The Bloody Chamber Synopsis & Review
For one of my A-level
English books I’ve been studying The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter. We were
all given one of the short stories, which we had to analyse and then present to
the class. So in other words we were the teachers for the lesson. It was
actually really good as it meant we didn’t have to listen to our teacher all
the time and everybody taught theirs differently which actually made the
lessons really enjoyable.
Instead of reviewing
each of the short stories I decided I would right my own little synopsis of
each one and then a mini review instead.
The Bloody Chamber
Out of 5 – 3/5
Gruesomeness – 4/5
Weirdness – 3/5
This book is just a drag and weird. Nothing
else to say on it.
The story starts with
a young bride is travelling on her way to Paris with her older husband to an
isolated mansion. On the way she describes her introduction to the world of
luxury and pleasure which continues until the honeymoon doesn’t go the way that
she expects due to her husband needing to leave for business. Her gives her all
the keys to the mansion but informs her clearly not to use ne of the keys. Her
husband then goes away leaving the only things for the girl to do are play the
piano or call her mum. When this becomes to boring for her it leads to her
searching her husband’s office resulting in her finding out more information
about his previous wives. She then finally uses the forbidden key to the
chamber displaying the bodies to his previous wives in horrible and gruesome different
ways. The blood from the room gets on the key and no matter how much she tries
to wash it she can’t wash the blood off. The wife dreads the return of her
husband resulting in her getting comfort from a blind young piano tuner. When
the husband returns he prepares to carry out his plan of killing his wife but
her mother who shoots him dead saves her just in time. The now wealthy widow
begins her new life with the piano tuner.
The Courtship of Mr Lyon
Out of 5 – 2/5
Gruesomeness – 0/5
Weirdness – 1/5
Just a bit boring really.
When driving around
with his daughter his car breaks down resulting to him having to go to the
Beasts mansion where he only see’s a King Charles Spaniel that guides him to a
chair, a telephone, food and drink enabling him to go home. On his way back to
his car he picks a white rose from the garden for his daughter which infuriates
the Beast. The father was only spared due to him making his daughter have
dinner with the beast who asks her to stay with him promising that he will make
her father rich again. The beauty stays with the beast allowing her father to
return back to London. When she finds out that her father has become rich again
she returns back to him promising to visit the beast again before the end of
winter. When winter starts to end the Beasts spaniel comes to beauty reminding
her of her promise. They both return to the beast to find that he is dying.
Beauty confesses her love for the beast where he returns the love by kissing
her hands resulting in him turning back into a man leaving them to live happy
ever after together.
The Tigers Bride
Out of 5 – 5/5
Gruesomeness – 1/5
Weirdness – 2/5
My favourite story out of the whole collection.
A father loses his
daughter to the beast over a game of cards resulting in the girl being taken
away to live in an isolated mansion with the beast. The daughter gets given her
own servant that gives her gifts and demands from the beast, such as earrings
shaped as tear. The daughter and the beast go on a horse ride together where
the beast gets naked and reveals himself to her as an animal. This moves the
girl that when they get back to the mansion and finds out that her dad has
gained all his wealth again she decides to stay with the beast and returns to
him wearing nothing but the earrings. The beast then licks her skin off whilst
the earrings melt revealing her fur underneath.
Puss In Boots
Out of 5 – 3/5
Gruesomeness – 2/5
Weirdness – 2/5
Puss is kinda a dick and I didn’t really like
any of the characters but not the worse story.
Puss aggress to work
for a penniless young officer that falls in love with old Signor Panteleone’s
young wife which he serenades her although any contact is prevented by her
chaperone. Puss and his companion, a tabby cat gains admission into the house
whilst the young wife sends the chaperone away. Puss makes the noises of a
battle of rats to disguise the noise of the lovers. The two cats plot to kill
the husband, this is achieved by the tabby tripping the husband down the stairs
breaking his neck. The young man poses as a doctor and proccedes to sleep with
the young widow next to the dead corpse. Tabby and Tomcat then have children
together and everyone lives happy ever after.
The snow child
Out of 5 – 2/5
Gruesomeness – 5/5
Weirdness – 4/5
The shortest but most disturbing story of the
book with many of my friends, who we made read the page and a half long story
started to worry about our English lessons and what was going to happen to us
all.
The story takes place
on a snowy day where the count and countess are galloping through the woods
when the count recalls what his perfect child would be in his eyes. The child
then appears from the snow, which instantly gets love from the countess causing
too much frustration from the countess. In bid to woe the count, the countess
removes her clothing to put it onto the child. The countess demands for the
child to do stuff for her like pick up her ring and most importantly a rose.
