Topic > A Traditional Fairy Tale from a Feminist Perspective

The Big Bad Wolf, Prince Charming, and the Beast: Many fairy tales provide images of men ranging from the brave to the very wicked. Each story encodes messages for girls about men, marriage, or sex as a type of socialization. Charles Perrault's traditional version of the Bluebeard tale, which includes morals regarding curiosity and marriage, is no exception. In her book The Bloody Chamber, Angela Carter completely overturns the messages of traditional fairy tales, such as Bluebeard, rewriting them from a feminist perspective. Carter turns Bluebeard's story into a feminist story in her version titled "The Bloody Chamber" by placing the mother in the role of savior, allowing the protagonist to participate in her own rescue, and taking strength away from secondary male figures. to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay One of Carter's most notable adaptations of the Bluebeard story, in an attempt to create a feminist tale, is his treatment of the protagonist's mother. In the traditional version of the tale, Perrault only briefly mentions the protagonist's mother as "a respectable lady, [who] had two daughters who were perfect beauties" (144). Unlike Perrault, Carter chooses to make the mother a central figure. While Perrault describes the mother only in terms of her feminine qualities and her role in raising the children, Carter describes the mother as a much more complex and powerful character, who is a key adaptation in his efforts to turn the story into a feminist story. . At the beginning of the story, the narrator describes his mother as "my indomitable eagle-featured mother..." who "had faced a group of Chinese pirates, had cured a village during a plague visit, had shot a tiger man-eater." with his own hand" (7). By describing the mother as "indomitable," Carter immediately emphasizes her strength. Likewise, by providing the reader with the mother's unfeminine history, Carter emphasizes the mother's past courage and potential power. Carter also describes her mother as a source of strength for the female protagonist. 'Indochina. My mother's spirit pushed me forward... .." (28). Carter does not simply describe the mother as courageous, but implies that courage passes from mother to daughter. The passage of courage from female to female, rather than male to male or male to female, it is significant as it shows the power of a strong female role model The daughter admires her mother because of her unfeminine abilities The story of the mother's courage is not the only way in which Carter uses the character of the mother to make the story distinctly feminist. Carter expands on this strong female character by placing the mother in the role of the savior, instead of giving that power to a male character, the girl's brothers they heroically save her from a violent death at the hands of Bluebeard. Carter, however, replaces the brothers with her mother, thus placing most of the power (the power to defeat the villain) in the hands of a female, "she raised the gun of my father, took aim and pierced my husband with a single, irreproachable bullet. "head" (40). With the mother in the role of savior who kills her husband, Carter changes the nature of the story's climax. Rather than a fight between men over a woman, the fight is between male and female. The wife does not relyon men to be saved, but on another woman. Catering plays even further with this power struggle between male and female by allowing the protagonist to play a role in his own escape. In both "The Bloody Chamber" and Perrault's "Bluebeard", the protagonist attempts to prolong her life by taking her husband's time. In Carter's version, the narrator slowly approaches the husband to give the mother time to get closer to the castle (39). In Perrault, the girl asks for time to say her prayers in an attempt to delay her doom until the arrival of her brothers who she hopes will save her (146). Both of these examples are passive attempts to simply buy time until another party can perform the rescue. However, Carter provides the protagonist with a larger role in her escape, as her husband delivers what would be a fatal blow. The blade didn't drop, the necklace didn't break, my head didn't roll. For, for an instant, the beast faltered in its strike, a split second of stunned indecision enough to allow me to spring to my feet and dart to my lover's aid as he struggled sightlessly with the great latches that kept [my mother] out. (39)This quote exemplifies the importance of the narrator's own action to his salvation. Carter's emphasis on what did not happen, followed by the protagonist's action, allows the reader to see that she does not die because of her own inclination to escape the blade. After all, if she doesn't, her husband will kill her before her mother even enters the room. His help is needed to open the gate for the mother. The addition of the protagonist's action is a key element in her rescue, which is not found in Perrault's version of the tale. In his version, the brothers enter, chase and kill Bluebeard while the girl remains on the ground, "Bluebeard's wife was as close to death as her husband and barely had the strength to get up and embrace her brothers" (147). While Perrault portrays her as weak and incapable, Carter depicts his wife as a powerful individual whose actions are crucial to her rescue, thus giving even more power to female roles. Cater not only turns Bluebeard's story into a feminist story by empowering the female characters, but also diminishes the power of the secondary male characters by removing the brothers from the story and adding the less powerful piano tuner. In Perrault's version of the story, the only male characters the reader encounters (aside from Bluebeard) are the brothers. Furthermore, Perrault describes the brothers as the very picture of masculinity, "the one a dragoon and the other a musketeer" (147). His version of the story contains only images of powerful, aggressive males. Carter chooses to remove the brothers completely. As a result, the reader associates male power and aggression with evil because it is only found in the husband and is not portrayed positively. Carter not only removes the powerful and aggressive brothers, but also adds the less powerful piano tuner, Jean Yves, to show a weakened power of the men in the story. The narrator first describes Jean with a series of adjectives that lead the reader to imagine him as a powerless male, "he was blind, sure; but young, with a gentle mouth" (23). From this description the reader imagines a gentle boy with a handicap, who is the exact opposite of the secondary male characters depicted in Perrault's story. The narrator not only describes Jean as weak in physical terms, but later describes his lack of courage. She states: "The door opened slowly, nervously, and I saw... the thin, hunched figure of the piano tuner, and he seemed far more terrified of me than my mother's daughter..