Patriarchal Perspective in Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber
In western literature, primarily Christian and Jewish, the role of women has been negatively characterized as a damsel in distress, a princess, and or a temptress and wicked. Much of these characterizations all allude back to one quintessential story in the book of genesis. The story of Adam and Eve, the creation of man and woman and temptation, drastically impacts the way women are portrayed in society as well as their rights as citizens. Eve, the first woman ever created, gives into temptation of the tree of knowledge and the devil according to the Bible. Eve thus imprinted a sense of vulnerability, lack of common sense and impurity on women throughout literature. In the late 20th century and now in the 21st century women and men are trying to change the way society see women as an inferior race. Angela Carter through her novel The Bloody Chamber she uses her feminist perspective to try and change the role of women in literature and how they have been negatively imprinted through the biblical character Eve.
Women in countless novels, stories and fairytales are frail old women, menaces to society, a poor orphaned girl, a prissy princess or a wicked witch. These five types of characters are the building blocks that every author uses when developing the attributes for the women in their story. Although these five characters may seem miniscule compared to the slew of women in Western literature, they serve for the main components of what many women resemble in literature back to the biblical character Eve. Eve was categorized as a seductress with a distinct sexual appeal that allowed men, who were at the time the main gender writing novels, to create women, many in iconic roles, as weak, brittle, unintelligent and bitter. These stereotypes followed women through society for a long period of time. Feminists since the Seneca Falls convention have tried to change the way men look at women.
No matter what women might achieve in the world, the message from the Book
Women in countless novels, stories and fairytales are frail old women, menaces to society, a poor orphaned girl, a prissy princess or a wicked witch. These five types of characters are the building blocks that every author uses when developing the attributes for the women in their story. Although these five characters may seem miniscule compared to the slew of women in Western literature, they serve for the main components of what many women resemble in literature back to the biblical character Eve. Eve was categorized as a seductress with a distinct sexual appeal that allowed men, who were at the time the main gender writing novels, to create women, many in iconic roles, as weak, brittle, unintelligent and bitter. These stereotypes followed women through society for a long period of time. Feminists since the Seneca Falls convention have tried to change the way men look at women.
No matter what women might achieve in the world, the message from the Book
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