Mirrors In Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber
Carter’s “The Bloody Chamber” has feminist undertones. Possibly, to show the male and female relationship dynamic in a patriarchal society. Within the text, mirrors are used as a tool to examine the female from all angles. While the placement of mirrors in the bedroom exhibit the power and dominance the Marquis has over the narrator, they also allow the narrator to witness not only her position as a female but also the degradation of herself. Furthermore, Carter uses these mirrors as a symbol for a mans objectifying eye.
In Carter’s “The Bloody Chamber”, the use of mirrors act as a mechanism to exhibit the objectification of a woman by a man. With the multitude of mirrors, this allows not only the Marquis to view his women from every angle,
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When looking at someone head on, one can only see them from that specific one angle, but when viewing them through multiple mirrors it allows indulgence of that human through multiple angles, almost like viewing an object. In the text, the narrator says “I saw him watching me in the gilded mirrors with the assessing eye of a connoisseur inspecting horseflesh, or even of a housewife in the market, inspecting cuts on the slab” (Carter 7). While in the bedroom, after being stripped by the Marquis the narrator compares herself to and “etching by Rops” which shows a child naked except for boots and gloves, but has a hand over her face to shield the last bit of modesty the girl has left (Carter 12). She looks in the mirror and describes the image as “He in his London tailoring; she, bare as a lamb chop” (Carter 12 ). This continuous comparison of the narrator and meat allows her to realize that she is viewed as an object, or a piece of meat per say, rather than a human. This exhibits the degradation of female and presents the Marquis as demeaning and overshadowing, but is ultimately confirmed when the narrator realizes it within his eyes. The narrator says, “I seemed reborn in his unreflective eyes, reborn in unfamiliar shapes. I hardly recognized myself from his descriptions of me” (Carter 19). The narrator
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