Fairytales In The Bloody Chamber By Angela Carter

Fairy tales have been passed down from generation to generation, each person in one way or another altering the tale to reflect a piece of their life in the work . The Brothers Grimm wrote hundreds of fairy tales in their life time and in these works they used their childhood experiences as reference. Because of the hardships they faced growing up their tales take on a more gruesome approach to fairy tales. Because their mother was their only caregiver growing up, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm reflect their fondness towards her through the strong willed, independent female characters in their fairy tales. Female heroines are rarely seen in modern day fairy tales, but as a result of their childhood the Brothers Grimm utilized them frequently

Fairy Tales are not just stories that parents tell to their children, but stories with hidden valuable messages which are mostly left on a side. In the article “An Introduction to Fairy Tales,” Maria Tatar clearly explains how people need fairy tales in their lives. Tatar also states how fairy tales have the ability to take the listener, especially children’s, into a journey in which they can play with their imagination so that they can discover their deepest fears and wishes. Personally I agree with the author, because of the fact that in an individual’s lives as they get older, they will try to define themselves, sometimes comparing their own life with a character from their favorite story or Fairy Tale.

In the book “The Glass Castle” by Jeanette Walls, Jeanette’s life has gone through many ups and down’s, all the way from her childhood to her adulthood. As Jeanette’s growing up she sees her Parent’s hopes and dreams slowly starting to elude away into reality. From the start of the book Jeanette’s parents, Rex and Rosemary have strong hopes of being rich from mining and sifting up gold in the dessert, through rexes “new Invention’s” to help detect the gold. But as time tells, Jeannette’s feelings and faith in her parents start to diminish away. Jeannette also starts to realize that her father is causing the problem. Towards the end of the story, Jeannette says to her mom, “Mom, you have to leave dad” (wells 188), and Jeanette’s mom is astonished of what she had said and asks why she suggested that, and Jeannette simply states that “He will bring all of us down” suggesting that they need to be on welfare. When Brian and Lori Begin digging the foundation for the glass castle that Rex had designed and promised them they were going to make, the idea quickly diminished into a fantasy once the hole started to fill with old rusty beer cans.

Growing up in today’s society can be traumatizing for any child. When it comes to growing up as a young girl, however, it can be downright devastating, but not only for the child but the parent as well. There are so many decisions to be made when choosing how to raise your child, assuring that you have instilled proper values to develop a healthy sense of self-worth and confidence.

In Cinderella Ate My Daughter Peggy Orenstein examines the triumphs and pitfalls navigating raising a daughter, in today’s mixed message world. From peer pressure and the need to fit in today’s society, young females have commercialism forced at them at every turn and in very clever ways. Doll creators have been pushing the boundaries of good taste with each new season launch. When the more “mature” actresses at the age of 17 feel the need to do something drastic to remove them from the wholesome image created for by company executives, mothers and consumers feel betrayed, and yet then we need to have a dialog with our kids as to why just last month Miley Cyrus was wonderful but now she is not okay for the viewing household.

Claire Standish or “the princess” portrays the stereotypical popular teenage girl in The Breakfast Club. She is in detention with everyone else because she decided to skip class and go shopping, which also plays into the stereotypical teen girl image. It can also be assumed that she is spoiled and rich since her father tried to get her out of detention but failed, and she mentions to the group that her parents only use her to get back at the other one. She brings a fancy lunch of sushi while the other teens either have nothing or the standard lunch one’s parents might pack for them. There are a couple of times in the movie that she brings up her social standing and could even be considered as looking down on those who are not as popular as her. Even closer towards the end of the movie she informs the others that if they were to say hello to her in the hallway in front of her friends, she would have no choice but to ignore them. By the end of the movie, she has opened up to everyone else about her fears of letting her peers down and has formed a close relationship with Bender.

Opening up with a typical fairy tale intro, “There once was...”(Perrault 144), and then diving right into the plot of his story with just enough details to fill a mind with a perfect picture. He then identifies his main character, Bluebeard, who has great wealth and an upper class status. Unlike Carters, Perrault’s main character is a male and the story is being narrated through third person, both ideas which are very commonly seen in traditional fairy tale telling. His next character is the female who is only described as a, “[perfect] beauty,”(Perrault 144), and who also at first despises Bluebeard when he begins to ask for her or her sister’s hand in marriage. Nevertheless, after seeing all his wealth after a week long country vacation, where, “everyday there were parties of pleasure, hunting, fishing, dancing and dining,” (Perrault 144), she decides to looked past his less desirable characteristics and get married. Further into the story the husband tests his new wife by tempting her. After giving her keys to every lockbox, closet, room and drawer in the house he says, “Open anything you want. Go anywhere you wish. But I absolutely forbid you to enter that little room, and if you so much as open it a crack, there will be no limit to my anger,” (Perrault 145). When her husband leaves, the wife becomes overwhelmed with anxiousness to go look in the forbidden room. Perrault describes how she rudely left her guests upstairs do to her tormenting curiosity and ran down the stairs so fast that, “more than once thought she was going to break her neck,” (Perrault 145. Once reaching the door she has a brief moment of clarity, thinking of the future harm that could come, however, the temptation was to overpowering. The way Perrault tells his version of these scenes makes it seem very condescending towards women. He makes the wife out to be a rude, disobedient

