Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber: A Hermeneutic perspective

Within the scope of the literary field, hermeneutics is applicable to disclose the subtle textual implications and the authorial ideological orientations. Attempting to analyze Carter's The Bloody Chamber from a hermeneutic perspective reveals the writer's intents behind the use of various literary techniques. Metamorphosis, for instance, is deployed to study the male and female animal sides. Carter makes recourse to this technique aiming at divulging the equal and natural human instincts regardless of the gender orientations. The males' transformation from a human shape to a wolf and vice versa connotes the animal side lurking beneath maleness. Carter rewrites the patriarchal fairy tales of Charles Perrault from a feminist postmodern angle in order to pay tribute to her female characters. Studying the story of Red Ridding Hood, we notice Carter's innovation that makes her story different from Perrault's original one. Her Red Ridding Hood character ensures her gender and sexual equality contrary to the traditional passive female who surrenders to the wolf's trap. Via the technique of metamorphosis, Carter conveys the postmodern gender equality.