Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber and the Decolonization of Feminine Sexuality

Non-Identity and Parodoxicality in Angela Carter’s <i>The Bloody Chamber</i>

“…Consequently, unlike Makinen's claim that deconstructive irony cannot be triggered if the reader is uninformed by feminism and Carter's tale evoke a similar active association with feminist discourse [1], it can be said that Carter's tale as a literary Marchen, or the written version of a fairy tale, provides liminal spaces and experiences for the readers from different backgrounds for examining social processes by reader's exposure to new information included in the narrative.…”

“…In fact, Makinen mentions that Carter's tales summon an active preoccupation with feminine discourse. [1] In contrast with Makinen's claims of the impossibility of the activation of the deconstructive irony without being informed by feminist discourse, in this paper we intend to show how the readers, regardless of their gender and sex, can identify a kind of universal experience and realize more and more of the protagonist, whether they are familiar with feminism or not. We discuss the identity formation of the protagonist and the way it is always in process by focusing on the defining principles in subjectivization which are both pre-constructed and evolving in accordance with the logic of differentiation found within the social universe.…”

“…In her essay, Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber and the Decolonization of Feminine Sexuality, Merja Makinen [1] aims to depict how Carter in The Bloody Chamber actively engages the reader in a feminist deconstructive reading; she also analyzes the relation of a feminist strategy to an assessment of Carter's readership. Makinen draws upon Naomi Schor's viewpoint on the function of irony which is to reject and, at the same time, "re-appropriate the discourse that an author is referring."…”

Fear and Hope in Angela Carter’s Fictions.

“…Merja Makinen exclaims that the wolf can be seen as projection of a "feminine libido", as a "forbidden" sensuality. Here for her self-assured and self-invented characteristic, the girl remains as a "New woman" [18].…”

Motherhood, Sexuality, and the (Fe)Male Gaze in Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber

“…They serve as a kind of instruction guide for children to learn the appropriate behaviour for a man and a woman. Merja Makinen (1992) describes them as "parables of instruction for children" (4). Since women have been in charge of raising children throughout history, storytelling also fell mostly on their shoulders.…”