Othello- TRAGIC HERO

In the final scenes of the play, Othello is presented as an ambiguous character that is analysed differently by different critics, but still, follows the conventions of classical tragic heroes. Aristotle defined a tragic hero as “a man not pre-eminently virtuous and just, whose misfortune, however, is brought upon him not by vice (…) but by some error of judgement.” Despite the unfairness and unforgivable magnitude of Othello´s error of judgment, he inspires a great sense of pathos as he succumbs to the machinations of Iago´s diabolic intellect. At the start, Shakespeare establishes Othello at the height of his fortunes as `the noble general ´ and throughout the course of the play, he suffers a reversal of fortune or peripeteia from good to bad. The state of misery to which he is reduced in the final scenes heightens his portrayal as a tragic figure. Aristotle stated `a tragic hero must be someone who inspires pity and fear´ and in final Act 5, scene 2, both Desdemona and Othello conform to this as a tragic couple, spurring feelings of sympathy and sorrow.

Some consider Othello is presented as a tragic hero with `very little of hero´. The audience´s perception of Othello´s nobility is diminished by his impatient readiness to respond to suggestion and his rash conclusions. In final Act 5 scene 2 before killing Desdemona he repeats `she must die, it is the cause ´ blinding himself to consciousness and convincing himself that he is acting as an agent of justice.  Desdemona claims ` bloody passion shakes your very frame´ and Emilia, speaks out at him saying; `Thou art rash as fire´ in order to criticize his devilish, impulsive behavior. In contrast to Desdemona´s sweetness and calm, patient love, Othello is portrayed as violently passionate and intransigent. Desdemona wakes up `sweetly´ and Othello asks her if she had prayed, showing apparent mercy by worrying for her soul but a horrifying cruelty at the same time for he is about to kill her. He foreshadows her imminent death by comparing her skin to be`smooth as monumental alabaster´. At this point, Shakespeare creates unease in the audience through a scary fusion of both cruelty and romance within Othello´s character; `I that am cruel am yet merciful´.

Othello´s character was not only led into mental chaos because of `promptness to suggestion´ but also in great part due to the pressures of a misogynistic value system. Barbantio firmly suggested `She has deceived her father and may deceive thee´ and Venetian women carried a reputation of adultery. In the final scenes, Othello´s heroic confidence shatters and he becomes a completely confused, insecure tragic hero; `I must kill her else she´ll betray more men´. This moment seems extremely tragic, as the audience know through dramatic irony that Desdemona is admirably innocent.

Leavis suggested Iago´s power actually represents something within Othello; `the traitor within the gates´. A real `hero´ would never kill a lady. Nevertheless, Shakespeare most probably chose to include the Machiavellian villain Iago following a very traditional characteristic of Jacobean drama to characterize external evil - a “demi-devil” whom tragically `poisons´ and corrupts the mind and soul of a great soldier, thus turning his overpowering love to overwhelming jealousy. Othello is exposed as a vulnerable, chaotic tragic figure that has foolishly `been led by the nose as asses are´ in contrast to the solid man of action portrayed at the beginning. The fact that Othello couldn´t question his “friend´s” honesty could emphasise his nobility and free, open nature.

Critic Leavis argued Othello may love Desdemona as a `matter of sensual possessiveness´. The final scenes seem to unfold a futile love, very largely based on ignorance of himself and her and “Eros”. Before being killed, Desdemona says truthfully; `That death's unnatural that kills for loving´, and at this point, the audience may see Othello as an anti-heroic, psychopathic character who is about to sacrifice an innocent.

On the other hand, critic Bradley sees a nearly blameless view of Othello as a noble tragic hero. He argued Othello did love Desdemona powerfully and that the newness of his marriage made his jealousy credible. In Othello´s final soliloquy (Act 5 scenes 2), he spends long time in anguish and deliberation before killing Desdemona. Act 5 scene 2 slows down in pace contrasting with the agitation of the previous act to emphasise it´s sentimental importance, and Othello enters with a light. This candle light symbolises Desdemona´s fragile flame of life and her aura of innocence and purity illuminating his darkness of thoughts. Being the only light glowing, it is shown that at this moment he is truly inspired by the love he has for her. Othello poetically repeats `Put out the light´ to symbolise her death.

