“ Vampires represent what we both fear and desire ” ( Tulsa Studies in adult females literature – Sarah Sceats ) .The lamias in literature are popular for the attractive force victims feel for these powerful figures of domination and dependance and for the fringy universe of darkness, secretiveness, and horror in which they live. But in their function of marauder, the lamias are besides extremely sexual. Penetration by seize with teething and its enraptured responses can be seen as a representation of titillating activity. Particularly mentioning to Bram Stoker ‘s Dracula, I will analyze the ground why victims can non defy their out desires, immobilized by the fright and appeal lamias arouse. On the other manus, in her short narrative The Bloody Chamber, Angela Carter explores the inability to defy out tabu, in which the heroine is unable to pacify her wonder about the vampiric character of her new hubby.
This bearing of being excited by the imminency of the lamia buss is frequently caused by the image of the lamia oral cavity, which is a repeating image of the novel as it is the primary site of titillating experience. When he describes the three lamias, Harker declares “ There was a deliberate hot stuff which was both thrilling and abhorrent [ … ] I could see in the moonshine the wet reflecting on the ruddy lingua, as it lapped the white crisp dentition. ” Similarly, Dr Seward describes the Count: “ His eyes flamed ruddy with diabolic passion ; the great anterior nariss of the white aquiline olfactory organ opened broad and quivered at the borders ; and the white crisp dentition, behind the full lips of the blood-ripping oral cavity, champed together like those of a broad animal. ” The lamia ‘s oral cavity foremost attracts the victim, described as an inviting opening with a promise of ruddy softness but presenting alternatively a piercing bone. Joseph Le Fanu observed in the decision of Carmilla that “ The lamia is prone to be fascinated with an steeping emphasis resembling the passion of love ” and Vampiric pleasance is heightened “ by the gradual attacks of an disingenuous wooing ” . That is why the victim is frequently lured by an attractive visual aspect, which charmed him and aroused his darker desires. As Harker confesses: “ Lower and lower went her caput as the lips went below the scope of my oral cavity and mentum and seemed to fix on my throataˆ¦ I could experience the soft, shuddering touch of the lips on the allergic tegument of my pharynx, and the difficult dents of the two crisp dentitions, merely touching and hesitating at that place. I closed my eyes in a langorous rapture and waited – waited with a beating bosom. ” This transition in the novel constitutes the text ‘s most direct and expressed representation of a male ‘s desire to be penetrated by a female, in a minute of blending desire and fright. But the crisp dentition merely “ touching ” and “ pausing ” there halt short the evildoing of Harker ‘s out desire. Immobilized by his “ wicked desire ” and “ lifelessly fear ” , Harker waits for an titillating fulfilment which constrains the conventional Victorian gender codifications, harmonizing work forces the right and duty of vigorous appetency while the female remains wise and inactive. Therefore, Dracula ‘s girls invert the conventional form: it is Harker here who enjoys a feminine passiveness and delaies for a incursion from a diabolic female. Finally, Harker is so immobilized by the three lamias that he even accepts the inversion of conventional functions of work forces and adult females, accepting a weakening of his maleness.
On the other manus, The Bloody Chamber, a short narrative based on the fable of Bluebeard, explores the subject of forbidden desires. Indeed, after matrimony, each new married woman of the Marquis is given a key to a out chamber of horrors in his palace where his dead former married womans are brought together. Unable to incorporate their desire, they all disobey the Marquis and enter the forbidden room when the hubby is absent.
Angela Carter often uses obvious images of vampirism to bespeak marauding behaviour: in that short narrative, the figure of the canibalist Marquis has lips that are repeatedly described as ruddy and frequently as moisture. Obvious inside informations instantly connote his dark character: pallid, fleshy, whiteness of his face, his adult library, the “ barbarous necklace ” , the “ bloody patch of rubies ” that he forces her to have on. The Marquis is non described as a homo ; he is instead an cold incarnation of sexual perversion and destructive power, symbol of decease. All these inside informations increase the reader ‘s horror at the obvious insecurity and possible decease of the married woman.
