"Bluebeard" and "The Bloody Chamber": the Grotesque of Self-Parody and Self-Assertion Author(S): Kari E

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"Bluebeard" and "The Bloody Chamber": The Grotesque of Self-Parody and Self-Assertion Author(s): Kari E. Lokke Reviewed work(s): Source: Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, Vol. 10, No. 1 (1988), pp. 7-12 Published by: University of Nebraska Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3345932 . Accessed: 08/05/2012 20:24

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http://www.jstor.org Bluebeardand The Bloody Chamber: The Grotesqueof Self-Parodyand Self-Assertion

Kari E. Lokke

Like many fairy tale motifs, the Bluebeardlegend is gro- defenderof the modemsagainst the ancientsin the seventeenth- tesquein essence. This taleof the wealthy,seemingly chivalrous centuryQuerelle des Ancienset des Modernes,trying to com- aristocratwho murdersseven young brides and inters them fort himself and his readerwith this ironic moral to his own in his cellar bringstogether violence and love, perversionand renderingof the Bluebeardtale: "Itis easy to see thatthe events innocence, death and marriagein an unsettlingcombination. describedin this story took place manyyears ago. No modern The interminglingof seeminglyincongruous elements and the husbandwould dare be half so terrible,nor to demandof his juxtapositionof oppositeschallenge audience expectation and wife such an impossiblething as to stifle her curiosity.Be he habits of thinking in a manner typical of the grotesque as ever so quarrelsomeor jealous, he'll toe the line as soon as definedby theoristsas variedas WolfgangKayser and Mikhail she tells him to. And whatevercolour his beardmight be, it's Bakhtin.1 easy to see which of the two is the master."4 In two Carterand Max As readerswe the in fact, contemporaryauthors, Angela expect grotesque fairy tales, perhaps seem to with Perrault's and becausethese storiesare to a never-neverland Frisch, disagree urbane,sensible, displaced beyond attitudetoward the Bluebeardtale. Carter the demandsof and verisimilitude.And if Bakhtinis cor- "enlightened" grisly logic in The Chamberand Frisch in Bluebeardhave rect in that the aesthetic in literatureand Bloody placed asserting grotesque this ancient tale motif at the heartof recentnovellas with art is an of medieval folk and fairy outgrowth carnivals, festivals, the obvious intentof statementsabout then the reasonsfor the of the makingstrong violence, popularculture,2 predominance and lonelinessin male- folktalesbecome self-evident.In the Middle exploitation,alienation, contemporary grotesquein Ages female Neither Carternor Frisch makes Per- and the Bakhtin the had an relationships. Renaissance, suggests, grotesque rault'scavalier that a wife is her husband's for the of broke assumption always emancipatoryfunction, juxtaposition opposites "master."As Carterstates in the forewordto her translation down false societaland barriersto the truth ideological expose of Perrault's tends to createor re-create of life's and and to celebratethe tales, "Eachcentury unpredictability spontaneity tales after its own And in its own one and of thatlife in all its most manifesta- fairy taste."5 image, unity power corporeal add for tions. Bakhtinsees "timeless of the might emphasis. Kayser's conception gro- These two recreationsof the Bluebeardtale reflect as an to the modem certainly tesque"3 attempt project grotesque differentauthorial stances and Max backwardsinto In this modem as defined strikingly backgrounds. history. grotesque with Friedrich one of the most both the of elements Frisch, along Diirrenmatt, by theorists, juxtaposition incongruous andbest knownof Swiss uses to a fundamental a and prominent contemporary authors, points absurdity, terrifyingemptiness, his diaries and even a demonic disorder in the universe. published diary-likenovels, including Stiller, Homo Faberand Montauk,to underminethe rational,empir- Perhapswe tend, as moderns,to tell ourselvesthat the world ical conceptionof self as a logical, coherent,definable entity. of the fairytale is not our own, but a more naiveand primitive Frisch'swork represents the position,both privileged and unen- one of long ago and far away. Witness Charles Perrault, viable, of the male heir to the Westernpatriarchal tradition

Kari E. Lokkewill join thefaculty of the Universityof California,Davis in September1988 as assistantprofessor of English and comparativeliterature. Her recentlypublished book G6rardde Nerval: The Poet as Social Visionary (FrenchForum, 1987) discusses the political implicationsof Nerval's mysticism.The article published here is related to her currentresearch interests in the aesthetics of the grotesqueand the sublime. Kari Lokkeis gratefulto the EditorialBoard of FRONTIERSfor insightful commentaryon The Bloody Chamberthat allowed her to makesignificant improvements in her analysisof this remarkablenovella.

