The Marquis and His Bride
The two main characters in Carter’s most famous short story are unnamed, but names are not necessary. “The Bloody Chamber” tells a story that most readers will likely already be familiar with: the gruesome dark fairy tale “Bluebeard” about a murderous husband and a new wife whose curiosity kills more than a cat.
Charles Baudelaire and Jeanne Duval
The story “Black Venus” is ostensibly about the real life relationship between infamous French poet Baudelaire and his mysterious mistress Duval. Much is know about the life of the poet, but not so much about Duval and so the story becomes one which takes upon itself the task of filling in the gaps.
Lizzie Borden
The most notorious assumed killer who was actually acquitted of the crime by a jury in American history until the mid-1990’s makes an appearance in two different stories by Carter. “The Fall River Axe Murders” is forthright about its topic as it opens with the words from the famous children’s rhyme about Lizzie taking an ax and giving whacks to her parents. “Lizzie’s Tiger” is much different, on the other hand, as the “Lizzie” of the story is not revealed to be the Miss Borden until the shocking revelation of the closing line.
Edgar Allen Poe
“The Cabinet of Edgar Allan Poe” features not just the tragic writer as a character, but his mother Elizabeth and the teenage first-cousin who would become his wife, Virginia Clemm in yet another example of Carter's exemplary talent for pulling something new out of familiar stories.
Little Red Riding Hood
Though not identified as such by name, the fairy tale icon is featured in two different stories in The Bloody Chamber. “The Werewolf” and “The Company of Wolves” both feature unnamed girls in starkly revised versions of the story. The former really turns things on its head with not just the revelation that the grandmother is a werewolf, but that the girl may have ratted her out to inherit her wealth. The latter features a much more sexually charged element in which it is the wolf who is seduced.
Figaro
The story “Puss-in-Boots” features a cat named Figaro who is living life to the hilt with a human friend who is an enamored of debauchery as his cast. And then the human actually falls in love and on the way to fighting this dreaded development by assuming that people inevitably come to hate the thing they want the most, a course of action is set in motion that takes the fairy tale figure to new levels of con games.
Lady Purple
Lady Purple is arguably Carter’s most fascinating character in the whole of her short fiction. She is a vampire, a sadomasochistic mistress, prostitute, and, quite literally, a marionette who comes back to life by story’s end.
