Abstract
Some readers of Angela Carter’s “The Bloody Chamber” have seen its narrator protagonist as a passive young woman who makes little attempt to avoid her apparent fate. Several features of the text, however, suggest that the protagonist is rather a woman in process, a person who oscillates between passivity and action. The features that suggest a woman in process are Carter’s engagement with ideas also appearing in Susan Gubar’s essay on Isak Dinesen’s short story “The Blank Page”; Carter’s use of mirrors to show the protagonist’s emerging sense of subjectivity; and references to Richard Wagner’s opera Tristan and Isolde. In addition, the protagonist’s comments at the end of the story indicate that she continues to be a woman in process, relating her story as an attempt to expiate her shame.
Recommended Citation
Manley, Kathleen E. B.. "The Woman in Process in Angela Carter’s “The Bloody Chamber”." Marvels & Tales 12.1 (1998). Web. <https://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/marvels/vol12/iss1/4>.
