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Hannah Luppe

Professor Varadharajan

ENGL 590

‘As Red as Blood’: Women’s Temporality and Pain in Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber

The story begins with a young girl. She’s lanky, shy, and only wears her glasses when

absolutely necessary because she hates the way they look on her face. She loves reading, school,

and the cat she named French Fry when she was eight. She doesn’t know how to use her body

and knows even less about how it works, a fact which becomes increasingly apparent the

morning she wakes up to find blood stains on her sheets. At first, she thinks she’s dying—who

wouldn’t? —but soon learns from her mother that she is “becoming a woman now,” and, more

importantly, definitely not dying.

My adolescent years were painful, awkward, and bloody. Nonetheless, I learned how to wash

the stains from my sheets and take care of my body when it was hurting. I learned how to best

hide tampons in my backpack and smile—convincingly—with a massive headache. I learned that

“becoming a woman” was something to be celebrated, but quietly. Initially, I romanticized the

idea that womanhood was a private circle that I had been given access to. The pain I endured

each month was accompanied by a small sense of pride because the pain was mine alone to deal

with. The first time a man asked me if it was my “time of the month,” I realized womanhood

wasn’t such a secret after all. Menstruation was a hushed topic simply because it made people

uncomfortable, and this man had weaponized it to undermine any authority I’d had in the

conversation. To him, my period was a shameful, unfamiliar process. And it is not hard for the

unfamiliar to become threatening—especially when it bleeds.

A woman’s “time of the month,” “first time,” and biological clock are used by society to

dictate womanhood. Her period can discredit her words and emotions, her sexual activity and

desire are seen as direct reflections of her morality, and her stance on motherhood determines her

value. Each of these experiences involve pain to some degree, but because this kind of pain is so

deeply associated with becoming a woman, it is unfamiliar to the patriarchal society. This results

in positioning the female body as other or monstrous, playing on the notion that there is a “power

and danger perceived to be inherent in woman’s fecund flesh, her seeping, leaking, bleeding

womb standing as site of pollution and source of dread,” and her body therefore becomes a threat

in need of controlling (Ussher 1). It is difficult, however, to try and control something that is so

persistent. Women’s pain is timeless—it is present each month whether society deems it

acceptable or not. It pervades socially accepted rules and regulations because it adheres to a

timeline—a cycle, if you will—that is all its own. Essentially, women experience time in ways

which diverge from the more rigid patriarchal temporal orders “in favour of a ‘softer’ approach,

circular in character, and more sensitive to the border zones and the overlapping temporal zones

as potential vehicles for knowledge and experience” (Leccardi 354). So, what does the

patriarchal society do when it is unable to control women’s time? It writes a story that punishes it

instead.

ONCE UPON A TIME…

Fairy tales, too, are timeless. They have a way of returning, repeating, and retelling

themselves. Rather than becoming stale, forgotten relics of the past, these stories evolve with

society, changing to espouse the current favoured ideologies. In an apt description, Jack Zipes

likens the motifs and plots of stories to a virus, spreading and “eventually [forming] a clearly
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identifiable genre, species, or virus that we generally call the fairy tale” (Zipes 3). Zipes goes on

to define society in terms of narrative:

When we are born, we are faced with this master narrative that we seek to identify ourselves.

This does not mean that people are not free and that there are no other narratives. It simply

means that we are free within this master narrative that needs and consumes our stories and

reproduces them for the benefit and profit of the system and not for the benefit and profit of

the producers and tellers (Zipes 36).

Female narratives and perspectives have certainly always existed, but when both system and

master narrative are rooted in patriarchal norms and traditions, those storylines which differ from

the dominant social group are overshadowed and often condemned. Fairy tales, then, use

character archetypes such as the fair maiden, the heroic prince, and the wicked witch to reflect

“the dominant interests of social groups that control cultural forces of production and

reproduction” (Zipes 2). These archetypes often serve as projections of what society considers

acceptable (i.e., the maiden and the prince) and unacceptable (i.e., the witch). For instance, in the

original tale of “Little Snow-White,”1 the evil queen tries to kill Snow-White because she is

jealous of the young girl’s growing beauty. Snow-White narrowly escapes the queen’s first

attempt and ends up keeping house for the seven dwarves, a pretty picture of domesticity. The

queen’s second attempt is much more successful. By turning herself into an old peasant woman,

she is able to trick Snow-White into eating a poisoned apple. Unfortunately for the queen, the

power of her magic is no match for the prince—with one kiss, the male figure restores order and

1
See Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm, “Little Snow-White.”
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Snow-White lives. The story ends with the queen being forced to wear hot iron shoes and dance

until she falls down, dead. Throughout the tale, Snow-White’s character is constantly juxtaposed

with the evil queen, thus implying female obedience will be rewarded while disobedience will

have grotesque—even deadly—consequences. For instance, the story positions aging as an act of

disobedience through the queen’s use of an elderly appearance to deceive and kill Snow-White.