The play is written in blank verse and prose. It is when Othello begins to see Desdemona through Iago´s eyes, in a neurotic- obsessive-paranoid mental pattern, that his mind and soul corrupts and the mellifluence and harmony of words degrade into disjointed, vulgar prose or even insults; `Down strumpet! ´-where he immediately places Desdemona in submissive position in accordance with the male chauvinist context. 
In his soliloquy the language returns to blank verse as a return to the nobility and romance we associate with tragic protagonists. He uses gentle metaphors; `When I have pluck'd the rose´ to avoid the harshness of what killing her would imply. This behavior could be interpreted as coward and stubborn, or as a poignant, pitiful culmination as a tragic hero, were his heart can no longer bear the pain and anguish that his passionate jealousy is causing him.

His love and idealism of Desdemona is expressed through romantic similes of her such as; `scar that whiter skin of hers than snow´. Shakespeare encourages the audience to sympathise with the tragic hero´s internal battle and grief as Desdemona´s allure has the power to drive him insane. The tragedy is heightened as he stands at the edge of withdrawing; `Balmy breath, that dost almost persuade justice break her sword!´.  The agony of his doubting becomes romantically painful `so sweet was ne ér so fatal´, as he suffers contradictory feelings. The use of oxymoron expresses his maddening sorrow and ideas; `This sorrow´s heavenly, it strikes where it doth love.´

In Othello´s final speech, he could be seen as a `self dramatising fool´ that only cares for his reputation who undergoes no true anagnorisis ;  Ì have done the state some service´. However, he does seem to realise the load of what he´s done, feeling strong remorse. Othello’s idiom becomes measured, dignified and in blank verse re-establishing his heroism.  `Speak of me as i am, nothing extenuate´ shows submission in contrast with the excessive pride and over confidence he owned at the beginning.  He compares himself to a `base Indian´ and a `circumcised dog who threw a pearl away´ to show his inferiority complex and racial insecurities. The poetic language heightens how he loved her and how he struggles to face reality.

Lodovico comes in and announces that Cassio rules in Cyprus, meaning the disarming of Othello and there is nothing more denigrating for a general. As a tragic hero he loses everything and realises he was a fool that cared for `But ever puny whipster gets my sword:  But why should honour outlive honesty?´

and begs for torture to carry justice upon him; “ Whip me, ye devils, wash me in...Liquid fire” . His cry is painful; “O Desdemon! Dead, Desdemon!” and he grieves until he decides to kill himself “upon a kiss”. This is a major characteristic of a tragic hero, one who realises his huge mistakes when it is already too late.

Lodovico acts like the chorus in Greek, classical tragedy and asks “Where is this most rash and unfortunate man?”. Othello blames Iago for ensnaring In his final speech he regains nobility and he humbly tries to save his reputation.

The interpretation of Othello´s death by the Elizabethan audience most probably was seen as an act of cowardice and would have been extremely shocking as for the firmly Christian society suicide meant damnation. The Racial tension in Othello (with a good dose of sexual jealousy) plays no small part in the characterization of Othello. In the historical context of Elizabethan audience, `a black moor´ would have already raised prejudices against his nobility as a tragic hero.

CONC: Shakespeare creates a lgtragic hero, driven by impulse and passion, who is good in the military but a disaster for love. Being so complicated, romantic and vulnerable to jealousy make the tragedy more dramatic. ` Shakespeare exaggerated the degree to which he possesses these fatal flaws to be much greater than his fellow men just as he is in status an extraordinary person. The effect of this is that the tragic universe of the play is a moral one `O, beware, my lord, of jealousy; it is the green-ey'd monster´.Othello as a compressed example to express how evil from the most unexpected, can act upon a noble man together with fatal flaws such as jealousy, destroying all.

Faustus and Dorian

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.

Lord Henry is a Mephistophelean character in such way for he represents the devilish temptation and equivocator. Both Dorian and Faustus have participated in the process towards their corruption of mind and soul not merely conducted towards it. Faustus however, is highly knowledgeable and conscientious of his voluntary invocations of the devil. For the late medieval God fearing society of Marlow´s, the theme of magic and the supernatural raised great intrigue and fascination whereas this play deals more straightforwardly with the devil itself through the use of necromancy. Faustus development of character shows a defied tragic hero / villain directory as well. The opening chorus presents his character in a peak point “graced with doctor’s name” but also compare him to Icarus from Greek mythology whom got too close to the sun under warning of his father that his “waxen wings” would melt. This strongly foreshadows Faustus’s ending in punishment for his disobeyal of God´s scriptures with blasphemy in an impulse of over ambition and hubris.

