The Bloody Chamber Quotes

The Bloody Chamber

Quotes-

Settings

Characters

Themes

Figurative Techniques

Narrative Voice

Settings

• "that magic place, the fairy castle whose walls were made of foam"
• "And, ah! his castle. The faery solitude of the place"-Castle=Adheres to the Gothic
• "his castle that lay on the very bosom of the sea"
• "cut off by the sea from land for half a day"-Entrapment= Also adheres to the Gothic
• "a mysterious, amphibious place"
• "The walls of this stark torture chamber were the naked rock"-Chamber= Adheres to the Gothic.
• "into that dreadful place"-Menacing- typically Gothic
• "It is the key that leads to the kingdom of the unimaginable"

Characters

Narrator=

• " I was seventeen"-Innocent= Typically gothic=virginal and innocent victims
• "mouse coloured hair"
• "My first thought, when I saw the ring for which I had sold myself to this fate, was how to escape it"

Marquis

• "He was older than I"
• "he was a big man"
• "streaks of pure silver in his dark mane"
• "The atrocious lonliness of that monster"
• "His curling mane was disordered"

Characters Continued...

Piano tuner

• "He was blind of course"
• "young, with a gentle mouth and grey eyes"

Mother

• "My eagle-featured, indomitable mother"
• "a wild thing as my mother"
• "her hair was he white mane"
• "clasped my father's service revolver"
• "put a single, irreproachable bullet through my husband's head"= deviates from the gothic= Carter empowers the women within this story; as it is her mother who saves her not a young dashing hero!!

Themes

• Dreams= Can be seen to adhere to the gothic "I drifted into slumber...and chased bad dreams away.
• Sleep= "I could not sleep" this may be seen to apply within some gothic novels
• Death= It is a typical feature of the Gothic "The opera singer lay, quite naked...such as the princes of Italy used to shroud those whom they had poisoned" & "Decapitation" & "put a singe, irreproachable bullet through my husband's head"
• Religion= "our last rites" & "holy books"-also can be seen to adhere to the Gothic.
• Class= "Marquis" & "The chauffuer" & "housekeeper"
• Isolation= " I felt a vague desolation that within me"

Figurative Techniques

• "red ribbon"= Colour- adheres to the Gothic
• "black silk, with the dull, prismatic sheen of oil on water"= Colour- adheres to the Gothic
• gallant soldier never returned"
• "starburst of lights spattered"= Onomatopoeia
• "like a lily"=Simile
• "Possessed of that strange, ominous calm of a sentient vegetable, like one of those cobra-headed, funereal lilies whose white sheaths are curled out of a flesh as thick and tensely yielding to the touch as vellum"=Metaphor
• "a fire opal the size of a pigeon's egg set in a complicated circle of antique gold"-descriptive
• "clasped round my throat...A choker of rubies"-Colour red-adheres to the gothic
• "the flashing crimson jewels round her throat, bright as arterial blood"=Similie

Figurative Techniques continued...

• "Not yet.Later.Anticipation is the greater part of pleasure, my little love"=Delaying
• "red lips"
• "It  was cold as ice"- Clique similie
• "A dozen husbands impaled a dozen brides while the mewing gulls swung on invisible trapezes in the empty air outside"= Metaphor
• "And I longed for him.And he disgusted me"= Irony
• "My mother. I ran to the telephone; and the line, of course, was dead"
• "can't it wait until morning, my darling"= Entrapment; Isolation
• "The whizz of that heavy sword"= Descriptive

Narrrative Voice

• " I remember how"= First person
• "the train that bore me through the night, away from paris, away from girlhood"= Journey-typical to the Gothic
• "The train slowed, shuddered to a halt"=Journey
• "Have this nasty picture scared Baby? Baby mustn't play with grownups' toys until she's learned how to handle them, must she"= Marquis- Mocking tone

Settings

• "the whole world was white"
• "Midwinter- invincible, immaculate"

Characters

• Countess= "she wrapped in the glittering pelts if black foxes, and she wore high, black shining boots with scarlet heels and spurs" & "Now the countess was bare as a bone
• Girl= "She stood beside the road, white sking, red mouth, black hair and stark naked" & "the girl was furred and booted"
• Count= "Weeping, the count got off his horse, unfastened his breeches and thrust his virile member into the dead girl"

