Essay on the 'The Bloody Chamber' (Title Story)

To what extent is the titular story of ‘The Bloody Chamber’ shocking?

The short story, “The Bloody Chamber”, sees the exploration of many Gothic elements. However, one of the most resonant ones throughout the story is that of ‘shock’. There are many instances in the story that support the statement.

The marriage between a young, virginal girl, to a recently widowed old rich man comes as a shocking surprise. More interesting is the fact that they share almost no common interest – whilst the girl loves music and takes to playing at the piano whenever time permits, the Marquis amuses himself by collecting paintings and novels that deal with ritualistic eroticism. The Marquis catches his new wife peering into The Immolation of the wives of the Sultan, and we see him patronise her by saying, “My little nun has found the prayerbooks, has she?” The young girl’s ‘painful, furious bewilderment’ can be supported by Bertens’ commentary on gender stereotypes: she resembles the woman who is “cute, but essentially helpless” under the dominating nature of the ancestrally rich Marquis that she has married. The shock that reader receives to see the husband refer to his wife as “baby” or “little one” frequently differentiates the fine line between the “monster” and the humane part of the Marquis.

Secondly, the treatment of females is widely covered in “The Bloody Chamber”, and most of the time, the reader is appalled by the way in which Carter goes about the description of these scenes in the story. When the Marquis strips the young girl for the first time, we see the narrator’s ambivalent reaction to the consummation of her marriage. “Enough! No; more!” The constant references to fairytales throughout the story remind us of the helpless heroine who must succumb to the sexual wants of the man to survive in the end. The language makes many subtle references to religious and cultural beliefs (Adam and Eve, aristocratic behaviour in the eighteenth century) and the 'representations of characters' that Botting refers to make the reader wonder if it is morally right for a recently-turned widower to remarry a girl almost half his age simply because she has a "potential for corruption".  Perhaps what shocks the reader more is Carter’s bold portrayal of ‘pornographic confrontation’ in 1979 when feminism was only just being accepted; the embodiment of woman as an independent being is a theme that not only shocks but goes beyond shock in that it educates the society and those that read the story.

Most importantly, the chamber and its contents itself are one of the most shocking elements throughout “The Bloody Chamber” – the blood, corpses and immolation that Carter depicts not only induces fear in the reader, but more so blurs the boundaries between the Marquis’ constant psychological trauma between pain and pleasure. Whilst sadism (depicted in the Marquis) and the blurring of boundaries shocks the reader into believing the Marquis really is the “atrocious monster”, Carter succeeds at repulsing yet at the very same time attracting the reader to the story.

Nevertheless, some readers would go as far to say that, given “The Bloody Chamber” is based on the fairytale “Bluebeard”, it is too predictable to be shocking. The twists and turns are not that surprising, as they are likely to be expected to one who is contextually familiar with fairytales. Carter replaces the conventional male hero with the heroine’s mother, who herself is the embodiment of masculine femininity and whose “maternal telepathy” avers the tragedy. In addition to this, many feminists would argue that the purpose of “The Bloody Chamber” is not to shock, but rather to educate; educate both women and the rest of society about the dangers of the world, and what the result of naivety and desire for material wealth leads to.