Demythologizing the Conventional Notion of Femininity in Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber

Abstract

With reference to Angela Carter’sThe Bloody Chamberthis research paper examines how and why she demythologizes the prevailing conventional notions of femininity. Angela Carter, a British novelist and a modernist female writer, with the help of this novel, tries to create a harmonious and rational relationship between males and females where they can go hand in hand with due mutual respect. The researcher here ponders into why Angela Carter, the author, feels important to demythologize the conventional fairy tales, myths and mythologies in a reformed and restructured ways in her novel,The Bloody Chamber and for that draws theoretical insights from Rudolf Bultmann’s theorization on ‘demythologization’ from The Mission of Demythologizingand other relevant texts. Furthermore, the researcher brings some theoretical parameters from Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identityand her other texts along with other theorists’ and critics’ ideas on gender and sexuality. This research finally concludes that Carter demythologizes the conventional narratives, myths and mythologies in order to redefine the traditional gender roles and cultural orientations and to establish a rational and harmonious relationship between males and females with mutual respect to each other in the same society.