The fairy tale Bloody Chambers is a slight alteration of the fairy tale Bluebeard. The fairy tale the Bloody Chambers is about a teenage girl who marries a French Marquis who is very wealthy, but she does not love him. She is a talented pianist, and eventually, a blind piano tuner falls in love with her when he hears her music. The fairytale progresses in a way that the husband must leave on a business trip to New York and forbids his wife from entering a specific room. The author tries to incorporate the theme of sex when the woman enters his husband’s forbidden room and discovers the corpse of his previous wives who were allegedly killed due to his perverse nature and the need to satisfy his sexual desires. The author also incorporates the aspect of love in that the woman runs to confide in the piano tuner only for her husband to return because the trip was cancelled.
The author alters this story from the Bluebeard’s version in that when the husband goes for a trip she calls her sister, and they hold a party (Perrault, 1697). In the Bloody Chambers’ version, this is not the case, the author tries to incorporate the aspect of love, and how one runs to the people, they love to tell them about their feelings (Carter, 1979). Angela Carter shows the aspect of how selfless love is when the piano tuner willingly stays to help the girl from her husband while he knows he does not have the ability to save her.
Angela Carter alters the fairy tale in a bid to send a different picture. She brings out the perfect theme of love when she argues that the girl ends up living with her mother and the piano tuner who eventually opens up a school for the blind (Carter, 1979). The author tries to send the notion that should not be forced, and it will still prevail in the long last. She brings out the notion that there are people who marry for the need of sex while there are people who want to be in a relationship because of love.
Angela Carter also alters the fairy tale of Snow White in which she names snow child. In her version, the count and her wife ride when they come across a hole in the snow which is filled with blood, and he wishes he has a daughter as red as blood. They continue riding and find a raven, which perches on a bare bough, and he wishes he had a daughter as black as the bird’s feathers (Carter, 1979). Soon after he completes stating his desires, he finds her standing beside the road, stark naked with white skin, black hair and red mouth.
The original version starts with a queen sewing at an open window when she pierces her finger with a prickle and three drops of blood falls (Carter, 1979). She eventually wishes that she had a spawn with “ skin as white as snow, hair as black as ebony, and lips as red as blood” (Carter, 1979). Before long, she bores to such a daughter, which she calls Snow-White, but she dies shortly after giving birth. Carter’s version tries to bring the aspect of a man’s desire, in which the count is given his desires, while the countess eventually ends up despising this girl.
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The alterations by Angela Carter achieve her set purpose and goals. She aims at giving people a different view on love, sex, and desire and she achieves this while still maintaining the fun of fairy tales. She brings out the notion of jealousy in the fairy tale, Snow-child; she shows that the countess is jealous about the girl that the count was given out of his desires. She clearly shows how love works and that are often those who win and lose, those who are content, and those who feel left out.
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Carter, A. (1979). The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories. United Kingdom: Gollancz.