The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories

Marriage as a way of securing one’s future is a common motif in fairy tales, with “happily ever after” taking the form of marrying up into a higher status. In several of Carter’s stories, this shift in status is not the story’s conclusion but rather its inciting incident. In “The Bloody Chamber,” the heroine marries the Marquis as a way to improve her circumstances, against her mother’s instincts. In “The Courtship of Mr Lyon,” the heroine is given to the title character as a way to make up for her father’s misstep. In both instances, the heroine is beholden to her new partner and forced into a position of powerlessness. Their marriage isn’t born out of love, but rather as a transaction in which one perceived commodity is exchanged for another. “The Tiger’s Bride” takes this transactionality one step further and has the heroine won through her father’s gamble. She becomes objectified in the most overt possible way. Once she goes home with the beast and his valet, she becomes another of his possessions; she is forced to fight for what agency she can acquire. In response, the beast offers her a deal: he will be the first to view her body, and in return she will have her freedom and fortune. This is a reversal of the standard exchange in which freedom and fortune are mutually exclusive.

In “Puss in Boots,” a similar dynamic takes place, as the hero of the story marries into a socially elevated family. The romantic relationship, though rushed, is arguably the most positive in the collection. The hero, Puss’s master, arrives at a rather typical fairy-tale ending: He marries the princess and moves into a position of status and wealth. In return, he offers this noblewoman what she had been lacking: physical satisfaction and emotional connection. While this is a healthier and happier exchange than other examples in this text, it still acts as a trade of one thing for another in the form of a marriage that benefits both parties.

These dynamics reflect women’s lack of political and economic agency in the era in which they were originally told. Women were at an economic disadvantage and were often commodified by the men in their lives—husbands, fathers, brothers, and other male figures who may have exhibited a sense of ownership. These stories were also being told in an age when poverty and hunger was widespread, and an advantageous marriage was often the only way for a woman to ascend. In this collection, Carter seeks to invert these imbalances. Recognizing that patriarchal imbalances of power within marriage persist even in the late 20th century, she gives her female protagonists—particularly in “The Bloody Chamber,” “The Courtship of Mr Lyon,” and “The Tiger’s Bride”—opportunities to reclaim their personal agency.