This is problematic to Duncker as fairy tales have historically reproduced patriarchal hierarchies, subjugating women and reducing them to the status of perpetual victim.

The tales in The Bloody Chamber are often interpreted as retellings of fairy tales thematically, the stories mirror classic fairy tales such as ‘Beauty and the Beast’ (‘The Courtship of Mr Lyon’, ‘The Tiger’s Bride’), ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ (‘The Were-Wolf’, ‘The Company of Wolves’, ‘Wolf-Alice’), and Charles Perrault’s version of the French folk tale, ‘Bluebeard’ (‘The Bloody Chamber’). By looking first at how form and style work towards this effect throughout the collection, and then examining representations of male sexuality within the stories, ‘The Bloody Chamber’ and ‘The Snow Child’, I argue that, through critiquing patriarchal sexual relations, Carter advocates sexual pleasure outside the oppressive confines of male sexuality. This essay will demonstrate the ways in which The Bloody Chamber does not contribute to the patriarchal hierarchies of traditional fairy tales, but rather deconstructs and reinscribes the patriarchal fairy tale form to condemn violent male sexuality. (See note 3) Whilst this destructive male sexual desire is prevalent within her stories, I would argue that Carter uses the fairy tale form, as well as depictions of male sexuality, to draw attention to, and criticise, the violence and oppression which is inherent within them, rather than, as Duncker claims, allowing it to exist unchallenged. Carter may be attempting to tell stories of female sexual liberation, but ultimately her female characters are still victims of male sexuality concerned with the ‘possession, the capture, breaking and ownership of women’.

For Duncker, the very fact that these ‘celebrations of erotic desire’ are written within the ‘straight-jacket’ of the fairy tale form means that the messages they deliver are inherently patriarchal. Although Carter’s stories overtly depict female sexuality and pleasure, Duncker disputes that this alone does not justify feminist interpretations of Carter’s fiction.

Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber (See note 1) has long been subject to criticism from writers such as Patricia Duncker for the ways in which its short stories, which are ‘often described as a group of traditional fairy tales given a subversive feminist twist’, (See note 2) present male and female heterosexual dynamics.

Angela carter the bloody chamber review