“Gothic texts often
present a powerful opposition between dominance and submission” Discuss how far
you have found this to be the case in any three of the texts you have studied.
“Dominance and
submission” in relation to gender roles and erotic relationships are contrasted
within Angela s gothic versions of fairytales. Concerns with erotism
and sexual sadomasochism have a strong
relevance with Carter´s gothic genre where dominance and submission are a
binary opposition. Such involves the giving by one individual to another
individual of control over them in an erotic episode or as a lifestyle. “Both
parties may take pleasure or erotic enjoyment from either being dominated or
dominating, sometimes transversing into sadomasochism” as in The Bloody Chamber. The submissive role
in heteroxexual romance is steoreotipically, mainly taken by the woman- being
placed within the vulnerable position of the tipical gothic sacrificial victim.
Through reversal of expectations from the female characters, Carter shows such
position is not innate to women, but a social construction of a patriarchal
society. The myth holding all women, at the bottom of their hearts wish a
submission or subjugation to the male power and dominance is defied by Angela
Carter´s stories. Carter, as a feminist attitude of the 1970´s calls for power
equality denouncing male opression and enhancing female impassiveness.
“The Bloody Chamber
can be understood much better as an exploration of the narrative possibilities
of the Sade´s lamb - and - tiger dichotomy than as a standard work of early
seventies to- the- barricades feminism.” Some have seen the protagonist as a passive,
young, woman but she is rather, a woman in process, developing her transition
from virginal “white” innocence into the discovery of the perverse intentions
of her future husband´s sexual conducts. Her upcoming situation will require
power and resourcefullness which she´ll need to build. The brave mother figure
gives her a reference of such virtues, “mother had…shot a man-eating tiger”
only attributed as common values in a man, within the society of the past in which
the story is set. As a feminist, Carter portrays women as independent, ruthless
and assertive, unfitting the supressive role of the meak, passive victim. The
“femme fatale” is the traditionally punished woman within the stories, but in
reversal, the Marquis´s victims have deceased passively against his dominance,
while the “new” wife escapes that in a dignified way. Towards the end she is no
longer an object of male gaze and lives happily with the “blind piano tuner”
whom loves her for whom she is inside.
By giving a voice to
a female narrator, the usual depictions of the erotic from a male-focused
perspective are reedited from a female insight. The loss of virginity is described
as sacrificial, including the loss of blood, in a violent, oppressive, painful
and destructive circumstance; “There was a stricking resemblance between the
act of love and the ministrations of a torturer”. Humiliation and vulnerable
exposure are shown to be inflicted upon these young victims by the controlling
Marquis, turning them into flesh with his “male gaze”. As a recurring theme across the stories, Carter
depicts the woman´s aim to please the male gaze with fleshy beauty, as a
dangerous submission, degrading to women. The Marquis is portrayed as desiring women
as objects of his manipulation, as shown by owning his “gallery of beautiful
women” and by imposing his dominance by providing his new wife with a “red”, “ruby”
“choker” for his pleasure and arousement. Definitely a dangerous ill-omen, the
choker has a strong connection with the red lace placed upon the survivors of
guillotine, carrying further connotations with violent oppression, slavery,
property of animal/pets, and overall, in such case- the female subjugation.
In contrast, the
female subjugation works differently in The Tiger´s Bride. Beauty is presented
as a critical and cynical narrative voice with perceptive insight to men
surrounding her; father and the Beast. Attention is drawn on her thoughts
mostly rather than her external beauty and “mirrors” for instance, are no
longer used for the symbolic purpose of objectification of women. Instead,
beauty analyses the male conduct though them; “I saw them through the mirror”
while playing the game of cards. Despite her wild freedom of thought, and her
rebelious nature; “could not tame me into submission”, she is encapsuled within
a male dominant environment, where she is lost by her father to the beast in a gamble,
treated as a commodity for exchange. Although beauty is judgemental about her
debauched father and the animalistic nature of the beast, she is unvoluntarily
subjugated to the patriarchy; “with furious cynism peculiar to women I was
forced mutely to witness folly”, suggesting a gender role of a respectable
woman ought to remain secondary and “dumb” besides the male control in such
cases. Her narrative voice express her thoughts of denouncement of such system
but her actions in reality are forced towards a submission as is her
metamorphosis.
