The Liminal Experience in Angela Carter’s The Erl King - Literature Essay Samples

Liminality pervades Angela Carter’s short story collection, entitled The Bloody Chamber, in her characters, physical settings and even her narrative voice. The bloody chamber, as a physical ‘chamber’ can refer to a room where violence and enlightenment occur simultaneously. It is a space of transformation for the heroine that changes her irrevocably. Bloody chambers are often connected with not only the blood of violence, but also with the bloodshed when a woman loses her virginity and when she menstruates. The concept bloody chamber can also refer to the vagina or womb, and Carter uses this fact to underscore the connection between womens sexuality and the violence they experience. Carter creates an atmosphere that possesses elements of the ‘bloody chamber’, both power and torment simultaneously, particularly in ‘The Erl King’, a story in which all aspects exist liminally. The narrator in the Erl-King describes the sensation of liminali ty as vertigo. When the Erl-King, a liminal creature who is half-human, half-woods, draws her into his gravity of in-betweenness, she is unpleasantly disoriented. This disorient translates to the ambiguity of the King’s identity and the narrator’s intentions. In literature, liminal spaces traditionally give the occupant both power and torment. By existing in two states or being two things simultaneously, the occupant has qualities of both. At the same time, he or she is condemned to never live in either state. The two halves of the liminal beings experience do not seem to make a satisfying whole. Her more radical statement, however, is that all women are forced to live life as a liminal experience. Carter’s liminal experience in the text works to deconstruct and reposition female sexuality in a male-dominated space. The narrator, a female, lives subconsciously on the threshold of the ‘virgin’ and the ‘sexual being’, unable to identity f ully with either; Carter is suggesting that women who use their sexuality as empowerment are isolated from society and those who neglect it are oppressed by patriarchal figures, particularly, the Erl King.Carter begins the text in a relatively conventional way; her narrative voice is easily accessible. However, at first mention of the forest and the King, who are eventually revealed to be the same being, Carter manipulates the reality planes in the story, indicating the effects that the forest has physically and mentally; â€Å"The woods enclose and then enclose again, like a system of Chinese boxes opening one into another†¦it is easy to lose yourself in these woods.†(Carter 85) The narrator is aware of the demystifying effects of her surroundings, but seeks out the dangers anyway, representing the naivety in young women. She discloses in her winding sentences that the woods and the object of her desire, the Erl King, are the same being; he exists in the state of forest and man simultaneously; â€Å"When he combs his hair that is the color of dead leaves, dead leaves fall out of it; they rustle and drift to the ground as though he were a tree and he can stand as still as a tree†¦Ã¢â‚¬ (Carter 87) She makes mention of his physical body as well; â€Å"†¦because his flesh is of the same substance as those leaves that are slowly turning into earth.†(Carter 88) The Erl King is neither man nor woods, and his seducing tendencies prove successful upon the ‘virginal/highly sexual’ female narrator. The narrator must not be portrayed as a victim; instead, Carter is propping her up as an independent, sexual being. She confesses that it is only the ‘imprisoning’ effect that the King possesses that inspires fear in her: â€Å"I am not afraid of him; only, afraid of vertigo, of the vertigo with which he seizes me. Afraid of falling down.†(Carter 87) Vertigo is a type of dizziness, where there is a feeling of mo tion when one is stationary. The narrator is experiencing the King ‘liminally’ in a physical sense, and in a mental state, as well as in a sexually liberating way and entrapping way.The relationship between the King and the narrator is highly romanticized by the latter. The erotic language and artful images of nature are characteristic of the Romantic Era, one that Carter is utilizing in a contemporary way. However, while the Romantics looked to nature as a source of spiritual enlightenment and life, in The Erl-King, it is a source of confinement and death. The narrators initial description of the woods already foreshadows her entrapment; she depicts the light filtering through the trees as these vertical bars of a brass-coloured distillation of light coming down from sulphur-yellow interstices in a sky hunkered with grey clouds.(Carter 86) Since the narrator is complicit in her imprisoning, she knows that she is caged or trapped from the moment she enters the woods. Sh e is subject to their power; because everything in the woods is exactly as it seems,(Carter 86) any person who steps into them imprints her own desires on them. On one level, the narrator desires to be caught, and the cage-like patterns of light are reflections of this desire. She admits her knowledge by stating, this light admits of no ambiguities.(Carter 87) The narrator even details her impending punishment before she comes into contact with the King, â€Å"The two notes of the song of a bird rose on the still air, as if my girlish and delicious loneliness had made me into a sound.