FRONTIERSVol. X, No. 1 o 1988FRONTIERS Editorial Collective 8 FRONTIERS who examines and describes the dissolution of that intellec- Both novellas are told in the first person, a point of view tual and political tradition. foreign to the traditionalfolktale. But these two first-person The English iconoclastand feminist, Angela Carter,on the narrativeperspectives seem to have almost nothing in com- other nand, consistentlyrepresents the outsiderin her novels, mon. TheBloody Chamberis the intenseand breathless retell- short stories, and essays. "Black Venus,"for example, is an ing of a young girl's seductioninto and escape from a deadly eerie portraitof JeanneDuval, Baudelaire'sCreole mistress. marriage.The readeris pulledinto the flow of the lush, erotic, "The Cabinet of Edgar Allan Poe" gives us Elizabeth and rhythmicprose from this first remarkablesentence: VirginiaPoe, the motherand wife of the celebratedand haunted writer. TheSadeian Womanexamines the culturalsignificance I rememberhow, that night, I lay awakein the wagon-litin of the life and writingsof the Marquisde Sade. A twentieth- a tender,delicious ecstasy of excitement,my burningcheek centuryMadame dAulnoy, Carter takes myth and folklore,the pressedagainst the impeccablelinen of the pillowand the world of collective subjectivity,as her inspiration.From her poundingof my heartmimicking that of the greatpistons fantasticFireworks tales to her carnivalesquenovel Nights at ceaselesslythrusting the train that bore me throughthe night, from from fromthe the Circus,Carter's writings bring the vitalityof whatBakhtin away Paris,away girlhood,away white, enclosed of mother's intothe calls "popularculture" into contemporaryBritish literature by quietude my apartment, unguess- able countryof marriage.9 translatingthe motifs of myth and folklore into the language of the aesthete. Thus the collection TheBloody sophisticated Eachdetail-from the whitenessof her husband's Chambercontains of severalwell-known tales, pallid, fleshy renderings fairy to his leather-bound to the "cruel including "Puss-in-Boots"and "LittleRed Riding Hood," as face, pornographiclibrary, well as the title that retells the tale of Bluebeard. necklace,"the priceless "bloody bandageof rubies" that he story forcesher to weararound her frailneck-increases the reader's In the folktale,Bluebeard is a wealthymerchant or who king horror at the of the victim's death marriesand then murdersa series of wives, usually three or seeming inevitability by The but not unbearable- seven. After each wife is the key to a forbid- decapitation. tension-almost, quite marriage, given common to both the best erotic fiction and the best horror den chamberof horrorswhere the formerwives are interred, storiesis the trademarkof this tale. At the same the nar- and, of course, each wife breaksthe taboo and entersthe for- time, biddenroom when the husbandis absent.The "disobedience" rativehas an ironicquality of genreparody because the reader knows from the first word that the heroine survives to of each wife is, in turn, when the key becomes in- very betrayed tell her tale. Thus Carter's has the to do the im- delibly bloody. Finally,the is brokenwhen the last wife prose power cycle to create even when the con- is saved and Bluebeardhimself murdered,by the bride, her possible, overwhelmingsuspense ditions for that are in fact nonexistent.The reader brothers, or a page, dependingupon the specific version of suspense the tale. simultaneouslyexperiences intense emotionalinvolvement in the and a more detachedand intellectualadmiration for Bluebeard is a widespread folktale with many story European Carter's skills. The of both readerinvolve- variants-German,French, Basque, and Estonian,to namebut storytelling height ment and in the tale comes at the moment when the a few. In Norwaythe husbandis a troll, in Italy, a devil, and irony bride is rescued her motherand in an ancient Greek version, death itself. to Funk young by strong,courageous According Carter turns the tables on an and and Dictionaryof Folklore,Mythology and Legend, explicitly age-old literary Wagnall's the traditionof Love in the WesternWorld: the centralmotif of the story is the broken taboo, the forbid- mythic tradition, den chambermotif.6 CharlesPerrault seems to agree, for his first moral to the story reads as a warningto young wives: TheMarquis stood transfixed, utterly dazed, at a loss. It must havebeen as if he hadbeen his beloved for "Curiosityis a charmingpassion, but may only be satisfied watching Tristan thetwelfth, the thirteenth time and Tristan stirred, then at the price of a thousandregrets; one sees aroundone a thou- leapt fromhis bierin thelast act, announcedin a jauntyaria inter- sand examplesof this