In The Tyger´s Bride, within an isolated castle
where “nothing is human”, seen the only reference beauty has had to the human
world is that of a corrupt father, she is destined to dehumanisation and subjugation
to the embracement of the beastliness within her. To align herself with the
beast is the way to find companionship in a patriarchy that has denied her intelligence;
“a young woman, a virgin, and therefore men denied me rationality”. In relation
to such theme, Carter makes an intertextual biblical reference when setting the
story in a peaceful, idillic, warm
land in contrast to the upcoming winter; “the lion lies down with the lamb”.
Later in the story she states “the lion will never lie down with the lamb. The
lamb must learn to run with the tygers” in a sign of experience. Reversed the
tale of the true, good woman rescuing and restoring the brutal beast to human
virtue, Carter inverts the symbolic form of the tale. Beauty is conciencious of
the effort she ought to make to “survive” in a male world where the male is
beastly and “must” conform to her environment. In a gothic line where “fair is
foul and foul is fair”, a contradiction is brought up where in
The Tyger´s Bride, to be beast-like is
to be virtuous and to be “manly” or human is to be vicious. Carter celebration
of relativism reflects the difficulties to define the complexities of human
relations.
“A certain amount of tygerishness” may be
necessary to atchieve an independent existence if women are to avoid the
“extreme end of passivity- becoming meat”. Under the proposition of “desnuda,
agitato”, beauty is defiant with a “raucous gaffaw” suggested as improper of a
young lady. In the same way, her level headed mentality leads her to reflect on
the futility, emptiness and passiveness of a life of a woman subjugated to the
male control, through Carter´s use of Beauty´s twin clockwork “doll”. The
sinister resemblance of the doll with Beauty serves as a reflection of her
dehumanised self, in a spine chilling manner, drawing a point upon the “use”
men make of women. She might as well be an empty headed doll to please the
male´s satisfaction and survive withought killing her identity; “We surround
ourselves instead for utility and pleasure of simulacra and find it no less
convenient than do most gentlemen”. This somehow conforms to Sade´s immoral
Justine, where the meak and honourable female
perishes against the brutal males and the tigerish female rises. Also
connecting to Blake´s
Songs of Innocence
and Experience, the binary opposition explores two states to womanhood;
Innocence being “vulnerable” but having it´s own strenghts, and experience,
needed to survive in the world. Therefore the “Lamb” and the “Tyger” are not
only refering to the submission of the stereotypical “gentle”, “sacrificial”
woman, to the “predatory” male, but also, the opposite parts to the human
psyche.
Carter seems to be
trying to “reach some accomodation” between the lamb- tyger parts of the psyche
in her stories. A strong, defined
inequality of dominance against submission in characters is denounced within
the erotic relationship in The Bloody
Chamber between the Marquis and his wifes, where the wife feels “bare as a
lamb chop”, exposed to his “weary appetite”. An animalistic portrayal of men is
given through the female narrators , by constructing their apperances as enmasked
“beasts” as a variation of “wolfes” , where placed in fairytale genre form from
a Freudian interpretation, become the symbolism of the threat of an unknown,
uncontrollable nature. In The Tyger´s
Bride, beauty asks the beast for equality in the exposure of vulnerability
when she is asked to show her nudity, so a balance is achieved between their
“game”. Feminism and gender ideas in literature often represent men in power as
recovered in a coat of dominance but dangerously weak behind their mask of
masculinity; He “removed the mask”- “he revealed himself, as I suspected a
delicate creature”. She, meanwhile, gives in to her only escapatory (to expose
herself too) but claiming it to be “unnatural” to humans to go naked for the vice. Beauty then makes reference to her subjugation for satisfaction of male “hunger” again comparing her body with
meat; “watching me peel down to the cold, white meat of contract”, as if
stripped off value, dignity and honour like the objectified wife in
The Bloody Chamber with the imagery of
the Marquis “stripping” her like “the leaves of an archichoque”. However, a
voluntary decision to turn into a beast, where in a sexual encounter with the
beast, “his tonge ripped off skin...all the skins of a life in the world”, as
if returning to the origin, pure, innocence, most animal owe to the persona,
and turning away from the layers of corruption the society may lay upon an
experienced human. Tyger lays down with tyger, and lamb has sacrificed his
characteristic meakness to survive.
