“A feminist subversion of fairy tales” : Écriture féminine, gender stereotypes, and the rejection of patriarchy in Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber

• Main Author: Murati Kurti, Fjola
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: Södertörns högskola, Engelska 2021
• Subjects: Fairy tales; Grimm Brothers; Angela Carter; The Bloody Chamber; patriarchal binary oppositions; patriarchal oppression; Écriture féminine; Hélène Cixous; heroine; femme fatale.; General Literature Studies; Litteraturvetenskap
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:sh:diva-45935

Fairy tales are usually described as short narratives that end with happily-ever-afters, imposing patriarchal ideologies. The Grimm’s fairy tales serve as the foundation of many other stories which promote stereotypes like woman passiveness, submissive beauty, while men are put on a pedestal for being active and violent at the same time. Angela Carter’s collection The Bloody Chamber depicts patriarchal oppression in classic fairy tales by challenging what can be identified as patriarchal binary oppositions with a strategic subversion of gender roles. Through problematizing and critiquing the patriarchal fairy tales, Carter’s texts can be read through the lens of écriture féminine. Following Hélène Cixous’s notion of écriture féminine, outlined in “The Laugh of the Medusa”, this essay explores how Carter’s  “The Lady of the House of Love'' can be read as a narrative that has strong echoes of the kind of female writing Cixous advocates. Moreover, this essay argues that  “The Lady of the House of Love” contradicts the Western myth of femininity by resisting, exploring, even undermining the patriarchal representation of woman as “heroine”-the fairy tale princess who needs a man to save her -and “femme fatale.”