sad truthevery day. Curiosity is the most fromVerdi that were over of the moment it is it ceases to posed bygones bygones,crying spilled fleeting pleasures; satisfied, milkdid nobodyany good, andas for himself,he proposed exist and it alwaysproves very, very expensive."7But Carter to live happilyever after. The puppetmaster, open-mouthed, and Frisch seem much less willing to place the womanin the wide-eyed,impotent at the last, saw his dolls breakfree of wrong,8 and for them it is the murderoushusband or the theirstrings, abandon the rituals he hadordained for them since murderousmarriage that is the objectof interestand criticism. timebegan and start to live for themselves;the king,aghast, These two novellashave other significant similarities besides witnessesthe revoltof his pawns.(44-45) thematicones. Each is a structuraland stylistic tourdeforce, the Cartertext throughgrotesque overstatement and excess, Frisch's text plays a similarly sophisticatedbut opposite the Frisch throughequally extreme sparseness, reticence, and game. Frisch creates the interiormonologue of a character, understatement.Each text has a strong element of grotesque Felix Schaad, who has recentlybeen acquittedof murdering symbolism, with much of the symbolism presentedtongue- his sixthwife and who obsessivelyrelives the trialin his mind. in-cheek. And finally,powerful irony and parodyof traditional Schaad'sconsciousness has, in fact, been so invadedand over- plot and narrativeexpectations are essentialto bothBluebeard whelmed by his own memories, his sense of guilt, the persis- and The Bloody Chamber.Yet if the similaritiesbetween the tent questions of the prosecutor,and the testimonies of the two works are important,the tonal differencesare even more many witnesses that he has become a totally fragmentedand striking. Frisch's grotesqueis closer to the modern concep- self-alienatedhuman being. The fragmentationreaches the gro- tion of the grotesqueborn of Romanticintrospection, individ- tesque as personalmemories and ridiculoustestimonies full ualism, and alienation, whereas Carter'sis more akin to the of irrelevanciesand non sequitursmingle with accountsof his original, emancipatoryRenaissance grotesque called "gro- current attemptsto appease his sense of guilt with billiard tesque realism" by Bakhtin. games: Lokke 9

-And whenhe wasdrunk, Frau Schaad-and this is myfinal "Whatdoes emerge from the various accountsis that he has question--whatdid he do whenhe hadtoo muchto drink? lived his life as a supremely egotistical creature. . . . He did -He talked..... not murderRosalinde, but he could have. The murderwas a -What about? specific event, but his guilt is a condition of the soul."12The -Always the samething .. technicalexoneration of Schaadand the confessionof the real -And thatwas? -I can'tremember. murdererseem as insignificantas the murderof Carter'sBlue- beard and the rescue of her heroine are and -You can'tremember.... exhilarating liberating. Sometimesthe presidingjudge has also had enough: In Felix Schaad,Frisch has createda patheticand ridiculous -Can the witnessnow be allowedto standdown? figure who is forced to confront the ludicrous loneliness of his existence as reflectedin the testimoniesof the witnesses. The witnesstakes her up handbag. None of his friends or his former wives has anythingeither -The trialis adjournedto Mondaymorning at eight. truly positive or negativeto say abouthim. A cold and empty seems to in all his When asked I billiardcue backin the rack.I on propriety reign relationships. placemy put myjacket. if she has feared strangulationby her former husbandwhen I hadnot removedmy tie for the game;I pull it tight.... he was one wife "I don'tthink he had it in him I look for car. No meterhas angry, replies, my ticket,though my parking to do that" His currentwife calls him ChevalierBlue- runout. I getin behindthe steering wheel. It is raining.I insert (45). the ignitionkey and ask myselfwhere I am living at the beardas a "termof endearment"not only becausehe "already moment.10 had six wives in the cellar,"but also because he is so "chivalrous" (91). Similarlythe murderedwoman's apartment man- Eventuallyall his meditationsand recollectionsseem to take ager states that "Herr Doktor Schaad is a gentleman" (7). the formof questionand answer,offense-defense between dif- Ultimately Schaad seems reduced to playing the absurdrole ferent parts of himself: of tax advisor to all his wives, women whose lives he sup- posedlyonce sharedintimately. Like his name, which is related -You weredeeply upset when you saw the police photograph, to both schaden, to harm or hurt, and schade!, what a pity!, the bodyon the carpet,the five lilies on the body... too bad!, Felix Schaad is both