Differently to both The Bloody Chamber and The tyger´s Bride, The Courtship of Mr Lion presents beauty as a female protagonist
prived of a narrative voice and conforming to the stereotypical victimised,
beautyful fairytale “princess” with her “inner light”, carrying out her
obedient “chores in the kitchen” like Cinderella would do. She “asked for so little”-
a “single white rose”- such depictions enhancing her innocence and purity as
great values and presenting her sweetness, humbleness, and uniqueness to force
the reader to draw comparisons to the opposite degraded father-daughter
relationship in
The Tyger´s Bride. Mr
Lion is a beast who has the outward apperance of a beast but the sensitive
behaviour of gentleman. A stronger influence from the original “Beauty and the
Beast” is shown in this gentle and touching version where “lambhood and
tygerishness may be found in either gender, and in the same individual at
different times”. Her conventional duty
in a sign of female candor is hostage with the beast for the restoration of her
father´s fortune, carrying such act an acceptance of male dominance. Beauty surrenders
to live with the beast in sacrifice for her father, but rather in a voluntary
way, because her “eyes could pierce the soul” and she found a candid nature
behind the Beast. “Miss Lamb, spotless,
sacrificial” in Beauty´s case is not only exclusively a symbol of sacrifice, or
a sacrifice of the flesh but furthermore a display of the Christian emblem of
faith- the faith she lays on the Beast with patience, purity and
gentleness. Beast is not manifested at
all as a torturer or handler as in
The
Bloody Chamber or The Tygers Bride but rather as a tender gentleman who is
instead subjugated and dependent upon
her
love and care. Carter draws emphasis upon the importance of women in relation
to a marriage for instance, where her chores and cares are precised for the man
to live in order.
“It is
she who has the power to hurt or heal
him, through her innocence.” Innocence here is a arm to her virtue and
protection against becoming meat, for she posseses the “prized quality of innocence”
and a balance of “absolute sweetness and absolute gravity” that can also help
the progress of others. To that power in her nature, the beast is ruthless and
nobility is drawn upon the animal, as Blake does in
Songs of Inocence. The beast goes on “all fours” when Beauty leaves
the room as though she has tamed him. “He buried his head on her lap” in a sigh
of desperation for her love and she, in “a flood of compassion” understands
that all the beats is doing by licking is “kissing” her hands. She ought to
sacrifice any lustful passions for she feels no sexual attraction, instead she
“flinches at his touch” but that is a sacrifice she is willing to make for the
tamed man she finds behind the fur. A debate however is drawn upon the ending
where beauty returns to save beast from dying of loneliness, as she has shown
enough power to restore him, but has also, fallen under his radar of control
again, suggesting relationships involve a mutual submission.
In conclusion, during
time of captivity of the three virginal gothic women in the strories, they all
reflect on their relationships with male dominance and submission, all showing
different posible female attitudes towards the situations and strong contrasts
between the former concerns. Fighting the opposite parts of the psyche to
balance, and also the gender power equality. Carter presents the new chance
that a woman may be beastly too as in The
Tyger´s Bride, together with chances of a man being submissive and
unviolent as in The Courtship of Mr Lyon aside
from the gender roles fixed in society of what is masculine and what is
feminine. However, preeminently all heroines carry in common, a brave will
of avoidance of becoming meat against the male dominance.
Just as in Faustus,
the character of Dorian Gray is developed towards a tragic denouement following
the Aristotelian structure of creation of a tragic hero/villain. Oscar Wilde
ensures the depiction of Dorian Gray at the beginning chapters to be innocent,
and in possession of “exquisite” beauty. It is the perfumed, rich setting in
the opening that conforms an aura in the atmosphere that heightens the high starting
point of Dorian as a character in his “golden” age as his name itself suggests.
Basil´s studio is “filled with the rich odour of roses” applying such scents connotations
with passion, beauty, lush and pleasure all relevant to the thematic of the novel.
Flower imagery subtlety enhance and foreshadow Dorian´s corruptible, vulnerable
and beautiful nature mentioning “Honey coloured blossoms” are caught in sight
by Lord Henry, just as in future he will catch Dorian, and it´s “tremulous
branches can´t bear the burden of beauty”. “Beauty” is admired by Basil,
epitomising the artistic spirit, but Dorian is raised in a climax of being the
object of admiration, with no formation of the mind in disinterest of the
society surrounding him and triggered towards vanity by the “strange
philosophies” imposed in his immature mind by cynical Lord Henry. The line
between life, art and beauty is confused for Dorian and as a person can be seen
as a victim of the belief that just like art itself, he is useless and can be manipulated;
“real beauty ends where an intellectual expression begins”. Lord Henry directly compares Dorian to a
“Narcissus” being this a major tragic flaw that will bring his own downfall. 
