As a subversion of what we now understand as the “male gaze,” Angela Carter in The Bloody Chamber, The Company of Wolves and The Courtship of Mr Lyon exercises postmodern parody to both expose than to destabilize gender stereotypes through the use of desire as a driving force for action on the part of the objectified woman, and by telling stories from the female point of view. Carter skillfully weaves together themes of rites of passage, sex, and death through retellings of well-known traditional fairy tales to describe the unbalanced relationships within them. The female protagonists all undergo a mental transformation that allows them to act and prevents them from becoming one of the many women who came before them and who succumbed to the fate assigned to women in a patriarchal society. Carter overturns traditional gender positions by allowing her female characters a subjectivity gained through their own telling of stories (Renfroe 89) – stories that have in the past been dominated by the male voice. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay In The Bloody Chamber it is this subjectivity that highlights the importance of the girl's journey to self-discovery through the Bloody Chamber. Therefore, in the same way that the narrator is introduced to a new way of thinking through his exposure to the bloody chamber, so the reader is forced to reexamine the dominant ideologies surrounding the original fairy tales that Carter reinvents (Renfroe 91). . Rites of passage, sex, and death become interconnected themes in these stories through female characters exploring their sexuality in a way that allows them to become more aware of their positions and their relationship to the male world. What is interesting is that this metamorphosis is accompanied by the theme of death. According to Cheryl Renfroe in her article Initiation and Disobedience, in The Bloody Chamber, the protagonist's exploration of the forbidden chamber is her rite of passage and defines the chamber as a liminal space. As defined by Arnold van Gennep's The Rites of Passage (1909), a liminal space is one in which the initiate is removed from ordinary life to a place of isolation where he experiences a tribulation that leads him to return to the world of normal life with a transformed point of view. This space is then the indeterminate intermediate phase in which the beginner is exposed to a test in order to be able to leave one phase of life behind to arrive at another (Renfroe 92). It is in this moment that the protagonist realizes her character: “Until that moment, this spoiled child did not know that she had inherited nerves and willpower from her mother who had defied the yellow outlaws of Indochina” (Carter 26 ). This is a moment of female empowerment as the daughter grasps the true strength she has been taught by the primary female figure in her life. Her power therefore comes from her ability to appreciate her mother's power and channel that strength into her own situation. Furthermore, the emphasis on women as saviors is a clear subversion of gender roles and encourages a new perception of women as capable of meaningful action. in a patriarchal society. Here, the unbalanced relationships between the sexes in traditional stories are reversed, and readers come face to face with the fact that a female protagonist can have just as much importance and influence as a male protagonist. It is in this room that he is confronted with the intimate relationship between sex and death. Her sexual initiation becomes inextricable from the deaths of the women who preceded her. She realizes that once her husband is sexually satisfied, he isbecome disposable. This is how the term “le petit mort” to indicate sexual orgasm acquires the literal meaning of “a small death”. Her husband's orgasm means death for her. Desire, power and death are intertwined in this moment of confrontation with the implicit truth of what her husband is, and the protagonist cannot help but think of a quote from her husband's favorite poet: "There is a surprising similarity between the act of love and the care of a torturer" ( Carter 26). The power acquired through sexual dominance is thus explored and the sexually dominant partner is able to control the submissive partner - roles that have conventionally been attributed to males for the former and females for the latter. Carter's re-exploration of the classic folk tale allows for a partiality to the female voice, as well as an empowerment of the female characters. This is seen most clearly in the way the protagonist attempts to use her sexuality to prevent the destiny decided for her by the dominant male character: “I forced myself to be seductive, I saw myself, pale, compliant like a plant begging from step on, a dozen vulnerable and attractive girls reflected in as many mirrors, and I saw how he almost couldn't resist me” (Carter 36). In this moment there is both a reversal of traditional gender roles and a subversion of power dynamics. Sex and death become even more entangled as the protagonist states that, “If he had come to me in bed, then I would have strangled him” (Carter 36). She is willing to take control in a sexual situation and exercise any power she may have acquired. Furthermore, power is granted to the woman especially through the twist that makes the mother the savior and not the male. Even after her moment of liberation from her husband, the protagonist further challenges tradition