frighteningand pathetic. In- -It was horrible. deed, he exemplifies the grotesque characteras defined by -It was not you who gaveher thoselilies? Gilbert Muller: -There wereoften lilies there. -You nevermentioned that ... Thegrotesque character is a comicfigure. It is impossible -Always five. to with his becausewe view didn't mentionthat? sympathize him,despite agonies, -Why you himfrom a detachedperspective, and when we arenot emo- -I don't know... involvedin his we are amused -Yourdetention lasted almost ten Herr the tionally suffering, ... months, Schaad, As withthe character,the entire of the trialitself three weeks; had of time,Herr Schaad, grotesque technique you plenty grotesqueis also essentiallycomic, for we alwaysview the to mentioneverything. a Tobe the matter -It grotesquefrom vantagepoint. certain, subject escapedmy memory. of thegrotesque-the raw material which creates the vision-is -And today,here in thewoods, with no judge to questionyou, butthe treatmentof thismaterial it comesto mind:there were often lilies there. alwayspotentially horrible, suddenly your is comic:this explains the peculiar complexity of tone,com- (127-8) biningboth horror and the ludicrous, which characterizes the grotesqueas an art form.13 The abrupt,disjointed quality of Frisch'sprose discourages reader involvement as as the of Carter's just surely fluidity In The Chamberit is not the heroine-narratorwho her Bloody style drawsone into fictional world. The leaps in time, is the but ratherher monstroushusband. He and context in Frisch'stext slow one down and grotesquefigure, space, force is an inhumanembodiment of sexual and destruc- one to it as an intellectual or Thus we perversion approach game puzzle. tive a of deathitself. His face is more remainas alienatedfrom Felix Schaadas he is from himself power,ultimately symbol masklike than human, never revealing any emotion: in his obsessive attemptsto objectify,numb, and reify the pain of his past without expressingany feeling. He is like a walk- dead man, an automaton,a machine, common to But his strange,heavy, almost waxen face was not linedby ing images to have the from Kafka to experience.Rather, experience seemed washedit per- contemporarygrotesque Beckett.11 fectlysmooth, like a stoneon a beachwhose fissures have been At the beginning of the work, Schaad'sacquittal does not erodedby successive tides. And sometimes that face, in stillness seem to provideconvincing proof of his innocence,yet his con- whenhe listenedto me playing,with the heavy eyelids folded fession nearthe end of the novellaseems equally false. When overeyes that always disturbed me by theirabsence of light, we finally learn the identityof the real murderer,the revela- seemedto me like a mask,as if his real face, the face that tion is totallyanticlimactic. The workhas proceededby simul- trulyreflected all the life he hadled in the worldbefore he taneouslybuilding up and undercuttingthe suspensesurround- metme, before, even, I wasborn, as thoughthat face lay under- ing the questionof Schaad'sguilt untilfinally the answerseems neaththis mask.Or else, elsewhere.(3-4) totallyirrelevant. Schaad has shownsuch emotionalemptiness and such an overwhelmingsense of guilt thatthe readertends The Bloody Chamberis a contemporarytransformation of to condemn him, as he condemns himself in his final false that quintessentiallygrotesque motif, the dance of death and confession, even if he did not commit the actual murder.As the maiden, a modern, feminist transformationin which for Sven Birkerts, The New Republic's reviewer, emphasizes, once the maiden is victorious over death itself. In fact, it is 10 FRONTIERS the interpenetrationof death with such richly positive facets this rescue, the young widow donates her fortuneto charity of life-wealth, beauty, youth, and sexuality-that gives the and sets up house with her motherand the youngblind piano symbolism of this novella its grotesqueand uncannypower. tuner with whom she has fallen in love in the midst of her The Marquis,with his "deathlycomposure" (15) and his "wax- nightmarishadventures. In a structuralreversal typical of this worksstillness" (16), is most suggestivelyidentified with death ironic fairy tale, the punishmentdue the villainous husband in his associationwith lilies. As doting husband,he fills his has been meted out prematurelyto the innocentyoung lover. bride'sbedroom with lilies so that it looks like an "embalm- This archetypaltale of the loss of innocence, which begins ing parlor"(16). In the Marquis'slily-like presence, death and with the poundingof a younggirl's heart, ends in mixedtones phallic sexuality are one: appropriateto the grotesque, with the heroine'srecognition of the evil within her and her acknowledgmentof the beauty I knowit mustseem a curiousanalogy, a manwith a flower, of her blind lover's heart: but sometimeshe seemedto me like a lily. Yes.A lily. Pos- sessedof thatstrange ominous calm of a sentientvegetable, No paintnor powder, no matterhow thick or white,can mask like one of thosecobra-headed, funereal lilies whosewhite thatred mark on my forehead;I am gladhe cannotsee it- sheathsare curled out of a fleshas thickand tensely yielding notfor fear of his revulsion,since I knowhe sees me clearly to the touchas vellum.(4) with his heart-butbecause it sparesmy shame.(46)

