Angela Carter's The Bloody Cha

             "How can the bitten apple flesh out its scar again?": Bridging the gap between
             our Natural and animal selves, in Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber
             Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber sets out to examine sexuality for women within a misogynistic society. I believe that Carter's transformation of such classic fairy tales as Beauty and the Beast, and Little Red Riding Hood, is her attempt at bringing to light ideas that have always existed within those tales yet have never been understood. What Cater is trying to show is that society embraces these fair tales for a reason, and it's not because of the handsome prince 's, and happy endings but rather because of the fact that they show how today's culture has distanced itself from nature, and the problems that arise as a result of that. Carter seems to feel as though civilization has pushed nature aside, and is fully intent on covering it up, and that today's culture would rather go after what is fake and unreal rather than what comes from nature. The question that The Bloody Chamber seeks to answer is "...how can the bitten apple flesh out it's scar again?" In other words, now that society has become so distant form nature, how can it go back, and repair the damage it has caused? Carter's answer comes in the form of one word "mutilation", which in her case is not a reference to bodily harm, but rather the idea of mute or silence. I would like to argue that it is this idea of muting or silencing nature that is the key to understanding how "the bitten apple" can flesh out its scar again. In my opinion, Carter is suggesting that it is when we stop silencing the voice of nature and begin to embrace it, that the "irreparable gulf" that currently separates us from our Natural and animal selves can be bridged. At that point, the "scar" that marks our separation from Nature can finally begin to he...

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Angela Carter's The Bloody Cha. (1969, December 31). In MegaEssays.com. Retrieved 15:25, March 28, 2024, from https://www.megaessays.com/viewpaper/13667.html