Analysing Carter and the gaze.
This is a critical piece that will apply my knowledge and understanding of the male gaze to critically analyse two of Carter’s stories, The Bloody Chamber and The Tigers Bride. I will demonstrate how Carter used the male gaze by analysing both the actual stories themselves and relevant critical opinions about Carter’s work.
The Bloody Chamber depicts a newlywed couple rejoicing their first night together as man and wife. The unnamed heroine is a young virgin who appears to display certain characteristics that can easily be related to feminine innocence, the kind of which is easily found within paintings from the Renaissance period. However, in stark contrast to this unnamed heroine, her husband, a French Marquis, transforms her innocence and beauty into an object of lust, in order to fulfil his own sexual needs. Within the so-called chamber, the Marquis erects multiple mirrors, allowing his gaze to reach every angle of her innocent body. Sage argues that the figure of the unnamed heroine found in The Bloody Chamber is comparable to Justine, the heroine found in Perrault’s tale Bluebeard, as she is also presented as “the object of perverse male desires” (Sage 138:1994). It is this object of male desire shown through the Marquis that is spoken about by Mulvey in reference to the gaze. The reason that Carter is using this male gaze is that she is forming a criticism of the patriarchal society.
Curiously enough The Bloody Chamber appears to utilise a narrator that is female. I found that there is an important argument set out by Sheets as she begins to argue that this use of a female narrator shows that “she is not trapped in a visual representation. Because she has a voice, she can be heard without seen” (Sheets, R.A 648:1991).Unfortunately, I would have to disagree with this claim and contest this statement, as, in my opinion, Carter has purposely included the female narrator as it enables her to represent the voice of women that has become so far lost in the patriarchal society she is critiquing, whilst also adding a sense of feminist sensibility. In addition, this female narrator continuously utilises a third person narrator when discussing herself, which one could argue, may imply that there is an air of uncomfortableness she has within her own skin. It is as if she sees herself from the outside, as if she is an outsider to herself. The idea that this unnamed heroine is an outsider, could be seen as portraying the traits that are associated with Lacans’ theory of the ‘mirror stage’, as the heroine is becoming ‘othered’ by herself. This would relate to Berger’s’ point that the woman’s inner surveyor is male, and what we are witnessing within The Bloody Chamber, is this inner male surveyor of our unnamed heroine, submitting the outer female surveyed to the male gaze, therefore separating herself into two and ‘otherring’ the passive female that is being surveyed. This can be supported from the text itslef as the heroine narrates 'when I saw him look at me with lust, I dropped my eyes but, in glancing away from him, I caught sight of myself in the mirror. And I saw myself, suddenly, as he saw me'(Carter, 2006: 6).
Within The Sadeian Woman Carter tells us that the function of flesh is pure pleasure” (Carter, 1993: 20) whilst our unnamed heroine in The Bloody Chamber tells us ‘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, 2006:6) Here we can see that Carter is further representing her own arguments on the male gaze and patriarchal society by saying that male gaze objectifies women as nothing more than bits of flesh as she compares the look of the Marquis to that of someone who is experienced in inspecting meat and flesh. In addition, the unnamed heroine is once again seeing herself as a male would see her, even going as far as to say ‘horseflesh’. This is certainly the inner male gaze objectifying herself in order to see how she appears to men.
To conclude, I believe that Carter uses a female narrator to take a stand against the traditional male narrator, and also to explain through a woman’s eyes, what it feels like to be objectified by men, who are represented by the lustful Marquis in The Bloody Chamber. This representation of the Marquis as a lustful, murdering connoisseur of flesh is a clear critique of patriarchal society that is also criticised in Mulvey’s work on the male gaze.
The Bloody Chamber depicts a newlywed couple rejoicing their first night together as man and wife. The unnamed heroine is a young virgin who appears to display certain characteristics that can easily be related to feminine innocence, the kind of which is easily found within paintings from the Renaissance period. However, in stark contrast to this unnamed heroine, her husband, a French Marquis, transforms her innocence and beauty into an object of lust, in order to fulfil his own sexual needs. Within the so-called chamber, the Marquis erects multiple mirrors, allowing his gaze to reach every angle of her innocent body. Sage argues that the figure of the unnamed heroine found in The Bloody Chamber is comparable to Justine, the heroine found in Perrault’s tale Bluebeard, as she is also presented as “the object of perverse male desires” (Sage 138:1994). It is this object of male desire shown through the Marquis that is spoken about by Mulvey in reference to the gaze. The reason that Carter is using this male gaze is that she is forming a criticism of the patriarchal society.
Curiously enough The Bloody Chamber appears to utilise a narrator that is female. I found that there is an important argument set out by Sheets as she begins to argue that this use of a female narrator shows that “she is not trapped in a visual representation. Because she has a voice, she can be heard without seen” (Sheets, R.A 648:1991).Unfortunately, I would have to disagree with this claim and contest this statement, as, in my opinion, Carter has purposely included the female narrator as it enables her to represent the voice of women that has become so far lost in the patriarchal society she is critiquing, whilst also adding a sense of feminist sensibility. In addition, this female narrator continuously utilises a third person narrator when discussing herself, which one could argue, may imply that there is an air of uncomfortableness she has within her own skin. It is as if she sees herself from the outside, as if she is an outsider to herself. The idea that this unnamed heroine is an outsider, could be seen as portraying the traits that are associated with Lacans’ theory of the ‘mirror stage’, as the heroine is becoming ‘othered’ by herself. This would relate to Berger’s’ point that the woman’s inner surveyor is male, and what we are witnessing within The Bloody Chamber, is this inner male surveyor of our unnamed heroine, submitting the outer female surveyed to the male gaze, therefore separating herself into two and ‘otherring’ the passive female that is being surveyed. This can be supported from the text itslef as the heroine narrates 'when I saw him look at me with lust, I dropped my eyes but, in glancing away from him, I caught sight of myself in the mirror. And I saw myself, suddenly, as he saw me'(Carter, 2006: 6).
Within The Sadeian Woman Carter tells us that the function of flesh is pure pleasure” (Carter, 1993: 20) whilst our unnamed heroine in The Bloody Chamber tells us ‘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, 2006:6) Here we can see that Carter is further representing her own arguments on the male gaze and patriarchal society by saying that male gaze objectifies women as nothing more than bits of flesh as she compares the look of the Marquis to that of someone who is experienced in inspecting meat and flesh. In addition, the unnamed heroine is once again seeing herself as a male would see her, even going as far as to say ‘horseflesh’. This is certainly the inner male gaze objectifying herself in order to see how she appears to men.
To conclude, I believe that Carter uses a female narrator to take a stand against the traditional male narrator, and also to explain through a woman’s eyes, what it feels like to be objectified by men, who are represented by the lustful Marquis in The Bloody Chamber. This representation of the Marquis as a lustful, murdering connoisseur of flesh is a clear critique of patriarchal society that is also criticised in Mulvey’s work on the male gaze.