The Marquis'snightmarish yet magical castle by the sea is In contrastto Carter'sopulent, exotic fairy tale, the sym- a "Universe of Death," both captivatingand repellent. Em- bolismof Frisch'sexaggeratedly mundane world is muchmore bodyingthe essence of the grotesqueaesthetic, it defies defini- subtleand difficultto interpret.This symbolismis nevertheless tion and categorization;"at home neitheron the land nor on responsiblefor much of the dry and understatedhumor in the the water,"it is "a mysterious,amphibious place, contravening text. We cannotsuppress a smile when, for example,we learn the materialityof both earth and the waves" (9). References thatRosalinde, who was a high-pricedcall girl beforeshe was to Odilon Redon, Gustave Moreau, Puvis de Chavannes, murdered,lived on a streetcalled Hornstrasseor thatshe had Debussy, and Huysmans create an appropriatelydecadent a cleaning lady named Isolde. (The Tristanand Isolde myth atmosphere.This exotic,fairy tale castle is a worldof hothouse findsits wayinto Frisch'stext through ironic detail; it permeates flowers, marronsglac6s, Asti Spumante,and wateredblack The Bloody Chamberlike a heavy, recurrentmelody.) Simi- silk. Perhaps most intriguing is the manner in which this larly, Schaad'sobsessive but distractedrubbing and chalking aesthete'sparadise, this world of overexquisitetaste, through of his phallicbilliard cues provokea chuckle.But, like so much its amorality,intensity, and excess, borderson the hellish and moderngrotesque humor-that of FranzKafka, Louis Ferdi- the hideous. The grotesqueoften reveals that the seemingly nand Cl1ine, NathanaelWest, and GUinterGrass, for exam- ugly can be aestheticallyfascinating, but Carter'sperverse craft ple-Bluebeard provokesa laughterthat is neverwholehearted shows that the beautiful can in fact be extraordinarilyugly. or full. It occurs againstthe backdropof a murderedwoman's Like the "lush, insolent incense" of the heavy-headedlilies, brutalizedbody. The image of Rosalinde'scorpse suffocated and the "desirousdread" the lecherousvoluptuary inspires in with a dirty sanitarynapkin, strangledwith Schaad'stie, and his young virgin bride, the atmosphereof this castle is both strewnwith five white lilies hauntsthe readerand poisons the seductiveand suffocating.Seen throughthe glass of theirvase, atmosphereof the storyjust as the bloody chamberof horrors the stems of the lilies resemble "dismemberedarms, drifting taints the beauty of Bluebeard'scastle in the Cartertale. drownedin greenishwater" (22). Thereis an edge of violence, The lilies are powerful symbols of death in both texts, in sadism,and corruptionto all this luxuryand taste,for the Mar- The Bloody Chamberthrough their oppressivepresence, in quis's wealth is based upon centuries of exploitation and Bluebeardthrough the relativeabsence of other images with enslavementand his pleasureupon the tortureand slaughter equalsymbolic weight and portent. It turnsout, of course,that of the three women now entombed in his cellar. the five lilies that were so often present in Rosalinde'sapart- Against this background of perverse humor and over- ment, like the lilies mysteriouslyplaced on her grave, were abundantsensuous symbolism,the symbol of the heartstands gifts fromthe murderer,the youngGreek student. Equally sig- out in forceful simplicity.The young bride interpretsthe key nificant is Schaad'sadmission, near the end of the novella, to the forbiddenchamber as the key to her husband'sheart. that he had sent lilies as a joke on the day of her murder.Is As she illuminatesevery room of the once dark castle, she it possible thatSchaad's superficial, sarcastic gesture, his lack sees herselfas searchingfor her husband's"true nature" (24), of attunementto the emotional significanceof these flowers, for his soul. Her explorationof the torturechamber under his provokeda murderousfit of jealousyon the partof Rosalinde's castle becomes an archetypaldescent into hell, and the indel- lover when he realized that someone else had sent her his ibly bloodyheart that marks the key when she leavesthis cham- flowers?This embarrassinglymelodramatic question, straight ber is