A Feminist Approach to Reading Angela Carter.

In this essay, we will deal with intertextuality and its relevance, patriarchy features, female
individualism, virginity, reconstruction and empowerment in Carter’s fairy tale. “Folk
literature tolerates variations, adaptations, and revisions because in many cases it remains
essentially an oral genre. And regardless of minor variations and multiple translations and
transformations, the essential storyline remains unchanged. By contrast, Carter seems to
make careful and pivotal changes to such fairy and folk tales. The changes she makes are
substantial and goal-directed. At one level, Carter’s inversion of familiar narratives
“challenges the readers’ expectations as they are forced to confront the damage being done
to women” within our prevailing culture. It is argued that Carter consciously does this so as
to foreground the feminist potential and the ideological subtext of such stories.” (Sawden:
2015). Angela Carter’s purpose is to show how her modern retellings differ from original
fairy tales, that is, what elements the author has changed in the selection of such stories
which reinforces stereotypical gender roles and the submissive nature of the female
characters in relation to the male ones. In other words, this English novelist and poet has
constantly been writing innovative literature that concerns the role of patriarchy, classist
symbols and the lack of women’s rights that were included in traditional stories such as
“The Snow White” and “Sleeping Beauty”.

In 1979, “The Bloody Chamber”, a collection of Carter’s short fiction stories based upon
Charles Perrault’s literary tales aimed at showing her feminist view and including
postmodern elements such as fantasy and intertextuality which allow us to understand the
intended meaning in her retellings. Angela took “The Beauty and the Beast” , a classic tale
and wrote “The Tiger’s Bride" with a certain twist. Carter gave it a feminist take by
subverting Beauty into a wild and socially alienated creature so as to discard objectification
of women and patriarchal standards which show how women are mistreated and dominated
by men. What is more, she expressed how Beauty, the heroine, is seen as an autonomous
individual and not as an object of her obedience or purity. The story is set in a small town in
Italy, where Beauty’s father loses her to the Beat in a game of card.Also,This story treats
virginity and sexuality, it focuses on the transformative power of virginity. Something
essential in this story is the white, which at first represents Beauty's innocence but as the
story continues, it reveals the exent of her objectification by her father and the Beast. The
significance of sexual awakening helps Beauty to cross the threshold of virginity.

Throughout The Tiger’s Bride story, Carter displayed how men with wealth have power to
buy and possess beauty. In the quotation “The lamb must learn to run with the tigers” Carter
alludes to the Beauty, an adolescent who has to survive and accept the patriarchal
stereotypes that her society demands and imposes. For example, being a part of her father’s
neglect, madness and sickness of gambling and Beast’s requests over her body after being
bought. In connection with the father’s behaviour, the girl states “Gambling is a sickness. My
father said he loved me yet he staked his daughter on a hand of cards.” Here, we can
observe how Carter suggests that men aim for materialistic lives and care more about
possessions and social status than their partners. As a consequence, Beauty is used as an
object of financial value and pushed to follow the male lead and obey his demands. She is
not able to question his actions and she must accept being a victim of her father’s actions.
According to the Beast’s requests to see the female character’s naked body, Carter’s view is
that taking off her clothes is a powerful way of showing an overpowering patriarch symbol of
society. Not only does she point out how patriarchy damages women’s independence by
obeying male demands but she also shows how they lose their identity and play the role of a
subservient in a patriarchal society. In these situations, the girl is objectified by both men
who name her “treasure” or “pearl” and treat her as an object which can be sold or bought
for her owner’s pleasure.

From the very beginning, Beauty is described as a passive and dependent person on male
figures. But during the development of Carter’s story, the author didn't develop the female
protagonist as a hopelessly passive girl. In contrast, after being forced to repay her father’s
debt and moving to the Beast’s castle, the author transformed her into a tougher girl and
animalistic. Once she was summoned to meet the tiger, she determined to stop being well-
behaved and obedient. Instead, she followed her inner self and offered to have sexual
intercourse with the tiger, if and only if he is willing to pay for her service. By suggesting such
a deal, she wanted to show how independent it is to sustain herself, become equal to men
as well as self-sufficient, find her powerful side and free herself from the grasp of patriarchy.
According to this, the girl said “I felt I was at liberty for the first time in my life”. Beauty’s
metamorphosis takes place when she transforms as a beast. In this way, Carter wants to
underline the equality between both genders as well as to dismiss the influence of the
patriarchal society which instructs men to be dominant, while requiring women to be
obedient and subordinate. Furthermore, Carter subverts the traditional flow of fairy tales
since she transformed her heroine into a beast and created a balance in the Beauty and
Beast’s relationship. The author celebrated variety, individuality and freedom of choice.

All in all, Carter’s work was to show clear aspects that allow interpretation as a feminist
text. Her desire was to empower women by altering popular fairy tales and taking out their
patriarchal male attitudes. Thus, “The Bloody Chamber” is the best representative of the
subversion of the fairy-tale genre with the aim of advocating womanhood in the society
tailored by men and represents the common objectives of women's pursuit of quality and
self-expression. According to Seago (1999), this author emphasises Carter’s eagerness to
teach and socialise the young generation of girls and boys to question traditional gender
roles.