†(Carter 85) Carter characterizes the song of birds as â€Å"girlish and delicious†, commenting on the vulnerability of women in sexual situations. However, the narrator matures quickly in response to the ‘marriage-like’ proposal that the King has in store for her.The narrator herself begins to convey liminal elements, as she falls subject to her virginal side as well as her sexually independent nature. This is characterized when he explains the King’s effect on her; â€Å" Your touch both consoles and devastates me.†(Carter 89) She encourages the Erl-Kings domination because she is caught in the vertigo between her erotic desire for the Erl-King and her desire to be independent. Summarizing her dilemma in two words, she calls him a tender butcher; she knows that he is both her lover and destroyer. Carter cleverly manipulates setting as character, as the narrator becomes an active figure within the thematic ‘bloody chamber’. The King is her source of pleasure and punishment, as he strips her of her virginity and of her sexual appetite; her identity is highly ambiguous. She believes that the Erl-King can enlighten her by consuming her; she wishes, I should like to grow enormously small, so that you could swallow me Then I could lodge inside your body and you would bear me.(Carter 89) In the end, the narrators extreme solution is to kill the Erl-King and supplant male domination with female domination. While other heroines in Carters stories find happiness in relationships with men, the narrator of The Erl-King rejects them entirely. She must kill the male figure in order to substitute him as creator. The narrator admits she was conscious of the dangers of ‘subjugation’ all along, and confesses, â€Å"†¦I loved him with all my heart and yet I had no wish to join the whistling congregation he kept in his cages although he looked after them very affectionately†¦Ã¢â‚¬ (Carter 90) Carter is ultimately commenting on the ‘imprisoning’ effects of marriage. The narrator equates a marital bond with that of a ‘caged’ bird and it’s owner, she rejects surrender by liberating herself through sexual violence.The narrator and Erl King both exhibit liminal tendencies; the King exist in a physical realm of the liminal experience, living in a state of man and forest simultaneously, meanwhile, the narrator exists mentally on the threshold between vulnerable virgin and independent sexual body. There is a connection to the liminal space in Carter’s thematic symbol of the ‘bloody chamber’, in which the narrator is stripped of her virginity but commits violence as well, in order to expel herself from the forest’s abusing grasp. Carter romanticizes the concepts of sado-masochism and erotic violence in order to artfully convey the oppression women experience in heir surrender to marriage. The narrator, a female, lives subconsciously on the threshold of the ‘virgin’ and the ‘sexual being’, unable to identity fully with either; Carter is suggesting that women who use their sexuality as empowerment are isolated from society and those who neglect it are oppressed by patriarchal figures, particularly the Erl King.Works CitedCharter, Angela. The Bloody Chamber: And Other Stories. Harmondsworth [u.a.: Pen guin, 1986. Print.]

The Untamed Shrew - Literature Essay Samples

William Shakespeare’s play The Taming of the Shrew is set in Padua, where Katherine, the stubborn â€Å"shrew† the title refers to, is pursued by a bachelor named Petruchio who is in search of a wealthy wife. Katherine is known as the most ill-tempered woman in all of Padua, but Petruchio is not unnerved by this and makes it his aim to tame Katherine and turn her into the perfect submissive wife. At the end of the play, Katherine gives a speech that seemingly supports Petruchio’s idealistic values on women which may lead some readers to believe she has successfully been tamed. However, Katherine is not truly tamed, instead she has become a smarter version of herself and recognizes when and where she needs to pretend to conform to society’s standards in order to get what she wants, whereas before she would blurt out whatever came into her mind and often got in trouble for it. In addition, The Taming of the Shrew is a comedy and during her speech, Katherine uses irony to support her arguments, hinting that Shakespeare intended for it to be taken comically. At the start of the play, Katherine’s bold personality and unwillingness to back down is distinct, but as the story progresses she learns to control herself and choose her battles wisely, which some may mistake as her mindset being completely changed. Throughout the play, she is constantly switching between acting obedient and being her usual witty self, alluding that her actual character is not changed by the influence of Petruchio at all, she has simply learned how to deal under circumstances. An example of this is when Petruchio starves and deprives Katherine of sleep for days as a method for taming her. As time goes by, Katherine begins to pick up on his plan and instead of encouraging Petruchio’s temper to rise by fighting back as she would have before, she uses phrases like â€Å"I pray you, husband† (IV. i. 168), showing her grown maturity to situations like these. This scene takes place in front of Grumio and the servants, so Katherine decides to play the role of the desirable wife in their eyes in order to make herself look better. By begging Petruchio and calling him â€Å"husband†, she makes herself seem like she is finally submitting to him and gives Petruchio the twisted belief that he has