Los cuentos de hadas de Angela Carter: la difícil descolonización de la mente

Abstract

This paper is an exploration of the extent to which Carter's The Bloody Chamber contributes to the task of "decolonising the mind" by exposing the social constructs of femininity and of sexual relations. In making explicit the symbols of pornography, marriage and romantic love inherent in the tales, the false universals that these three social institutions create are shown to be dehumanising, producing polarized "types" of woman and man, who maintain grossly unequal relationships. The author's pastiche technique relates the world of sexual violence of the traditional tales to that of contemporary society, with its rigid gender norms which are an obstacle to a free, humane world. The Bloody Chamber thus reflects Carter's search for the transformation both of society and of literary forms.