Here, growing old and beauty are contradictory traits, effectively vilifying the aging woman—a

process dictated entirely by time—and asserting young women as the only acceptable form of

womanhood. The prince’s part in the story is small, but integral. By correcting the chaos caused

by the queen’s disobedience and allowing Snow White to live, the prince’s role in the story

suggests that, without patriarchal order, women are lost. The punishment of women in fairy tales

who “disobey” or defy patriarchal structures is not isolated to the story of “Little Snow-White.”

The same ominous lesson lurks behind almost every enchanted rose and fairy godmother:

conform to this disciplined version of womanhood, and you will survive.

In the story, “Little Brier-Rose”2—more commonly known as “Sleeping Beauty”—the

princess is cursed by a “wise woman” to prick her finger on a spindle during her fifteenth year

and fall into a hundred-year sleep. Sure enough, on her fifteenth birthday, Little Brier-Rose finds

an old woman spinning flax, pricks her finger on the spindle, and falls into a deep sleep along

with the rest of the castle’s inhabitants. Enter the heroic prince, a hundred years later, whose kiss

wakes the princess and restores order to the kingdom. From the emphasis on a young girl’s

curiosity to a king’s desperation to protect his daughter from the perils of growing up, this fairy

tale suggests themes of adolescence and transition. If viewed through this lens, the spindle

drawing Little Brier-Rose’s blood could act as a symbol for menstruation, especially given the

2
See Jacob Grimm, and Wilhelm Grimm, “Little Brier-Rose.”
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context of her age. Her curse, then, is her period—one that is only broken when the prince kisses

her, perhaps an allusion to pregnancy, or, at the very least, sexual maturity. Once again, a wicked

female character disrupts society in such a way that only a male character can correct it. Once

again, the figure of the aging woman is antagonized by acting as the catalyst for the curse. Once

again, women’s blood is seen as a threat.

In some tales, there is no evil queen or wicked witch in need of controlling. Instead, there is a

misguided maiden who must be taught how to behave. “Little Red Cap”3 follows a young girl on

a journey to her grandmother’s house. Despite her mother’s warning to remain on the path, Little

Red Riding Hood wanders into the forest and encounters the big bad wolf. This meeting results

in both her and her grandmother getting eaten, a death they narrowly avoid when a huntsman

cuts open the wolf’s stomach and saves them. The wolf’s behaviour in the story is eerily similar

to that of sexually predatorial men. His lurking in the shadows, deceptive nature, and devouring

of both old and young women are all condemned by the fairy tale: the huntsman fills the wolf’s

belly with heavy stones, resulting in his death. But this story is not aimed at the big bad wolves

of the world—it is meant for children. The message of obedience, therefore, is directed entirely

toward those who can relate to Little Red Riding Hood—namely, young girls. The story suggests

it is in the wolf’s nature to eat women—he cannot help it—so it falls on the shoulders of those

women to reign in their curiosity and stay on the path laid out for them. In short, if they are

eaten, it is their fault for not knowing better.

Here is my confession: despite all the stifling morals, harsh punishments, and unrealistic

expectations for women, I love fairy tales. I always have, and I suspect I always will. As I grow

and change, so does my admiration for these stories. I once longed for a version of womanhood

3
See Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm, “Little Red Cap.”
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built on castles and true love, but, as Jane Ussher states, “The pedestal is a precarious place to

be: the woman positioned there has to remain perfect, in order to avoid falling into the position

of monster incarnate” (Ussher 2). And so, my fascination with that pedestal has slowly shifted

into a curiosity for the quiet truth hidden in dark forests and muttered between wicked words: “I

am in pain,” the evil queen seems to say.

“Are you in pain too?”

…THERE LIVED A WHITE WITCH…

Angela Carter answers this question with a loud and defiant yes. Her collection of fairy

tale retellings entitled The Bloody Chamber rejects the idea that becoming a woman is a problem

to be solved with a pair of glass slippers and a kiss on the lips. The title itself is an act of

rebellion—the word “bloody” implies violence, and, paired with the word “chamber,” it becomes

a clear reference to

The apparently uncontained fecund body, with its creases and curves, secretions and

seepages, as well as its changing boundaries at times of pregnancy and menopause, [all

which signify] association with the animal world… and stands as the antithesis of the clean,

contained, proper body, [which is] epitomized by the body of man, or the pre-pubescent girl

not yet despoiled by fecundity (Ussher 6).

