditional narratives that perpetuate the notion that girls must repudiate self-assertion in order to survive"