ultimatelytransferred to her foreheadas the eternalmark out of a bad detective novel, leaves the reader wondering of Cain. This "telltaleheart" is the one unequivocallysuper- whether Frisch is suggestingthat Schaad may have "uncon- naturaldetail in the story and as such is stronglyhighlighted. sciously" knownwhat he was doing, or whetherFrisch is in- Finally the young heroine must admit to herself that she has steadcommenting upon Schaad's lack of awarenessof the world sold herself to the devil for "a handfulof colored stones and of symbols and revealingthe cruel and horrifyingresults of the pelts of dead beasts" (16), that she has been seduced by Schaad'semotional blindness and repression. her own potential for corruption. Here again, Frisch seems, consciouslyor unconsciously,to The Bloody Chamberends as a feminist fairy tale should, be engagingin metafiction,to be parodyingnot only Schaad's with the rescue of the daughterby her strong and heroic emotional insensitivity,but also the style of self-expression, mother, an "eagle-featured,indomitable" woman (2). After the language,that reflects it. Frisch's style-the languageof Lokke 11

his protagonist-is sparse,skeletal, stripped of metaphor,sym- throughthe richness and sensuality of its languageand then bol, andmyth. Nevertheless,the lilies haveprecisely the primal compels us to experience the horrific consequences of the power that Schaad wishes to deny them. They rise from the heroine's surrenderto the Marquis. By acknowledgingthe surfaceof the text as a fatefulsymbol of perversionand death glamour of sado-masochisticself-annihilation as well as its in spite of-in fact, precisely by virtue of-Schaad's attempt ultimatebrutality, ugliness, and misogyny,Carter reveals both to relegatethem to the level of a silly, slightly crueljoke. And the difficulty and the absolute necessity of a feminist redefi- Schaad,the properand well-respectedSwiss doctor,is forced nitionof sexualpleasure and desire. Thus the hearton the hero- to admitthat his personahas been invadedby the monstrous ine's foreheadis not only a markof shame, a sign of complic- and mythical characterof Bluebeard. ity; it is also a badgeof courage.She is rewardedfor breaking Similarly,Carter attacks myths as "consolatorynonsense" the patriarchaltaboo with a knowledge of the human heart. in the "PolemicalPreface" to her book The Sadeian Woman The powerof the heartis the unconditionalpower of love, both and the Ideology of Pornography: the indomitablelove of the mother and the total acceptance of the gentlemale partner.As Cartersuggests in theprovocative If womenallow themselves to be consoledfor their culturally conclusion to TheSadeian Woman,fear of love is perhapsthe determinedlack of accessto themodes of intellectualdebate ultimateobstacle in the way of women'sfreedom: "It is in this the invocationof are by hypotheticalgreat goddesses, they holy terrorof love thatwe find, in both men and womenthem- simplyflattering themselves into submission (a techniqueoften the source of all to the of usedon them All the versionsof women... selves, opposition emancipation by men). mythic women" are nonsenses;and nonsenseseems (150). consolatory consolatory in of to me a fairdefinition of myth,anyway. Mother goddesses are The dynamic both texts-the return repressedmyth just as silly a notionas fathergods. 14 and metaphor,the dialectic of enlightenment-is a kind of microcosm of the developmentof contemporaryEuropean Yet Carterdoes not escape the worldof archetypes,no matter literatureas a whole, which has foundthat attempts to denude how "archaic"and "atavistic"she may consider them. Her itself of myth and metaphorhave succeeded only in creating own sadisticMarquis is the quintessenceof the negativeanimus newerand ever more complex mythicstructures. Hence Alain archetypedescribed by Marie-Louisevon Franzin An Intro- Robbe-Grillet'ssimplistic attack on myth and metaphor in duction to the Psychologyof Fairy Tales-the ruler of a land Nature, humanisme,tragtdie (1958)developed into an obses- of deathwho tortureswoman and cuts her off from life. Blue- sion with recreatingcontemporary cultural mythology in Projet beard, Franz writes, "embodies the death-like, ferocious pour une rvolution 'aNew York(1970), and Roland Barthes aspectsof the animusin his mostdiabolical form. ... Woman, came to see his attemptat demystificationof myth in Mythol- on the other hand, serves life, and the animaentangles a man ogies as itself a mythicact. 