By allowing this reference to encompass her fairy tale retellings, Carter establishes that she is

aware womanhood is perceived as a threat. Indeed, “Representations of the vagina dentata, the

vagina with teeth, transform dread of the vagina into myth…the fecund body as ‘the mouth of
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hell—a terrifying symbol of woman as the “devil’s gateway”” illustrates the cultural anxiety that

the female body is a monstrous entity (Ussher 1). Instead of shying away from it, however, the

title implies Carter will address it directly—it implies she will nurture it. Carter’s suggestion that

“a free woman in an unfree society will be a monster” is present in each story of the collection.

Between countesses with a taste for blood, girls who are more wolf than woman, and maidens

who willingly turn themselves into beasts, Carter embraces the idea that becoming a woman is a

violent, threatening, and monstrous process. Her fairy tale heroines are far from the glittering

perfection of their traditional roles—they are flawed, and they are wild, and they are bloody. But,

more importantly, they are free.

The Bloody Chamber allows women’s time to expand—much like a mother’s womb—

stretching to make room for the character’s pain and desires. Oftentimes in Carter’s stories, time

is associated with blood, particularly that of the menstrual cycle. This is a direct critique of the

idea that, “for some, the unruly menstrual body [marks] the end of the illusion that a girl is the

same as, as good as, a boy. This can be experienced as a loss of power” (Ussher 20). Rather than

menarche symbolizing the end of a girl’s freedom from her body, Carter asserts it as the

beginning. For instance, in “A Company of Wolves,” the protagonist’s period is described as a

clock that will govern the rest of her time. In “Wolf-Alice,” the protagonist’s conception of time

begins with her first cycle. “The Lady of the House of Love” depicts a woman trapped in time

who is only freed when she herself bleeds. While all Carter’s stories engage with blood in some

way, these three stories in particular engage with the notion that a woman’s blood and time are

interconnected. It follows, then, that the notion of becoming a woman in Carter’s retellings not

only produces pain and blood, but time as well. Through this notion, the stories establish that
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women experience time in a way that is completely separate to men—a foundation upon which

violence inevitably emerges.

Angela Carter does not hesitate to depict womanhood as it is: a bloody, painful process. But

she also does not erase society’s fear of it either. Both men and women in The Bloody Chamber

attempt to dictate women’s time, the results of which are never pretty. In the first story, “The

Bloody Chamber,” the main character professes, “Time was his servant, too; it would trap me

here, in a night that would last until he came back to me, like a black sun on a hopeless morning”

after she realizes her mistake of entering the bloody chamber (Carter 30). Once time is

weaponized as a way of controlling the heroine, she is stripped of any agency she might have

possessed. She is at the mercy of her husband’s cruelty, the punishment he plans for her

disobedience not unlike the brutality of those in traditional fairy tales. The quote asserts that the

husband not only commands his wife’s time, but also the length of night and day, thus

referencing the power patriarchal temporal orders have over perceptions of reality both in the

fairy tale genre and beyond. Here, Carter understands that women “experience these differing

temporal orders…outside any pre-established and socially regulated hierarchy,” and suggests

that the ultimate punishment occurs when women are prevented from experiencing time

organically (Leccardi 354). Temporality in The Bloody Chamber, then, can be portrayed as both

a tool of empowerment and confinement depending on who wields it—the curse and the cure

both originating from the same thing.

Carter once wrote, “I desire therefore I exist.” It is a powerful statement, one which defies

the underlying threat associated with the unfamiliarity of female desire. Instead of locking her

desires away, she allows them to define her existence. She exists because of them, not despite

them. With her clever, lyrical prose, Angela Carter encourages us to do the same. We are invited
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into The Bloody Chamber where she provides the time and space to express the pain, the blood,

and the desire. Here, becoming a woman is a thing to be celebrated, and loudly. Here, between

the book’s pages, we too are allowed to exist.

Endnotes

Carter, Angela. The Bloody Chamber. Penguin Publishing Group, 2015.

Grimm, Jacob, and Wilhelm Grimm. “Little Brier-Rose.” Edited by D. L. Ashliman, Folklore

and Mythology Electronic Texts, https://sites.pitt.edu/~dash/type0333.html#grimm.

Grimm, Jacob, and Wilhelm Grimm. “Little Red Cap.” Edited by D. L. Ashliman, Folklore and

Mythology Electronic Texts, https://sites.pitt.edu/~dash/type0333.html#grimm.

Grimm, Jacob, and Wilhelm Grimm. “Little Snow-White.” Edited by D. L. Ashliman, Folklore

and Mythology Electronic Texts, https://sites.pitt.edu/~dash/type0333.html#grimm.

Leccardi, Carmen, and Marita Rampazi. “Past and Future in Young Women’s Experience

of Time.” Time & society 2.3 (1993): 353–379. Web.

Ussher, Jane M. Managing the Monstrous Feminine : Regulating the Reproductive Body.

[1st ed.]. London ;: Routledge, 2006.

Zipes, Jack. Why Fairy Tales Stick: The Evolution and Relevance of a Genre. New York:

Routledge, 2006. Print.