They’re also striking, rich and inventive. And, in my opinion, they’re some of the most isolating, uncanny, baffling short stories I’ve read. Instead, they’re short stories in their own right. The foreword insists these are not re-tellings or - heaven forbid - adult versions. “The Bloody Chamber” is an anthology containing ten short stories, all inspired by famous fairy tales. So, I decided that it’d been a couple of years, and I should give it another read, and see if my opinions had changed at all. And for some reason, “The Bloody Chamber” came to mind.

It’s based, in part, on “The Odyssey”, amongst other Greek myths, and got me thinking about other “re-tellings” of famous stories I’ve read in the past (I’m a bit of an aficionado). Recently, I read Madeline Miller’s novel “Circe”, another book that’s been sitting on my “to read” list since Christmas. I did however, immediately go out and pick up more of Carter’s books, because I found something incredibly compelling about her writing. Personally, it could be that I just didn’t “get” them. Possibly the fact that they’re somewhat shocking, possibly the sometimes flowery and over-the-top language. I still don’t really know what it was about the stories. If the foreword of the edition I own is anything to go by, that’s a fairly common reaction. The first time I read it was during a university course on fairy tales, and I absolutely hated it. This is actually the second time I’ve read Angela Carter’s polarising short story collection, “The Bloody Chamber”. The present paper examines the sartorial rhetoric by which Carter complexifies and subverts entrenched perceptions and ideas.Sign up to our Weekly newsletter Subscribe to our magazine for more great content

In The Bloody Chamber, she explores a multitude of possibilities of conceiving and representing femininity, masculinity, and gender relations. Summary/Abstract: Angela Carter's double allegiance to feminism and postmodernism involves a heightened consciousness of the fluid nature of gender identity, whose unambiguous representation she avoids programmatically. Published by: UNIVERSITATEA »ȘTEFAN CEL MARE« SUCEAVA Keywords: gender relations postmodern feminism fairy tale Camp carnival mask nakedness clothing Angela Carter The Bloody Chamber

Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies In Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber Author(s): Cornelia Macsiniuc

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