16And in her lectureson Kassan- in life. . . . The animusin his negativeform seems to be the dra, ChristaWolf, despite all her skepticismand rationalism, opposite. He draws woman away from life and murderslife finds herself on a visit to Greece obsessed with the figure of for her."15 the legendaryprophetess and hypnoticallydrawn to terracot- Furthermore,Carter's attack on the mythsof male supremacy ta fertility goddesses and snake priestesses on the island of in TheBloody Chamberemploys a modern, feministversion Crete. As Wolf reflects, all poets want to believe in the power of the Demeter-Persephonemyth: the archetypaldescent into of prophecy,the power of the word.17 These developments the hell of the self and the slaying of the monster keeper of seem to bear out the assertions of such theorists as Ernst this realmof riches. And her courageousmother-daughter her- Cassirer in Language and Myth that metaphor,myth, and oines are variations on the Amazon archetype: powerful, languageare inextricableentities, thatmyth and metaphorare strong-willed,steel-nerved women warriors.In fact, Carter's central conditions of speech and human self-expression. fairy tales are exemplaryinstances of the currentfeminist re- With no positive vision of the future, Frisch, however,can visions of mythic archetypesdescribed by Estella Lauterin see only silence and deathas Schaad'savenues of escape from Womenas Mythmakers(1984) and Feminist Archetypal Theory: the terrifyingrealm of Bluebeard'scastle. Frisch'snovella ends InterdisciplinaryRe-Visions of Jungian Thought(1985). in disintegrationand despair,with Schaadtrying to alleviate Despite her theoreticalassertions in The Sadeian Woman, his guilt througha false confessionand a futile suicideattempt. Carter'sown art provesthat myth is not inherentlyregressive Frisch'sthematic preoccupations in Bluebeardare identicalto or atavistic.What is importantis how it is used. Thus The those of Stiller, his first major novel. In fact, images of BloodyChamber creates, from an ancientfairy tale and ancient loneliness,unhappy love, disintegratingmarriages, sexual fear, mythicmotifs, a vital originalexpression of a forcefulfeminist and crueltyhaunt all of Frisch'snovels, Gantenbein(1964) and vision. Withthe rescue of the heroineby the powerfulmother Montauk(1975) in particular.Stiller, for example,like Schaad, figure, Carterrewrites the traditionalfolktale plot in which becomes convincedthat he has murderedhis wife, thoughshe the heroineis rescuedby herself, a brother,or a futurelover. has in factdied of tuberculosis.Stiller confesses to her murder, In TheBloody Chamberthe courageousmother comes gallop- realizingthat "thereare all sortsof waysof murderinga person ing wildly down the causewayand shoots the Marquisjust as or at least his soul, and that'ssomething no police in the world the rising tide and the murdererare about to separate the can spot."18"Guilt is ourselves,"19 he announces.This guilt heroine from life forever.Here Carteris also challengingthe is the ubiquitousguilt of the Germanicrace afterthe genocide traditionof sado-masochism,which, as she brilliantlysuggests of WorldWar II, guilt projectedonto the faceless foreigner, in The Sadeian Woman,is foundedupon a lover's pact with the scapegoat,the anonymousGreek student who is the "real deathand a hatredof the motheras giver-of-life.For the sado- murderer."20It is also the collective guilt of man against masochistthe womb becomes a tomb, a "bloody chamber." woman, which some critics have suggestedis the dominant The geniusof this novellalies in its narrativestructure, which theme in Frisch's entire oeuvre.21The differences between firstseduces us into identificationwith the masochisticheroine Bluebeardand Stiller are stylistic and structural;Bluebeard 12 FRONTIERS

is a grotesquelysparse and skeletalversion of the earlierdiary- (life-death,fact-fiction, matter-spirit, comic-tragic, organic-mechanical); the confessional novel. In the end Schaad maintains absolute interminglingof incongruouselements; and the assaultupon aesthetic expec- silence as he hears a doctor's the voice of his own tations,rational thought, and societalnorms. But whereasKayser sees the gro- voice, as a ahistoricalaesthetic Bakhtin to the inform him that he is in tesque timeless, phenomenon, points alienated emotional self, pain. historicaldevelopment of the grotesquefrom the MiddleAges to the present. UltimatelySchaad's self seems to disappearinto nothingness. 