authority over her. This gives Petruchio less reason to lash out and Katherine recognizes that in the future she will gain from these actions, which ultimately does happen when Petruchio no longer prevents Katherine from eating and sleeping. There are also other instances where Katherine rejects Petruchio’s values, knowing that it will not hurt her significantly in the long run. Not long after Katherine pleads with Petruchio, she stands up for herself when she wants a cap that he refuses to get for her. Petruchio tells her that she is not deserving enough to have the cap, to which she responds â€Å"Why, sir, I trust I may have leave to speak, / And speak I will. I am no child, no babe† (IV. iii. 78-79). After Petruchio i gnores her, she firmly announces â€Å"Love me, or love me not, I like the cap, / And it I will have, or I will have none† (IV. iii. 89-90), reflecting her beliefs that women should not be restricted by men. Katherine and Petruchio are alone with only the haberdasher, who is not of great importance in their society, as a witness to this harsh conversation. When in an almost private setting, Katherine is free to express what is really on her mind and does not need to act like she is submissive to Petruchio. She knows that at this very moment, fighting back with Petruchio will not do her much harm, and therefore uses the opportunity to voice her opinions. Although at first Katherine could not restrict herself vocally, her growing maturity and undeniable intelligence shines throughout the play when she manages to deceive people into thinking she truly has changed. This intelligence is seen time and time again when Katherine uses her docile act to keep her reputation with the public in place and to gain some power in society. When Petruchio announces he is going to leave the wedding reception, Katherine fights back in front of all the guests saying â€Å"Do what thou canst, I will not go today, no, nor tomorrow, not till I please myself. The door is open, sir. There lies your way† (III.ii.214-216). In Shakespearean times, this exchange is seen as public humiliation for both Petruchio and Katherine. Katherine’s sharp tongue and Petruchio’s unableness to tame her shows the public what a disastrous couple they are. As their bond strengthens, Katherine and Petruchio come to realize that while they might never completely agree on anything, they are in an unspoken partnership together against the public. In a way, they are the outcasts in their community because of the one thing they share in common- their headstrong and stubborn personalities. They understand the importance of their presentation to their families, and therefore know how to manipulate people into thinking that they are a stable couple. All of a sudden, Petruchio is so confident that Katherine will obey him when he calls for her that when Lucentio proposes twenty crowns for whoever’s wife comes, he replies â€Å"Twenty crowns? / I’ll venture so much of a hawk or hound, / But twenty times so much upon my wife (V. ii. 74-76). This unexpected change of attitude towards Katherine displays how much the couple’s private and public life differs. In the safety of their own home, Katherine would never follow Petruchio’s lead, but in this scene Petruchio knows Katherine will assume her submissive wife identity because they are surrounded by other people and need to uphold a good reputation in front of them. By being the only woman who went to her husband when called for, she is given a position of power over the other wome n, something which she never would have had at the beginning of the play. She then uses this power to give a speech on the importance of women pleasing their husbands and includes many ironic references in it, suggesting that she does not believe there is any truth behind her words. Katherine’s ironic wording of her speech indicates that Shakespeare aimed for it to be a mockery of the idealistic marriage at that time because she uses phrases and terms that are exaggerated and do not reflect her encounter with marriage. She states â€Å"And for thy maintenance commits his body / To painful labor both sea and land, / To watch the night in storms, the day in cold, / Whilst thou liest warm at home, secure and safe† (V. ii. 164-167). Here, she describes how husbands work endlessly in pain for the benefit of their wives while their wives are safe at home, their only requirement being to obey their husbands. Katherine’s own experience is much different from this since Petruchio lives off Katherine’s money and does not do any work. At one point, her home wasn’t safe or secure either because Petruchio starved her and deprived her of sleep. Both these points she makes completely oppose her experience and add some comedic value to the spe ech, proving she is not being literal with her speech. As Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew progresses, Katherine’s character develops from an uncontrollable shrew to a clever woman. She is deceptive in her ways and chooses when to fight and when to back down as it suits her. Her speech at the end does not reveal that she is tamed, it demonstrates her newfound maturity as she has the ability to handle compromising situations that go against her beliefs calmly. Furthermore, The Taming of the Shrew is a comedy and many of the themes in it such as Katherine’s speech are meant to be taken humorously instead of literally. This is another indication that by the end of the play, Katherine is not tamed, she is simply wiser.