Angela Carter’s highly feminist anthology of short stories ‘The Bloody Chamber’ 1979 challenges the patriarchal society’s view on women. As a libertarian feminist Carter presents the ideals of the second wave of feminism and the notion that in order for society to progress, women must cast away the restraints placed upon them by society and reclaim authoritative qualities that are deemed masculine and unsightly for women to possess. Traditionally fairy tales present females as timid and “cute but essentially helpless” (Bertens.H(2001)) Carter addresses this by portraying the doomed eponymous “Snow Child” as the epitome of femininity, who adopts a silent and passive persona which reflects the qualities endorsed by antiquated British etiquette,

Artemis fowl is a 12 year old whose family is full of money and is a international crime organization and has a mother and his died disappeared anyway artemis wants to restore his family fortune and so he makes the decision to find a fairy and take all the gold from the “Fairies”. The story starts in a city called Ho Chi Minh City where a male named Nguyen and Artemis tells him to take him to the sprite. Artemis gives Nguyen $20,000 for his services and he disappears after that. Artemis puts on night vision goggles to see the sprite in the dark old shop. She was drinking whiskey and artemis said if i hand you some rice wine can i see the book. She takes the deal but what she does not know is that the rice wine is actually holy water or “poison”

The Bloody Chamber (or The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories) is a collection of short fiction by Angela Carter. The stories share a theme of being based on fairy tales and folk tales, and Carter uses adaptations of the stories that are attributed to the French authors Charles Perrault and Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve, to the Brothers Grimm and to German and Scandinavian folklore. In the introduction to the 2006 Vintage edition of The Bloody Chamber, Helen Simpson suggested that Carter did not want to show simplistic feminist form of these fairy tales. Carter's stories also depict a theme of feminism, and The Bloody Chamber is linked with the feminist movements in the late 1970s. The Bloody Chamber, the tale, is an allegory of female change and sexual discovery.

In the article, “Fairy Tales and Gender Stereotypes”(2009) by Samara Green, the writer reveals that in fairytales woman are often interpreted as weak and vulnerable who can only succeed with the help of a man. The author develops this idea by explaining an experiment that psychologists have done to prove this idea and by giving examples of some classic fairy tales, for example, in The Sleeping Beauty Prince Philip is the one who wakes Aurora. The author’s purpose is to raise awareness about the gender stereotypes that fairy tales provide children with in order to change the perspective that children have— that women are weak and vulnerable. This article is intended for people who have read or watched fairy tales because the author gives examples

wicked woman that keeps her locked in the tower for all of those years. Women were the ones that did most of the story telling back then, so it makes sense that they would be the main characters. “Fairy tales have never been bedtime stories; in this day and age, they have morphed into a very effective means of exercising power over women and maintaining gender inequality” (Neikirk, par. 1). Women have always played important roles in society, and the fact that they play main roles in these stories empowers them even more.

Fairy tales main character can be male or female which allows for children of different sexes to respond differently to the tale. Many fairy tales that feature a Prince seeking a wife, display the female characters competing for the Princes attention. Since most classic fairy tales were made in the time in society where it was accepted for women to be treated less than men, and many women were known to do the duties of cleaning and cooking. Cinderella can be seen as an outcast whose punished and forced to do all the house work, her step-mother control’s her life as she prevents her from going to the ball. Cinderella’s step mother can be seen as the Devil Figure; she is a selfish woman who only cares about herself. Many adult women found in

Like all fairy tales, Rapunzel has a history that extends far earlier than the 1800s when it was first transcribed by brothers Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. However, Rapunzel is a tale that continues to be re-written and re-interpreted even today. From the 1970s with the feminist revitalization of fairy tales to the early 2010s with Disney’s Tangled (2010), this timeless tale continues to engage its listeners. In 2015, Katie Kapurch of Texas State University revisited Rapunzel with an eye on its more recent modernizations. By starting with Anne Sexton’s poem “Rapunzel” from her 1971 collection Transformations, Kapurch analyzed the lesbian elements of the tale in order to examine the 21st century Tumblr culture that “ships” Tangled’s Rapunzel with Brave’s (2012) Merida.

As a son to a mother who is in love with fairy tales, I know a little about them. Everyone has heard of the common stories such as Cinderella and Hansel & Gretel. But these are your common bedtime stories. There’s other versions of these stories known as, Grimm’s Fairy Tales. They’re far more interesting and less childish in my opinion. They also have a very interesting background and development story behind them.