English Literature: Research and Planning

 From H. Bertens' Literary theory:The basics he mentions 'capitalism alienates them[bourgeoisie] from themselves'
using ideas from the critical anthology to inform your argument, to what extent do you agree with this view?

The Lady house of love and The Erl-king.

War had broken out in Europe and she was evacuated as a child to Yorkshire to live with her maternal grandmother, a working-class, matriarchal, domineering, feminist bread granny of the north of England. Carter's first years were later to have so much of an influence on her writing. Her mother was a great literary influence on her, as she devoured book after book and author after author. Her upbringing was very much based on the works of Shakespeare and great names of English literature. There are references to Chaucer, Shakespeare, Lawrence, Wordsworth, Blake, Coleridge, Mansfield, Woolf, Dickens, Keats, Stoker, Carroll and on and on the list will go on...she was not just confined to English literature either. She spoke French and German and was interested in the philosophy of De Sade and Bataille regarding sexuality, Irigaray and De Beauvoir for feminist theory, and Genette and Barthes for ideas concerning intertextuality and analysis of texts. She was also greatly influenced by her short two-year stay in Japan, after having won the Somerset Maugham prize for Literature - she always said that Maugham would have been pleased to know that she used the five hundred pounds - which apparently went further back then - to run away from her husband and British culture.
http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/harris/StudentProjects/Student_FairyTales/WebProject/Bios/Angela%20Carter.htm



The Bloody Chamber was written in 1979, which was a very unequal society and in 1979, a large proportion of the nation’s income and wealth went the top ruling class (the Bourgeoisie) and in particular the very wealthy top social group, than in the time before 1979. As a result of this there was the highest levels of poverty because the rich were getting richer and the working class were working and working and earning the bare minimum. The sharpest rises in inequality and poverty occurred from 1979 to 1990.
http://www.poverty.ac.uk/editorial/more-unequal-country


The text was written for the society in the time to address issues in a fantasy way. Angela didn't expect the reaction she got for her book as it had twisted elements that the society di not approve of.


Angela Carter's books were described as gynotexts and feministic as well as having some elements to inequality in social classes, as she liked to make binary opposites to clear  the stereotypes, which she wanted to remove in order to create a different side to the story.

The Bloody Chamber is a modernist text which has a blurring of genres in which it is the blurring of gothic and fairy tales. It changes the traditional roles and represents them differently, which Carter does as she uses binary opposites in many of her short stories.

Fairy tales are often viewed as harmless stories that people read to their children at bedtime every night. Gothic novels in the context of the many timeless fairy tales in literary history, that gothic novels are the grown up version of the fairy tale? Gothic novels are not exactly bedtime reading material.  But if one looks closely at fairy tales throughout the centuries, one can find that the two genres are really quite like one another in a number of ways. The fairy tales of the Grimm Brothers are ironic fairy tales in that they are actually quite grim and violent.  Although they include the obvious fairy tale elements of vengeance for the wronged, true love, and of course, the underlying lesson always reminiscent of Aesop, they are gory, dark and just plain scary at times.  They read like horror stories with happy endings.  And a horror story is exactly what many gothic novels are – grim and violent.

http://www.sarahghoshal.com/writing-pubs/academicpapers/thegothicandthefairytale