The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories

“The Bloody Chamber” is the first and title story of Angela Carter’s collection. The title is layered with multiple meanings; it refers to the literal chamber filled with blood that the unnamed narrator finds in the Marquis’s hidden room, as well as to the female body and menstruation. It also encompasses the collection as a whole; the book acts as a “chamber” filled with “bloody” stories.

This first story draws heavily from Charles Perrault’s “Bluebeard,” a traditional tale about a murderous bridegroom who punishes his wives’ curiosity. However, Carter introduces several key distinctions. The first is that she sets her story firmly in France, positioning the “Bluebeard” figure as a French nobleman. In most versions of the traditional story, the characters are given a Middle-Eastern appearance, associating the man’s horrific actions with a culture construed as dangerously foreign. The second major change is the shifting of some of the peripheral characters. Instead of relying on her sister Anne (the only female character in the original fairy tale to be given a name), the narrator connects with an innocent male piano tuner. And, instead of being rescued by her band of valiant brothers, the heroine is rescued by her mother. Finally, the female narrator is given greater agency in her own undoing.

The story opens with a conversation between the protagonist and her mother, allowing the narrator to work in important information about the woman who “shot a man-eating tiger with her own hand” (3). This foreshadows the story’s conclusion and introduces a degree of female agency that immediately distinguishes it from its predecessor. As the narrator considers her impending marriage, she is constantly aware of the economic considerations involved. Her heroic mother “famously beggared herself for love,” and to rectify this mistake, the narrator must now do the opposite, marrying a wealthy man she does not love in order to “banish the spectre of poverty from its habitual place at our meagre table” (3). These thoughts introduce the theme of Marriage as an Economic Exchange, which will remain prevalent throughout the collection as Carter considers how fairy tales dramatize the commodification of women in a patriarchal society.

The story then moves to a closed room containing the protagonist and her new husband, only the husband is asleep—so far, the reader’s only experience with him is through her musings and memories. The narrator describes him as “masked,” a motif that appears repeatedly throughout the collection. Here it is used to strip the specificity from this man, rendering him a monolithic embodiment of threatening masculinity.

Several key characteristics are noted about the nameless protagonist, beginning with the fact that she’s only 17—inexperienced, virginal, and with a taste for attention. From the beginning of their marriage, there is a clear divide in status. He is older, more experienced, and in control of the young woman’s new life. She exists for him as an ornament to be positioned and controlled. Yet despite this objectification, the narrator is intoxicated by his attention. The story explores the theme of Virginity and Sexual Awakening as the narrator oscillates between sexual desire and revulsion: “I felt both a strange, impersonal arousal at the thought of love and at the same time a repugnance I could not stifle” (12). She desires the sensation of being desired. When her new husband finally does have sex with her, it’s filled with an underlying violence. He forces her to wear her ruby choker, an overture of the execution to come, and “impales” her with his body. This highlights the lens through which the Marquis approaches sexuality and love (an element also enhanced by the narrator’s discovery of his sadistic pornographic materials).

After they have sex, the Marquis exerts his power over the protagonist by leaving her alone during their honeymoon. He silently tells her that he has “had too many honeymoons to find them in the least pressing commitments” (16), ignoring that this is her very first. In doing so, he reminds her of her disposability and reinforces the power imbalance between them. The moment the Marquis leaves the heroine with the keys to his home is one of its most iconic scenes, and one taken directly from the famous fairy tale. The manipulation in this scene is made clear by the Marquis’s manufactured hesitation and his detailed instructions on where to find the room in question. He takes every precaution possible to ensure his new wife won’t be able to resist her archetypal curiosity. But like the literary women before her, like Eve and Pandora, she succumbs to what history perceives to be a uniquely feminine trait and discovers her husband’s extracurricular activities.

Once the narrator finds herself in a state of crisis, she reaches for the only semblance of safety and control that she has left: her music. She imagines that she can “create a pentacle out of music that would keep me from harm, for if my music had first ensnared him, then might it not also give me the power to free myself from him?” (29). The pentacle is a magical symbol believed to confer protection on its maker. As a motif throughout this collection, it is most often associated with virginity. The narrator’s music summons Jean-Yves (the only character in the story who, like his predecessor Sister Anne, is given a name). Contrary to the traditional fairy-tale structure, however, the prince does not rescue the princess; he merely gives her a renewed strength to carry on. Jean-Yves is a narrative foil to the Marquis in many ways: He is kind and frail where the Marquis is cruel and dominating. Moreover, Jean-Yves’s blindness ensures that he can’t objectify the heroine as the Marquis does. Instead, he connects with her because of what he can hear.

In the story’s final moments, the heroine plays out the role that the Marquis has written for her. His attempted murder isn’t one of passion, but a meticulously planned ritual. He refers to her death as a “sacrifice,” eliciting the question of what he hopes to be given in return. At this point the story bends away from Perrault’s version by having the protagonist’s mother come to her rescue: “You never saw such a wild thing as my mother” (39). The villain is defeated not by a shining knight, or even by the more modern trope of the heroine rising to her own rescue, but by “the maternal telepathy” between a mother and daughter (40).