by living with a man outside the sanctity of marriage - an act that both challenges women's social expectations and affirms her own changed perception of the world and her role in life. it.In The Company of Wolves, desire, gender, and power are important in the retelling as the role of the innocent Little Red Riding Hood is destabilized. In Carter's re-exploration, the protagonist is a girl on the cusp of femininity willing to explore her sexuality. She has a sexual curiosity that is awakened when she meets a handsome man in the forest. The bet then becomes an opportunity for her to experiment with her sexuality: “…because she wanted to waste time making sure the handsome gentleman won his bet” (Carter 140). What makes her interest so important is that it allows her to experience sexuality in a way normally only afforded to men. Her curiosity comes to fruition when, even when faced with the realization of what she had done to her grandmother, she “freely gave him the kiss she owed him” (Carter 144). Her choice then becomes what distinguishes her from her traditional counterpart. She is not saved by her father or a male figure as in the original story, but saves herself by recognizing her own power, power found in her sexuality. It is in this moment that power dynamics are reversed both by allowing the subjectivity of the female voice and by portraying sexual desire as natural for women, as well as men. Furthermore, the use of sexuality in an attempt to escape patriarchal oppression is blatantly evident when the protagonist laughs at the werewolf's apparent threats: “She laughed in his face, tore off his shirt and threw it into the fire. , in the fiery wake of his discarded clothes” (Carter 144). Laughing and proclaiming himself "nobody's meat", he distances himself from pornographypatriarchal and grants herself sexual license as a strong woman (Lau 87). Furthermore, by burning the wolf-man's robes, he chooses to accept his bestiality and thus decides to embrace a concept of sexual liberation (Lau 87). This use of sexuality to lead males away from their original destructive paths makes Carter's female protagonists more interesting than the traditional virginal perception of the female character. Lorna Sage in Angela Carter: The Fairy Tale sums it up beautifully by stating that “The blameless woman is for Carter also the unimaginative woman” (Sage 58). Once again, the virginal qualities that make the woman of traditional fairy tales so attractive to the male protagonist are weakened and the woman gains agency. going beyond the constructs of what is expected of her. Her very natural sexual desire serves to separate her from the unrealistic expectations placed on her. In terms of sexual conquest, the woman revisits traditional views by making Little Red Riding Hood a sexual agent (Lau 86). Although Red Riding Hood has been changed primarily in her character, Carter retains some of the narrative techniques of the original story as Red Riding Hood follows the dialogue set for her, before completely destroying her historical power. After dictating the physical prowess offered to the male by saying the famous “What big arms you have” (Carter 144), Carter excellently sabotages his meaning by following it with “All the better to hug you” (Carter 144). At this moment, the wolf is no longer so threatening and Little Red Riding Hood gains free will by freely indulging her desire for the kiss they had bet on. Mr. Lyon's courtship as a postmodern parody of Beauty and the Beast is powerful due to Carter's unique ability to subvert traditional power dynamics through the appropriation of new gender roles by focusing on the expression of latent female desire and sexuality. This subversion of gender roles is most evident in the Beast's reaction to Beauty leaving him to meet her father: “The Beast sank his great head upon his paws. Will you come back to me? I will be alone here, without you” (Carter 53). His response is that of a man in love who is easily directed by Beauty (Brooke 73). Beauty is also very far from the innocent beauty of the traditional folk tale which fails to recognize its own beauty; The beauty in Carter's tale becomes hollow with the attention given to it. She often finds herself looking in the mirror and “smiles to herself with satisfaction. She was learning, at the end of her adolescence, how to be a spoiled child and that pearly skin of hers was plumping up, a little, with the high life and the compliments” (Carter 54). This image is a far cry from the Beauty of the traditional story who only asked for a rose when her father traveled. This beauty "could sometimes get a little petulant when things didn't go quite the way she wanted" (Carter 54). It is at this moment that Carter's use of parody becomes obvious as when the story begins, the reader is exposed to a Beauty that meets the expectations set by the traditional folk tale, but this perceived innocence becomes less appealing when affirmed by Beauty herself: “And so she felt, Miss Lamb, immaculate, sacrificial” (Brooke 73). Carter takes this parody a step further by having Beauty take on the role of a submissive woman, but only for the appearance she thinks this will create as herself as a virtuous woman (Brooke 74). This amplification of gender stereotypes draws attention to the dangerous discrepancy between manifestation and true being (Brooke 74). As such, Carter also exposes the extent to which the, 12(1), 52-69.