Both characters are portrayed as wanting eternal youth, enjoying the exquisite pleasures of life and fulfilling immediate desires. Faustus is completely warned of the expense of “pleasant fruits” and “delicates” but rashly, desperately feels worthy of the sublime for exceeding the human capacity and signs a contract with the devil for youth and powers. He seems to only listen to the Bad Angel´s attractive prospects, mitigating the Good Angel´s messages. These dual speeches can be shown to portray both sides of his psyche as well as the extrapolated forces of evil and good. The “Old man” figure epitomises wisdom, but such as old men are, he is weak and doesn´t impose himself, only gives hope.

 Dorian in contrast hasn´t a good influence, but is continually encouraged to take the wrong path by Lord Henry, a tutor of bad force whom achieves the gradual, unconscious transformation of his subject of manipulation towards insanity and damnation. 

Angela Carter´s Puss in boots

Original tale by Hans Christian Andersen.(1805-75)

Angela Carter makes direct links with Comedia Dell´Arte (Italian comedy)

http://www.delpiano.com/carnival/html/colombina.html

Puss in boots would be a mixture of Scaramouche and Harlequino (more harlequino)

SCARAMOUCHE (Scaramuccia)- Spanish captain- puss is spanish and directs the inamorato.

     HARLEQUINO- Anthropomorphism is not a problem in fairy tales or pantomime. Ideal form then for this short story. Puss in boots is the agile, rascally inventive character, complemented well by narcissism, and representing the success of the "little man". Tremendous acrobatic agility- like cats; stealthy approach towards their objectives.

INNAMORATI (The Lovers) 

is the "beauty", conquered "princess" in the story by the young lover motivated by lust, passion, music,and love  but lacking common sense. ( A kind of Romeo but not tragic) The innamorati (the young officer) is helped by the witty harlequin (puss in boots). The young officer wants to make a married woman his- adultry, and will do anything to atchieve the goal- including killing her husband. Is Angela questioning men as naturally posessive and jealous?

COLOMBINA                                                    

The tabby cat is one of puss´s multiple lovers (domination of men) who plotted all the ideas for the plan (empowerment of women) and later has kittens with puss - fits into the canon of a colombina. Colombina is what the Innamorata is not: free, insolent, not slave of love bonds, sometimes brilliant, vane always, chatterer, gossiper, always prone to intrigue at somebody else's expenses. A sort of Harlequinin female clothes. 

Presentation of female characters:

 Although they may seem passive, manipulated and under men´s plans for conquer at first hand,"the belle" and the tabby cat participate actively murdering the husband to go with the lover. The tabby cat impulsed by the profits she may gain in the transition, in a stealthy, agile, intelligent manner helps the man atchieve their planned goal as wittingly and actively as a male harlequin such as puss in boots can, making Carter with such characterisation a direct call on the empowerment of women.

The tabby cat shows irony. She is one of the multiple lovers of puss seeming sexually used and possesed by a dominant, narcissistic male, but she has the power to return the same attitude and make herself into an equal. She has the idea for the machination, highlighting in some woman the innate capacity for creative directory responsabilities. Making out of the tabby cat something more than a simple "slutty" figure.

The inamoratti is a rather more romantic woman, more passive, fine and educated (princess like character) falling in love with the lover, in contrast to the colombina. Still this woman inamoratti escapes the traditional form of pure romance and participates too in the dirty, chain of corruption (adultry, killing husband, and furthermore, adjusting the money transactions post death of the husband victim). 

Narrator

This is the only tale narrated by a male character. His voice is exageratedly pompous, and containing narcissistic depictions of himself. 

Aspects of Literature

• 
  
• Narrative voices in text, perspectives
• Setting
• Form + Structure
• Language
• Genre
• Intentions
• Points of view, critic quotes and interpretations
• Text important quotes
• Themes, plot, sub-plot
• Character construction
• Context of production

Macbeth´s dagger soliloquy

Macbeth´s famous soliloquy given in Act 2, scene 1 seemingly concurs with the gothic genre. In the former, Macbeth is anticipating the horrible feelings and thoughts of the planned murder of Duncan beforehand and in anguish.

Fitting into the horror aspect particular to the gothic, Shakespeare portrays Macbeth´s psyche at a borderline with terrifying madness. Macbeth´s hallucination of an inexistent “dagger” directly reflects to the audience the levels of anxiety, oppression and obsession that the upcoming murder involves to the main character. The “dagger” is a clear motif of violence, becoming an image of further tangibility for the audience to appeal to the horror and sense of danger and threat.

