How does Angela Carter reinterpret Gothic Conventions in The Tigers Bride, and The Courtship of Mr Lyon?

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How does Angela Carter reinterpret Gothic Conventions in ‘The Tigers Bride,’ and ‘The Courtship of Mr Lyon’?

Angela Carter reinterprets Gothic Conventions in both ‘The Tigers Bride’, and ‘The Courtship of Mr Lyon.’ These reinterpreted gothic conventions are not merely used by Angela Carter to shock the reader, (typical of the Gothic), but additionally to add a sub-genre. This is clearly the case in both ‘The Tigers Bride’ and ‘Courtship of Mr Lyon’ as the feminist and Marxist message is provided by the subversion of the genre.

For instance, in a conventional gothic novel the female is stereotypically either the “trembling victim” or  “predator.” In other cases, women remain absent from the Gothic novel all together. However, in both of these short stories from Angela Carters collection ‘The Bloody Chamber,’ this gender role is subverted so the male becomes the victim. This is particularly evident in ‘The Courtship of Mr Lyon’ where Mr Lyon takes the role of the desperate women locked away, needing to be saved. Mr Lyon claims to be “dying” because Beauty left “because you left me.” The state of the lion is covered in the description with imagery of death and decay; “dead” flowers, “groaning” hinges, and “drifting cobwebs.” Beauty therefore takes the role of the male protagonist. There is a mention of otherness as Beauty found My Lyons “bewildering difference intolerable,” whereas, conventionally, the male was the norm and the female the other.

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Furthermore, in ‘The Tigers Bride’ conventional gothic gender stereotypes are also played with as Beauty breaks out of patriarchal society by rejecting her “clockwork twin” and taking the form of an animal “beautiful fur.”

Carter uses the gothic conventional symbol of animals but in an alternate way. In both stories she puts animals on a higher level than man for their more moral qualities. The beast for instance is juxtaposed against her farther in ‘The Tigers Bride’ as he is the poor protector who “bartered,” and lost his “treasure” (again, objectifying women.) The use of animals again explores a ...

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