Leading and Managing Change

Angela Carters The Bloody Cha essays

Angela Carters The Bloody Cha essays "How can the bitten apple flesh out its scar again?": Bridging the gap between our Natural and animal selves, in Angela Carters The Bloody Chamber Angela Carters The Bloody Chamber sets out to examine sexuality for women within a misogynistic society. I believe that Carters transformation of such classic fairy tales as Beauty and the Beast, and Little Red Riding Hood, is her attempt at bringing to light ideas that have always existed within those tales yet have never been understood. What Cater is trying to show is that society embraces these fair tales for a reason, and its not because of the handsome prince s, and happy endings but rather because of the fact that they show how todays culture has distanced itself from nature, and the problems that arise as a result of that. Carter seems to feel as though civilization has pushed nature aside, and is fully intent on covering it up, and that todays culture would rather go after what is fake and unreal rather than what comes from nature. The question that The Bloody Chamber seeks to answer is ...how can the bitten apple flesh out its scar again? In other words, now that society has become so distant form nature, how can it go back, and repair the damage it has caused? Carters answer comes in the form of one word mutilation, which in her case is not a reference to bodily harm, but rather the idea of mute or silence. I would like to argue that it is this idea of muting or silencing nature that is the key to understanding how the bitten apple can flesh out its scar again. In my opinion, Carter is suggesting that it is when we stop silencing the voice of nature and begin to embrace it, that the irreparable gulf that currently separates us from our Natural and animal selves can be bridged. At that point, the scar that marks our separation from Nature can finally begin to he...