The bloody chamber

• Narrator: "I had infinitely dishevelled by the loss of my virginity"


  -Narrator reflects on the transformative nature of sexual experience, hinting that her identity is expanded beyond the innocence and purity traditional for women in patriarchal society
• Narrator: "A dozen husbands impaled a dozen brides"


  -Mirror imagery alludes to vampirism and 'impaled' foreshadows discovery later in the story

  -Detachment from chilling sight

  -dangers of men
• Narrator: "He was older than I " "Pure silver in his dark mane"

  -Animalistic imagery

  -Older man and younger girl trope
• Narrator: "Satin nightdress teasingly caressed me" ''ceased to be her child in becoming his wife"


  -Symbol of dichotomy between her youth and her latent sexual desires

  -Over sexualising
• Narrator: "indomitable mother"


  -female empowerment
• Most if not all narrator quotes for TBC support female empowerment
• Mother: "My mother...shot a man eating tiger with her own hand, killed two revolutions, escaped from the gallows" 


  -Encourages female autonomy
• Mother: "She...raised my father's gun, took aim, and put a single irreproachable bullet through my husbands head"


  -Aims to empower her daughter with decisive action

  -Encourage female autonomy
• Narrator: "I threw the key as far as I could into the sea"


  -Rejects Marquis legacy by discarding the key to the chamber with the desire to free herself from the darkness of his control

  -taking charge of her fate
• Narrator: "I shall cure myself of the terror" 


  -Realises she must actively break free from victimhood to survive

  -Controlling own fate
• Marquis:"Striking resemblance between the act of love and ministrations of torturer"


  -Dangers of men

  -Believes love to be intertwined with violence
• Original fairy tale

  -Bluebeard (Perrault)

  -Cautionary tale warning naive girls about the dangers of female curiosity
• Carters deviation

  -promotes self autonomy with the idea women shouldnt soley rely on men

  -Original saviour was strong bothers but with a mother instead replacing knight in shining armour, gives back power to women
• Tropes

  -Supernatural

  -Innocent heroine
• AO5

  "A modern feminist transformation in which for once the maiden is victorious over death itself" [Lokke]
• AO3

  -Marquis de saud: infamous sadistic pornographic writer notorious for the torture and murder of the women he had intercourse with

  -Margret thatcher, first female PM in uk 1979
• Other texts: Courtship of Mr Lyon


  He is courted and saved by his wife: Reversal of gender roles