Tell It Again: Exploring Angela Carter’s “The Bloody Chamber & Other Stories” To Uncover the Beasts Within the Beauties

Welcome to “Tell It Again.” In this series, we’re reviewing our favorite retellings of myths and legends as we prepare for the publication of our next micro-anthology, “Tales That Survived the Fire.”

In many ways, fairy tales are such a central component of growing up and learning to love stories. As children, our entertainment schedule was flooded with Disney movies and TV shows that followed idyllic princesses who would inevitably reach a happy ending. However, often the versions that we’ve been familiarized with could not be more different from the dark and gruesome tales that inspired them. Angela Carter’s collection, The Bloody Chamber & Other Stories, is a response to the Grimm’s Fairy Tales, and it forces us to confront the gender politics represented in the original source material that society usually chooses to ignore. 

I’ll never forget when I first came across this work as a college freshman in a British Literature course. The gothic atmosphere, imagery, and innovative storytelling hooked me from page one. Carter masterfully transforms such iconic tales as “Bluebeard,” “Beauty and the Beast,” “Little Red Riding Hood,” “Snow White,” and more in subversive ways that leave an impact that lasts far after you’ve closed the book. 

Her work isn’t superfluous though, but instead she forces readers to confront the patriarchal power dynamics that permeate these tales. She focuses on themes of sexuality, loss of innocence, gender, and empowerment/disempowerment, charting them through different characters, settings, and exchanges. However, it isn’t all doom and gloom, as she finds ways to bring a playfulness into some of the lighter stories like “Puss-in-Boots,” providing some much-appreciated levity, as well as a story to engage every reader.

Even beyond her poignant ability to reimagine these tales through a feminist lens, Carter’s collection is worth reading for anyone who is a fan of masterful uses of symbolism. She skillfully weaves in icons like birds and flowers throughout the stories, further supporting the cohesive framework she creates in the overall text. Also intriguing is how she sometimes provides multiple retellings of the same source, either to subvert the supposed normativity of the first version (as in “The Courtship of Mr. Lyon” and “The Tiger’s Bride”) or to give different themes more attention (like in her multiple adaptations of “Little Red Riding Hood”). 

One of my personal favorites from the collection is “The Lady of the House of Love,” which combines elements of “Sleeping Beauty” and classic vampire lore to rethink the idea of the femme fatale. In this story, the Countess feels trapped in the predator role placed on her as Nosferatu’s heir and dreams of a day when some shining hero might wake her from her nightmarish existence and grant her humanity. I don’t want to give too much away, but Carter elegantly subverts your every expectation in this piece, leading to an impressive if bittersweet and thought-provoking conclusion. 

Ultimately, from werewolves to vampires, magic curses, talking (and mischievous) cats, and all kinds of explorations of strange and often disturbing dynamics within male and female relationships, this collection really has it all. What might be the most fascinating part is that Carter’s work actually realizes a return to the more traditional fairy tale, even as it explodes it into something much more provocative. You cannot come out of this reading experience unchanged, but it also demonstrates how exciting and meaningful retellings can be as they assert new voices into traditional conversations. 

For more re-imaginings, I hope you stay tuned for our upcoming micro-anthology, Tales That Survived the Fire. In it, we hope to introduce readers to a new generation of authors and retellings that continue the work that writers like Angela Carter began. 

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