When the child picks up the rose and dies resulting in the devastated count to
rape the dead child till she melts into the snow leaving only a feather, a
blood stain and a rose. The countess then goes to pick up the rose to claim
that it bites.
The Lady of the House of Love
Out of 5 – 5/5
Gruesomeness – 0/5
Weirdness – 2/5
My second favourite story of the book, perfect
to analyse.
The countess is the
only vampire left in her abandoned Romanian village where she remains alone in
a dusty, rotting, dark suite where her only company is a caged lark. She
desires to be human and relies on her tarot cards to show her destiny. The
countess is only allowed out at night to feed, which she regrets and ends up
burring all of her victim’s remains in her garden whilst crying. During the day
he remains in her coffin wearing her blood stained dead mothers wedding dress,
during this time the a British soldier arrives on his bicycle when the
countess’ governess invites him into the castle where the scent of overripe
roses overwhelms him. When the countess sees his face she collapses into her
chair and knocks her tarot cards onto the floor and puts on a pair of dark
glasses, which she then drops and cuts her finger on causing her to bleed. The
soldier kisses it better and puts her to bed to find that when he wakes up the
countess has died. The soldier then frees the bird, resurrects the rose and
goes back to the war.
The Werewolf
Out of 5 – 3/5
Gruesomeness – 2/5
Weirdness – 3/5
Short story, bit harsh on the Nan but actually
a really good story yet sadly just a short synopsis.
In a northern country
full of witches and demons, a young girl sets off to see her sick grandma who
lives in the woods. On the way to her Nan’s, whilst dressed in her sheep skin
cloak she gets attacked by a wolf. In defence, she cuts off the werewolf’s paw
and places it with her grandma’s cakes. When reaching her grandmother’s house
the girl realises that it was her granny all along leading to her calling to
all the townspeople to stone her grandma to death. The story ends with the girl
living in her grandma’s house happily ever after.
Wolf-Alice
Out of 5 – 3/5
Gruesomeness – 2/5
Weirdness – 3/5
The only character that I’ve ever really
sympathised for was wolf Alice and it has a happy ending which is always good.
Wolves raise a young
girl until hunters kill all her wolf family. The girl gets taken to a convent
where the nuns try and teach her how to be human by poking her with sticks. The
nuns fail and end up sending her to live with the local outsider, the duke. The
Duke is a recluse with a secret and the townspeople want to kill the duke, as they
believe that he is a monster. Alice learns the conception of time due to her
menstrual cycle, sees her reflection in a mirror and sees her as a friend but
slowly learns over time about cleaning herself and dressing herself in a white
dress she finds. The townspeople almost succeed in killing him but wolf Alice
saves him by liking his wounds.
The Company of Wolves
Out of 5 – 2/5
Gruesomeness – 2/5
Weirdness – 3/5
This story is long and strange…why would you
sleep with a wolf?
The story is split
into two different parts. Men who were actually werewolves set the first part
in a small-unknown town near the forest in winter where the village was under
attack. A woman whose husband disappears on her wedding knight returns to see
his wife remarried with children. He then transforms into a wolf and eats one
of the children’s legs. He then gets killed and turns back into a man. This
results in us learning the possible origin of the wolf men, a witch turned the
wedding guests of the man she loved into wolves. The story continues of a
hunter who caught a wolf in a pit, cut of its paw and it turned back into a
human.
The second half of the
story is of a young girl that goes through the woods to visit her grandmother
with food and armed with a kitchen knife. On her journey a handsome stranger
appears armed with a rifle, the young man challenges the girl to a race to
grandmothers house and if he wins he must be rewarded with a kiss. The girl
slows down so that the handsome man will win. The man gets to the house first
and eats the grandma. When the girl gets to her house she sees that her
grandmother has been eaten but to prevent her escape the man got the house
surrounded by wolves. The girl burns their clothing to prevent him from turning
back into a man. The story ends with the wolf and the girl sleeping together.
That’s my little
review and synopsis of each of the stories. It’s difficult to write synopsis of
the stories when hardly any of them have names! Either way I recommend reading
the book, but please be over 16 as it is a VERY dark read exploring many
different extreme situations such as rape, murder, deaths and necrophilia. Not
a read before bedtime book that’s for sure.
Talk to you later x
<a href="http://www.bloglovin.com/blog/12813861/?claim=3kstyxjd7j8">Follow my blog with Bloglovin</a>
Comments
Post a Comment