Choose one setting Carter uses and discuss how it is significant in the telling of the story.

Choose one setting Carter uses and discuss how it is significant in the telling of the story.

In The Snow Child, Angela Carter sets the short story in 'midwinter', it is a cold time of year, and coldness is used a lot in the Gothic genre to create an uncomfortable atmosphere for the characters and it also disorientates the reader because the snowy barren landscape creates a feeling of isolation as there are no other things for the reader to focus on. Carter describes 'midwinter' as 'invincible. immaculate', these words can be put into the theme of the sublime and create a picture of an untouched powerful landscape covered in white snow, 'the whole world was white'. The white of the snow symbolises the purity and virginity of the girl that the Count creates, the reader knows that the girl is innocent and that the Count corrupts her.

The Count's three wishes, 'I wish I had a girl...', reflect his surroundings, 'as white as snow', it is the Count that is wishing for a child and not the Countess which is incongruous because it goes against what society would expect, normally it would be the woman wishing for a child. The Countess is riding next to the Count in this white frosty scenery, however she is wearing 'pelts of black foxes; and she wore high, black, shining boots with scarlet heels.' The Countess is a dark figure in this otherwise snow-covered countryside and it could show that because she has already been corrupted by the Count she has lost her purity and he no longer has any interest in her and that is why he longs for a new young girl to come along, and it is the reason why the Countess dresses provocatively to try and seduce him. 

In the middle of this 'immaculate' setting, in the snow there is a hole filled with blood, Carter could have used this to symbolise women and where children come from, where the snow child came from, it is a mark in the otherwise clear landscape. When the Count has taken the girl's virginity and she melts away, all that is left of her is 'a feather a bird might have dropped; a bloodstain...and the rose she had pulled off the bush.' The things left over from the snow child are the final symbols of her corruption, and Carter has shown how easily women can be corrupted by men, it is another blotch in the unmarred setting.

The Snow Child Notes

The Snow Child Notes

Key terms: Allegory- A story that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, typically a moral or political one.
Defiled- Connected to necrophilia.

The Gothic
-A fondness for the symbols of darkness and light- literally and metaphorically.
-A significant use of setting.
-The creation of unknown as a narrative priority.
-A fascination with the influence of the past.
-A different between male and female roles which themselves often follow particular conventions.
-A blurring of reality and fantasy, being awake and dreaming with the tales.
-A tendency for certain psychological traits to occur within the main character.

Form
-The Bloody Chamber is made up of short stories, which maximise the impact of the stories' messages.
-The Snow Child is the shortest of the stories and is written as a vignette, the shortness of which makes it poignant and increases its impact to disturb the reader.

Context
-Many of the stories can be linked to wider feminist messages. (For example, the image of the bloody chamber in the story of that name could be seen as a representation of the spiritual or physical death of the woman through childbirth and marriage). Angela Carter was herself a feminist.
-The metamorphoses in the stories also seem to be criticising society's imposition of gender roles through patriarchy.

Setting
-'Midwinter'- cold, 'immaculate', 'this hole is filled with blood', 'whole world was white'.
-Out of the hole filled with blood comes a child.
-The setting disorientates the reader, also implies a place that represents purity and virginity.

How does Carter use symbolism within the story?
-Feminist theory aims to understand the nature of gender inequality. Some earlier forms of feminism have been criticised for taking into  account only white, middle class, educated perspectives.
-Feminist activists campaogn for women's rights such as voting and equal pay. Because feminism seeks gender equality, some feminists argue that men are also harmed by sexism and gender rolls. The Count's ideal woman in The Snow Child is a young, white girl.

Countess
-"The Count and his wife"- Implies that she is not her own person, she is his possession.
-"High, black, shining boots with scarlet heels and spurs"- She is wearing provocative clothing to try and seduce her husband. She is always looking for the Count's approval.
-The Countess can have everything but the thing she wants.

Snow Child
-The Snow Child is the Count's version of the ideal 'woman' (in reality she is not a woman she is a child)- white, naked and a young girl, "there she stood".
-The use of the colour white symbolises the girl's purity and emphasises how the Count corrupts her.

Count
-He is not described in detail, the reader is not told what he looks like or the clothes that he is wearing, whereas the women in the story have what they are wearing (or not wearing) described in detail.
-The Count can be seen as greedy because he already has a wife and he is saying that he wants more, "I wish I had...".
-"I wish I a girl..."- this is repeated three times in the story. It is showing that he wants instant gratification.

How does Carter create her characters?

How does Carter create her characters? Choose one character we have not discussed in class and explain how this character is presented.

In Angela Carter's 'The Bloody Chamber' she is retelling the old, French literary folktale of Bluebeard. In Carter's version the heroine is saved by her mother, unlike Bluebeard, where the heroine is saved by her brothers. The narrators’ mother goes against all social conventions for a female of that time, she has fought pirates, shot tigers and 'had gladly, scandalously, defiantly beggared herself for love.' The narrator ignored the example that her mother set by marrying for money and social status instead of love.

Carter has portrayed the character of the heroine's mother as an 'indomitable' woman who is independent enough to make her own decisions. An example of this would be that she was the 'daughter of a rich tea planter' but she married for love to a man who was significantly poorer than she was. Her daughter mocks her for insisting on carrying around her dead husband's pistol, which is ironic because it is ultimately the thing that saves her life. 

However, once the protagonist has entered the bloody chamber her feelings towards her mother's temperament change, 'this spoilt child did not know she had inherited nerves and a will from the mother who had defied the yellow outlaws of Indo-China.' The narrator no longer mocks her mother, she is driven forward by her 'spirit' and obtains a new attitude. When the narrator finally embraces the example her mother has tried to set she 'walks as firmly as I had done in my mother's house'. Her mother has helped her escape from the corner that her husband has placed her in.

Carter ends The Bloody Chamber with a show of fearlessness from the protagonist’s mother, she does not flinch in the face of danger. It is not a clichéd ending to a fairy tale where a knight in shining armour comes to rescue the girl, it is her mother accompanied with an old pistol.

In conclusion Angela Carter has created a character that becomes an unlikely hero in a story of a world dominated by men.