Relating to the luminal in gothic – threshold beyond which a sensation becomes too faint to be experienced, the dagger holds a further symbolic nature to it, not only is it the reflection of a troubled conscience but also has it an association with the power of the supernatural. The hypnotic power and control of evil is guiding Macbeth, “thou marshll´st me” as if the dagger itself where a ghostly apparition conducting him towards perdition. Such conductor, we could relate to the manipulation of the three witches over Macbeths soul and not only the manipulation of Lady Macbeth over his mind and feelings. Specialy within a religious, God fearing society such as the Jacobean, would this be a major threat and concern- being sold to the deeds of the devil.

Oppression is transmitted to the Audience as Macbeth is compulsively unable to discard the evil thoughts possessing and invading his whole being. He describes the dagger as “fatal vision” suggesting a future fate of perdition to him and also the imminent murder to be accomplished and expresses such dagger comes from “the heat oppressed brain”- heat of hell. It is as if he has no choice and is poisoned such by the evil, that he is entrapped with no freedom of mind- relating to the themes of terror and entrapment of the gothic genre. The audience is invaded by the overwhelming sense of confusion Macbeth experiences as he realises the dagger is not real but in his imagination and doesn´t disappear, “ I see thee still”.

Macbeth uses the soliloquy as a form to express himself at the edge of madness as he affectedly inquires to himself alone in a sign of such.  The dagger can be also, a symbolic portrayal of the guilt before taking the deed further. Characteristically to Shakespearean tragic heroes such as Macbeth or Othello, sense of guilt and anguish comes before murdering accompanying the internal oppressive battle with confusion as they become conscious or subconsciously stricken. Shakespeare prepares a night time, obscure setting for the soliloquy in which Macbeth´s displays an internal battle of threatening oppositions to the soul such as to “heaven or to hell” matching such construction strongly with the gothic genre.

The theme of the supernatural and religion are also characteristic to the gothic genre. Towards the second half of the soliloquy these are portrayed in further extent, where Macbeth expresses a whole semantic field of witchcraft, dreams, death and evil invading him; “Wicked dreams abuse”, “witchcraft celebrates”, “nature seems dead”. His mind and senses have been completely altered of peace and harmony, shown by evil taking over a “celebration” and him feeling an “abuse” connected to the typical feelings of entrapment related to gothic.

Gothic bloody imagery isn´t to be missed as the blade of the hallucinated dagger carries “gouts of blood” not only droplets but violent “gouts”, together with a euphemism of the murder said “bloody business”, portraying his fear to name the deed by its name and the horror and guilt it may already cause him to commit it as he acknowledges it is “bloody”.

Shakespeare names the mythological Goddess of night and witchcraft- “pale Hecate” whom is frequently depicted in triple form carrying such, a correlation with the three witches. The naming of Hecate is followed by the imagery of death as “withered murder alarumed by his sentinel, the wolf”. Murder here is personified and accompanied by the figure of the wolf as a symbol of the threatening dark nature restrained within. Macbeth´s dark nature is coming out in this soliloquy as a final result to his several invocations to evil and dark spirits done previously in the play.

Then again, Shakespeare draws a reference to Roman mythology and his poem “The Rape of Lucrece” associating Macbeth´s steps towards murder with “Tarquin´s ravishing strides”, moving like a “ghost”. Murder is compared to the deed of a rapist with violent “ravishing” approach because both violate the right of a person to live. The sensation of shock of such images which would have been familiar to the Jacobean society would appeal to the terror and threat of the gothic genre. “Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear” Macbeth sais, portraying a sigilous behaviour going against nature. He ignores the huge impact of his actions for the fear it causes him and in the same way he asked “stars hide your fires”, he encloses himself into a tunnel of evil and darkness. An honest approach would make noise in its steps but in his cowardice he ignores the treacherous, underhand behaviour, killing his conscience. In this soliloquy, Macbeth shows his corruption and downfall, as characteristic to tragic heroes from initial loyalty in his character to becoming “the serpent beneath”.

Dominance and Submission in Gothic Angela Carter

“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.

Angela Carter Gothic Part 1- The Bloody Chamber

Imagery:

MIRRORS

LILIES

WHITE,

RED- BLOOD
MASKS

THE TORTURE CHAMBER

THE CANDLES