2. Bakhtindescribes carnivalsas celebrating"temporary liberation from This reductionto despairand silence places Frischsquarely the prevailingtruth and from the establishedorder; they markedthe suspen- in the modernisttradition of Beckettand the absurdists.Carter, sion of all hierarchicalrank, norms, and prohibitions.Carnival was the true feast of the feast of and renewal.It was hostile to on the other hand, as a womanand a feminist, is time, becoming, change, refreshingly all thatwas immortalizedand completed" (10). "Contraryto the moderncanons, free from this unremittinglybleak male perspective. The the grotesquebody is not separatedfrom the rest of the world. It is not a Bloody Chamberis a lush celebrationof the heroine'svitality, closed, completedunit; it is unfinished,outgrows itself, transgressesits own sensuality,eagerness for adventure,and love of experience. limits ... The body discloses its essence as a principleof growthwhich ex- its the throes of Even her acknowledgmentof shameand guilt seems a healthy ceeds own limits only in copulation,pregnancy, childbirth, with an of death,eating, drinking, or defecation.This is the everunfinished, ever creating coming to terms herself, acceptance responsibility body" (26). rather than destructive self-deprecation.It is worth asking 3. Kayser, 179. whetherthere is not, in contrastto the nihilistic grotesqueof 4. CharlesPerrault, The Fairy Tales of CharlesPerrault, trans. with foreword masculinewriters, a twentieth-centuryfeminine grotesque with by Angela Carter(New York:Avon Books, 1979),41. 5. Perrault, 17. exemplarsas variedas DjunaBarnes, Flannery O'Connor, Isak 6. Maria Leach and Jerome Fried, eds., Funkand Wagnall'sDictionary Dinesen, and Angela Carter.In its joyful acceptanceof both of Folklore,Mythology and Legend, vol. I (New York:Funk and Wagnalls, body and soul, its irreverenthumor, and its vision of the 1949), 150. regenerativepower of love and hope, this grotesquefulfills the 7. Perrault,41. A of the emancipatoryfunction that Bakhtinattributes to the original 8. comparison the Bluebeardmotif and mythof Amor and Psyche of would be rewarding.Curiosity also leads Psyche to "disobey"her husband. Renaissancegrotesque-the destruction rigidifiedhierarchy For a discussionof the Amor and Psychemyth that interprets Psyche's curiosity and the celebrationof the unendingcycle of life, death, and in a positivelight, see ErichNeumann, Amor and Psyche:The Psychic Develop- rebirth. ment of the Feminine(Princeton, N. J.: PrincetonUniversity Press, 1956). Chamber York: and Finally, then, the grotesque in both Bluebeard and The 9. AngelaCarter, The Bloody (New Harper Row,1979), Chamberfunctions as an vehicle for 1. All parentheticalreferences in the text are to this edition. Bloody unsettling expos- 10. Max Frisch, Bluebeard:A Tale, trans. Geoffrey Skelton (New York: ing, throughexaggeration, dark humor,and irony,the brutal- HarcourtBrace Jovanovich, 1982), 46-147.All parentheticalreferences in the ity of traditionalpatriarchal attitudes towards women. Inevi- text are to this edition. tably,because Frisch'swork is told from a male perspective, 11. See Kayser'sdiscussion of the mechanicalor technicalgrotesque, 182-83. 12. Sven review of Bluebeard:A Tale, Max Frisch, TheNew it becomes self-parodyjust as Carter'svoice is a voice of self- Birkerts, by in Republic, 11 July 1983, 32-35. assertion.Carter offers a wry expressionof faith the human 13. GilbertMuller, Nightmaresand Visions:Flannery O'Connor and the heart, whereasFrisch gives us nothingnessand despair.In the Catholic Grotesque(Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1972),7. Europeanmodernist traditionmen seem to be moving into 14. Angela Carter,The Sadeian Womanand the Ideology of Pornography silence. on the other are out. It is (New York:Pantheon Books, 1978), 5. Women, hand, speaking von An to the as if within a Western tradition 15. Marie-Louise Franz, Introduction Psychologyof Fairy Frisch, standing patriarchal Tales (New York:Spring, 1970), chapter 8, 43. that he knows is moribund,feels an ethical obligationto help 16 Michael Spencer, "Avatarsdu mythechez Robbe-Grilletet Butor,"in destroy the traditionthat fatheredhim. Carterhas the more Robbe-Grillet:Analyse, Theorie,ed. Jean Ricardou,vol. 1, Roman-Cintma joyous and thankfultask of transformingthe ancient and the (Paris: Union G&nSraled'Editions, 1976), 64-84. into the new. 17. ChristaWolf, Voraussetzungeneiner Erzdihlung:Kassandra (Darmstadt: mythic radically Luchterhand,1983), 25. 18. Max Frisch, I'm Not Stiller, trans. Michael Bullock (New York:Vin- tage Books, 1962), 111. NOTES 19. Frisch, I'm Not Stiller, 390. 20. RobertM. Adams also discusses Bluebeardas an embodimentof the 1. See Mikhail Bakhtin,Rabelais and His World,trans. Helene Iswolsky collectiveguilt of Germanyin his reviewof Bluebeard:A Tale,by Max Frisch, (Cambridge,Mass.: M.I.T.Press, 1968),and WolfgangKayser, The Grotesque The New YorkReview of Books, 29 September 1983, 14-16. in Artand Literature,trans. Ulrich Weisstein (1963; reprint New York:McGraw 21. See GerhardF Probst and Jay F. Bodine, eds., Perspectiveson Max Hill, 1966). Both Bakhtinand Kayseremphasize the juxtaposition of opposites Frisch (Lexington:University Press of Kentucky,1982), 3.