Conforming and Subverting Gender Stereotypes Molly Nagle 12th Grade

Carter’s “The Bloody Chamber” portrays many male characters as, arguably, predatory patriarchs, where they can be seen to be preying on the vulnerable, generically referring to young girls we see without major parental figures - men are presented as tyrannical. However, there are instances of men who are more weak; being the vulnerable one themselves, often at the will of a strong female figure, which transforms the gothic stereotype of the meek and unassuming female.

Common to Carter’s writing, we see this collection as a subversion of fairy tales, with this particular story destabilizing the tale of Perrault’s “Bluebeard”. In Carter’s eponymous tale, we see the Marquis de Sade as a predatory monster. The critic Makinen acknowledges Carter’s writing dealing with the “physical abuse of women in phallocentric cultures”; which is very evidently seen in this short story. The thematic use of predatory characters implicitly identified in the Marquis de Sade’s name; “Sade” alludes to Sadism. The gothic trope of sex and sexuality can be seen, where the young girl recognizes the Marquis as a character of an immensely sexual predatory nature, which is also rather pervasive. Carter may arguably have presented the Marquis as a monster;...