In Monday's lesson we looked at an article about Germaine Greer' s 'A Female Eunuch', a strong feminist text written in the 1970s. Her views in this text are that womens sexuality and libido is surpressed by men and by their roles in the nuclear family.
After having read the first four pages of Anglea Carter's 'The Bloody Chamber' it is clear to see that womens sexual desires and the surpression of those desires is a major theme in this story. A lot of sexual imagery is used for example the description of her 'satin nightdress' as she talks about how it "teasingly caressed me, egregious, insinuating, nudging between my thighs as I shifted restlessly in my narrow berth". This connects to the feminist ideas of the supression of womens sexual desires as the young woman narrating the story obviously desires sexual attention and is anticipant of her wedding night.
The book has a feminist quality due to the fact theat it is quite unusual for a book to talk about the sexual desires of a woman and when asked if she loves her fiance the narrator replies " I'm sure I want to marry him" which breaks the common belief that women marry for love. The strong matriarchal figure also links to feminist ideas as the she is a strong and powerful character. This can be shown by the fact that she keeps an 'antique service revolver' in her reticule at all times.
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