Independant Reading

Overall Analysis of The courtship of Mr Lyon and The Tiger's Bride, Angela Carter and the Gothic for the AQA A2 Lit B Exam.

 

• Questions:

What are psychic transformations and what does it have to do with fairy-tale?

 Psychic-Mental.

Transformation-Change.

It gives the writer's, like Angela Carter, the chance to show/express their protagonist and break out of the traditional boundaries.

 

What is defloration?

Defloration-Floral.

Taking somebodies(usually a woman) virginity-sometimes known as taking their flower.

 

• 5 sentence summary:

Fairy-tales contribute to perpetuate the patriarchal ideology and status quo by making female subordination an inescapable fate...

 

Carter's characters are always ambiguous, presenting both sides of the pairs.

 

In a patriarchal society, the soul is viewed as masculine and the body as feminine.

 

Carter challenges gender roles and social constructions.

 

Carter strongly emphasises the woman desire and sex liberation, playing with the reader's expectations about the traditional roles of masculine and feminine.

 

• 5 word summary:

Inescapable.

Ambiguous.

Patriarchal.

Constructions.

Traditional.

 

• Full summary:

Carter's aim was to transcend the ideological views in which fairy-tales are usually written. Her characters are always ambiguous and are successful in challenging the traditional binary opposites, which society viewed as acceptable or the 'norm'. In both The Courtship of Mr Lyon and The Tiger's Bride, the woman seems to acknowledge her sexual desires and liberation; through this the traditional binary opposites-Rational and irrational, Active and passive-are shrewdly challenged. She expresses the idea that gender difference is socially constructed to what society views as normal. According to this view, society and culture create gender roles, and these roles are prescribed as ideal or appropriate behaviour for a person of that specific gender.(Wikipedia)