Angela Carter’s short story collection The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories, first published by Gollancz in 1979, has been recognised as a major work of postmodernism and late-twentieth-century feminism, as well as an important intervention in the fairy tale tradition. The collection consists of ten stories, all of them based on versions of traditional European fairy tales. Carter’s language is distinctive: generally eschewing the simplicity of folk tale redaction, she appears to revel in a lushly adjectival prose and frequently elaborate syntax that highlight the stories’ theoretical sophistication. Carter’s emphasis throughout is on sexuality, particularly female sexuality, as that has been culturally constructed over time: the postmodernism of the collection inheres especially in this recognition of the power of culture and its implication in the construction of subjectivity.
Despite its 1970s context, the feminism expressed...
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Citation: Webb, Caroline. "The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 21 December 2011 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=1432, accessed 09 June 2026.]