Themes

• Good VS Evil = Countess- Evil "hated the young girl" & Young girl= Good
• Death= "So the girl picks a rose; pricks her finger on the thorns; bleeds; screams; falls"
• Class= "Count" & "Countess"= Aristocracy

Figurative Techniques

• "Fresh snow fell on snow already fallen"- Entrapment/Isolation
• "girl as white as snow; girl as red as blood; girl as black as that bird's feather"- Colours typically used in Gothic tales
• "Then the girl began to melt. Soon there was nothing left of her but a feather a bird might have dropped"- Metamorphosis
• "It bites= Ambiguous ending- typical to the Gothic

Narrative Voice

• "The Count and his wife go riding"- Third person- not typically found within a Gothic tale.

Settings

• "In this region of mountain and forest"
• "It is winter and cold weather"
• "The forest closed upon her like a pair of jaws"
• "Grandmother's house stood by itself a little way out of the village"

Characters

• "The wolf is carnivore incarnate"
• "the eyes of wolves shine like candle flames, yellowish, reddish"
• "terrible sequins"
• "Those slavering jaws; the lolling tongue; the rime of saliva on the grizzled chops"
• "a wolf came slinking out of the forest"
• "The hunter jumped down after him, slit his throat, cut off all his paws for a trophy"
• "strong minded child insists she will go off through the woods"
• "youngest of her family"-typically gothic
• "She has a knife and she is afraid of nothing"
• "The girl burst out laughing; she knew she was nobody's meat"- deviates from the gothic- empowers women in the tale.
• "Aged and frail"- Grandmother
• "a young man, eyes like cinders, naked as a stone, approaching her bed"

Themes

• Religion- "Congregation" & "She has her bible for company" & "now call on Christ" & " all the angels in heaven to protect you" & "sing to Jesus all day"
• " ghosts, hobgoblins, orges that grill babies upon gridirons, witches that fatten their captives in cages for cannibal tables, the wolf is worst for he cannot listen to reason"
• "She knew she should never leave the path on the way through the wood or else she would be lost instantly"
• "sprang to the door, passing his back against it so that she could not get out again"

Figurative Techniques

• "red for danger"- Color typically gothic
• "unnatural green"
• "forest assassins as they cluster invisibly around"
• "They will be like shadows, they will be like wraiths"
• "It is winter and cold weather"-Pathetic fallacy
• "They are grey as famine, they are as unkind as plague"
• "Their knives are half as big as they are"
• "Quack, quack!"-Comic
• "And then no wolf at all lay in front of the hunter but the bloody trunk of a man, headless, footless, dying, dead"
• "The forest closed upon her like a pair of jaws"
• "white teeth"
• "As the day darkened, it began to snow again"-Pathetic fallacy
• "This young man had a remarkable object in his pocket"-Suggestive

Figurative Techniques Continued...

• "A kiss"-Flirtaous
• "for she wanted to dawdle on her way to make sure the handsome gentleman would win his wager"
• "The grandfather clock ticks away her eroding time"
• "devasting eyes as red as a wound"-Simile
• "infernal vermin"
• "his feral muzzle is sharp as a knife"-Simile
• "dark as poison knife"
• "red as the blood she must spill"
• "It is very cold"-Pathetic Fallacy
• "scarlet shawl, the colour of poppies"- Colour associated with the Gothic
• "her hair looked white as the snow outside"
• "The blizzard will die down. The blizzard died down"-Entrapment
• "See! sweet and sound she sleeps"-Alliteration

Narrative Voice

• "Fear and flee the wolf; for, worst of all, the wolf may be more than he seems"- Instructive; dramatic irony-hints of what is to come!
• "you must rung as if the Devil were after you"-Also instructive
• "Granny lives two hours' trugde through the winter woods" Fairytale like quality
• "Rat-a-tap-tap"- Comic and fairytale like
• "What big eyes you have. All the better to see you with" Also fairytale like quality- Little Red Riding hood!
• "I love the company of wolves"- The title of the tale; reference to the meaning of the tale.
• "Midnight; and the clock strikes"
• "It is Christmas Day, the werewolves birthday"