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.