Masaryk University Faculty of Arts Department of English and American Studies English Language and Literature Zuzana Medveďová Liminality and half-being in Angela Carter´s The Bloody Chamber Bachelor’s Diploma Thesis Supervisor: Bonita Rhoads, Ph. D. 2014 I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography. …………………………………………….. Zuzana Medveďová Acknowledgement First of all, I would like to thank my supervisor, Bonita Rhoads, Ph.D. for her help advice and patience. I would also like to thank my family and friends for their support and encouragement throughout the whole process. Table of Contents Introduction…………………………………………………………………………….5 Women in the Society………………………………………………………………….8 Deconstruction of the Gender………………………………………………………...12 The Bloody Chamber…………………………………………………………………15 The Tiger´s Bride…………………………………………………………………..…23 The Lady of the House of Love………………………………………………………28 The Company of Wolves…………………………………………………………..…34 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………….………39 Bibliography………………………………………………………………..…………40 Summary……………………………………………………………………...………43 České resumé…………………………………………………………………………44 Introduction Angela Carter is a writer, whose work was a “true contribution to the feminist plight to escape gender as a cultural grip on women´s self-identity” (Keating 19). In her work, Carter criticises the patriarchal course of the society that was not able to get rid of the stereotypical gender roles even until today. In this paper, I will focus on the ways, Carter uses in the challenging these gender stereotypes in some of the shorts stories from her collection The Bloody Chamber. Linden Peach, in his publication Angela Carter suggests that: “Our thinking often takes place within binary opposites – male:female; work:leisure; light:dark and so forth – in which one part is more valued in society than the other. Deconstructionists, like Carter, are concerned with questioning their relative assignment of value as a means of unravelling larger cultural and ideological implications.” (Peach 19) Carter not only supersedes these preapproved elements that indicate the functioning of the society by deconstructing them, she often also reverses them in her works and by doing that disproves the so called ´general truths´ that are rooted in the society. First of all, Angela Carter repeatedly reverses the traditional gender roles of the characters in her stories, so the female characters play the male roles, for example the mother – hero in the story “The Bloody Chamber”, or vice-versa, the male characters dispose of the characteristics that are primarily attributed to the females, when for example, the young and strong soldier plays the role of the naive virgin that is seduced by the predator girl in “The Lady of the House of Love”. 5 Another device used in the Carter´s works is creation of “the double”. Many of her characters struggle between the two identities they switch between. These liminal identities of the characters are represented by the traditional binary oppositions, most often: virgin – seducer, or submissive – dominant within the character, but also by creating the two identities of one character. In the latter case, one of these identities is often human and realistic, while the other one represents the unrealistic and mystical element of the identity of the character. The unrealistic halves of the identities of the characters are often vampires, wolves or other mythological beasts. These doubles are “employed to suggest the immutability of patriarchal society” (Peach 43), but also the absurdity of it by “shifting nature” (Peach 43) of these double identities by changing the essence of them from the unchangeable and invincible one into the one, that is formable and convertible. One of the most striking and provocative elements of the Carter´s fiction is the form she chose. The Bloody Chamber is a collection of the stories that are primarily based on different classic fairy tales. Many critics argue, that “the fairy tale is a universal, unchangeable given” (Peach 74-75) and with their presumption of the male character being the dominant one, or the hero, who secures the female character, they create a supportive element to the patriarchal structure of the society. However, Carter manages to turn these premises around and by challenging the conventional course of the stories she creates the tales based on the assumption, that even female characters can affect the storyline. In every one of the stories from the collection The Bloody Chamber, the heroines reach a point, at which their essence changes in some way. Most of the time, at this point the heroine emancipate themselves from the traditionally feminine roles and “qualities associated with femininity in the early 1970s – such as dependency, passivity and 6 masochism” (Peach 5) and become more independent individuals with an active approach to the given situation, clearly rejecting the masochistic tendencies and making the decisions in their own behalf. 7 Women in the society Throughout the history, the position of women in the society was very different to that of men. For hundreds of years they were oppressed and treated like inferior. While being treated as such, very small number of women tried to stand up for themselves and change their status. The situation and the problematic of gender inequality has only started to crystallise in very recent history and feminism, as we know it today, was born along with colonization and modernization of the world. Even though the earliest feminists started their fight in the nineteenth century, they could not accomplish total equality between men and women even until this day. The masculine dominance over women is rooted very deep in our culture and it is also very difficult to overcome. Men base their superiority on different assumptions. First of all, historically, they are the ones that created history by holding the highest offices, most of the time, considering the European and later European colonies´ lands. Besides, it were men who had been writing the history and preserving it for a very long time, so women did not really had a say in the matter and their perspective on the history is not captured, at least not in such extent as that of the opposite sex. Considering the great influence of religion on the Eurocentric world, the Bible, as the basic and most common literature in past, was itself considering women inferior. There had been many philosophers and writers that interpreted the creation of Eve as a primary proof of this assumption. For example, according to john Milton´s Paradise Lost, he sees Eve as created from Adam and in the first place, created to praise and serve Adam, while he praises and serves God, to what Eve is not qualified. In the passage of the fourth book of the poem, Eve says: “[...] O thou for whom 8 And from whom I was form´d of thy flesh, And without whom am to no end, my guide And head!” (Milton Book IV) Not only were the women pushed aside and discriminated because of the Church, but also based on the pagan beliefs. In the Dark Middle Ages, women were representing evil and sin. Their ability to seduce a man and have any kind of power over him was too dangerous for the men, so they started convicting the women of witchcraft and made it practically impossible and illegal for women to express themselves in either sexual or intellectual way. The many years of the oppression of women are quite a common knowledge, so there is no need to elaborate on the issues more deeply though. In the nineteenth century, when the first wave feminists started fighting for women´s rights, it was not thinkable to still substantiate their inferiority by such statements as in the middle ages, or by the proofs taken from a literature and fiction written by men. However, men started coming up with scientific explanations for their inferiority. On the counterpart, feminists strived to overturn them and prove them wrong. One example of such claims was that the male brain is bigger and therefore the capacity of the brain is larger, which serves as an excuse for men taking more responsibilities in social life and women´s incapability. However, even though the male brain has more cells and is bigger by 100 grams, it is also proven, that women, on the other hand have more whiskers relining (Lacinová). One of the greatest figures contributing into many theories about female precedents, though, is Sigmund Freud. He is also a man, who not only constructed theories in the matter, but had been a great influence on scholars in the sphere until today. In his lectures 9 on psychoanalysis, Freud suggests, that there is a great difference between women and men. Even though “what is a woman and what is a man are as problematic questions as what is feminine and what is masculine” (Movahedi 76), to few theorists it appeared to be a clear case. For example, Freud views “femininity as failed masculinity” (Movahedi 78). As stated later in the essay: “The psychoanalytic portrait of female as failed male has been accepted as the deepest analysis of the effects of patriarchy [...], on men´s attitude toward women and women´s attitude toward themselves” (Movahedi 78) and this results in the inferiority of women and their entrapment in the world, where they are missing the most essential thing – phallus. According to Freud, not only are females undeveloped biologically, because of the absence of the penis, but also psychically. He lists and explains the female attributes, concluding, that they are very different than those of men, mostly because the insecurities of women are according to him rooted in this failed presence of the symbol of one´s identity. Freud claims that girls, while developing, lack their penis and therefore are unsure of their identity and end up insecure.