The Big Bad Wolf, Prince Charming, and the Beast: Many fairy tales provide images of men ranging from the brave to the very wicked. Each tale encodes messages aimed at young girls about men, marriage or sex as a type of socialization. Charles Perrault's traditional version of the tale of Bluebeard, which includes a moral regarding curiosity and marriage, is no exception. In her book The Bloody Chamber, Angela Carter completely reverses the messages of traditional fairy tales, such as Bluebeard, by rewriting them from a feminist perspective. Carter transforms the story of Bluebeard into a feminist story in his version entitled "The Bloody Chamber" by placing the mother in the role of savior, allowing the protagonist to participate in his own rescue and removing the strength from the secondary male figures. Say no. to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get the original essay One of Carter's most notable adaptations of the story of Bluebeard with the aim of creating a feminist tale is his treatment of the protagonist's mother. In the traditional version of the fairy tale, Perrault only briefly mentions the protagonist's mother as "a respectable lady, [who] had two daughters who were of perfect beauty" (144). Unlike Perrault, Carter chooses to make the mother a central figure. While Perrault only describes the mother in relation to her feminine qualities and her role in raising children, Carter depicts the mother as a much more complex and powerful character, which constitutes a key adaptation in his efforts to transform the history into a feminist tale. . At the beginning of the story, the narrator describes her mother as "my indomitable, eagle-faced mother..." who "had defeated a slew of Chinese pirates, healed a village with the plague, slain a tiger-eating tiger." 'men'. with his own hand” (7). By describing the mother as “indomitable,” Carter immediately emphasizes the mother’s strength. Likewise, by providing the reader with the mother's non-feminine story, Carter emphasizes the mother's past courage and potential power. Carter also portrays the mother as a source of strength for the female protagonist. When exploring the room, the narrator notes: "Until that moment, this spoiled child did not know that she had inherited the nerves and the will of her mother who had defied the yellow outlaws from Indochina. My mother's spirit pushed me to continue. .." (28). Carter does not simply describe the mother as courageous, but implies that courage is passed down from mother to daughter. The transmission of courage from woman to woman, rather than from man to man or from man to woman, is significant in that it shows the power of a strong female role model The daughter admires the mother because of her unfeminine abilities The story of the mother's courage is not the only way. Carter uses the mother character to make the story distinctly feminist. Carter develops this strong female character by placing the mother in the role of savior, rather than giving such power to a male character in Perrault's version. tale, the girl's brothers heroically save her from a violent death at the hands of Bluebeard, however, Carter replaces the brothers with the mother, thus placing the most power (the power to defeat the villain) in the hands. of a woman. “She raised my father’s gun, took aim and fired a single, clean bullet into my husband’s body. head" (40). With the mother as the savior who kills the husband, Carter changes the nature of the story's climactic moment. Rather than a fight between men over a woman, thestruggle occurs between man and woman. The woman does not rely on men to save her, but on another woman. Cater plays even more with this power struggle between man and woman by allowing the protagonist to play a role in his own escape. In Perrault's "The Bloody Room" and "Bluebeard", the protagonist tries to prolong her life by delaying her husband. In Carter's version, the narrator walks slowly towards her husband to give her mother time to approach the castle (39). At Perrault's, the young girl asks for time to say her prayers in an attempt to delay her loss until the arrival of her brothers who, she hopes, will save her (146). Both of these examples are passive attempts simply to buy time until another party can make the rescue. However, Carter gives her protagonist a larger role in her own escape, as her husband deals what would be a fatal blow. The blade didn't come down, the collar didn't cut, my head didn't roll. For, for an instant, the beast wavered in its blow, a sufficient fraction of a second of astonished indecision to allow me to straighten myself and rush to my lover's aid while he struggled blindly with the great bolts that prevented [my mother] from entering. (39) This quote illustrates the importance of the narrator's own action in his salvation. Carter's focus on what did not happen, followed by the protagonist's action, allows the reader to see that she does not die because of her own tendency to come out from under the blade. After all, if she doesn't, her husband will kill her before her mother even enters the room. His help is needed to open the portal for his mother. The addition of the protagonist's action is a key element of his rescue, which is not found in Perrault's version of the tale. In his version, the brothers enter, pursue and kill Bluebeard while the girl remains on the ground, "Bluebeard's wife was as close to death as her husband and barely had the strength to get up and embrace his brothers” (147). While Perrault portrays her as weak and incapable, Carter depicts the woman as a powerful individual whose actions are essential to her own rescue, thus giving even more power to the female roles. Not only does Cater transform Bluebeard's story into a feminist story by empowering the female characters, but she also diminishes the power of the secondary male characters by removing the brothers from the story and adding the less powerful piano tuner . In Perrault's version of the tale, the only male characters the reader meets (aside from Bluebeard) are the brothers. Furthermore, Perrault depicts the brothers as the very image of masculinity, “one a dragon and the other a musketeer” (147). His version of the story contains only images of powerful, aggressive men. Carter chooses to remove the brothers altogether. As a result, the reader associates male power and aggression with evil, because it is only found in the husband and is not represented positively. Carter not only removes the powerful and aggressive brothers, but she also adds the less powerful piano tuner, Jean Yves, to show the weakened power of men in the story. The narrator first describes John with a series of adjectives that lead the reader to imagine him as a man without power: “he was blind, of course; but young, with a sweet mouth” (23). From this description, the reader imagines a gentle, disabled boy, who is the complete opposite of the secondary male characters depicted in Perrault's tale. Not only does the narrator describe Jean as physically weak, but she later describes his lack of courage. She states: “The.