Even the Marquis ‘ bloodcurdling palace by the sea is a Universe of decease, both attractive and rebarbative, with an atmosphere both seductive and smothering. The palace is described as well-decorated with luxury and gustatory sensation, but besides holding an oppressive presence and ambiance of insecurity.
Therefore, Angela Carter ‘s usage of lamias indicates profound ambiguities at the bosom of desire, uniting repulsion, and fearful exhilaration. Even if the married woman notices all these chilling inside informations, she does non fly the palace ; alternatively, a wonder aroused in her, attracted by these inside informations of repulsive force. Her behavior supposes a sort of masochism: her wonder gives her a gustatory sensation of vampiric and titillating, she becomes kinky and is able to offend tabu. Bing in that castle full of enigmas, the adult female is non truly herself any more. When she looks herself in the mirror, she sees: “ the manner the musculuss in my cervix stuck out like thin wire. I saw how much that barbarous necklace became me. And, for the first clip in my guiltless and confined life, I sensed in myself a potency for corruptness that took my breath off. ” As Sarah Sceats suggests it in Tulsa Studies in Women ‘s Literature, “ If a adult female is infected with desire, she becomes transformed into a juicy monster, a animal who ceases to be a inactive receiver of buss and incursion and becomes alternatively active and acute herself. ” In fact, the adult female is attracted by the figure of appetency his vampiric hubby represents, and his opprobrious character.
The wonder and enticement of the bride in The Bloody Chamber makes the gender of the narrative ‘s enigma really explicit. When she finds the Marquis ‘s adult aggregation in the library, she finds an image of sadomasochistic scene called “ Reproof of wonder ” . Others are called “ The Key of Mysteries ” and “ The Secret of Pandora ‘s Box ” , associating the enigma of the palace with secrets of female gender. After these finds, the Marquis gives her the cardinal ring, “ as if he were giving a kid a great, cryptic dainty ” , evidently rousing in her a “ dark newborn wonder ” , a wonder about the palace but besides about her ain awakened gender, connoting that even sadomasochistic erotica, can be a possible beginning of titillating pleasance. Carter presents a complex vision of female psycho- gender, through her invoking of force every bit good as the titillating. Therefore, the desire to detect the secrets of her gender leads her to ho further in her evildoing and to come in the out room.
Consequently this make us inquiring if the married woman is truly guiltless. Why is she unable to defy to the enticement? In a manner, the married woman can be seen as a inactive victim, and non an guiltless figure. Angela Carter makes her uses words showing sensualness and force, connoting that possibly she is every bit inclined as her hubby for immorality, and wants to be involved in the adult and pervert universe of the Marquis, alternatively of flying. In her voice appears a kind of immorality: “ His nuptials gift, clasped round my pharynx. A garroter of rubies, two inches broad, like an extraordinary cherished slit pharynx. ” The reader doubts evidently about her artlessness, notably when she discovers the adult books, she says “ I knew plenty for what I saw in that book to do me pant. ” On top of that, she shows a potency for corruptness excessively when she becomes the piano-tuner ‘s beloved instantly after recognizing the dangers of being with the Marquis.
As Merja Makinen claims: “ Carter ‘s strength is exactly in detonating the stereotypes of adult females as inactive, coy zeros. That she therefore evokes the gamut of force and contrariness is surely distressing, but to deny their being is certainly to imprison adult females back within a partial, sanitized image merely somewhat less constricted than the Victorian angel in the house. ” Therefore, Angela Carter ‘s leting her heroine to offend taboos desires is in this instance a manner to supports adult females, doing us to bury the thought of the submissive, inactive fairy tale heroine. Indeed, in the original Bluebeard, by Charles Perrault, the writer chose the incapacitated heroine instead than the clever one, stressing the married woman ‘s error at the terminal.
In The Bloody Chamber, the feminine author Angela Carter writes against the interpretative tradition that emphasizes the married woman ‘s illicit sexual wonder. In her version of Bluebeard, “ The immature adult female non merely escapes from silence ; she besides avoids the dichotomized intervention of female characters in faery narratives and adult fiction. ” ( Robin Ann Sheets – Journal of the History of Sexuality ) . Finally, Angela Carter explores out desires and tabu in her short narrative as a review of the current dealingss between the sexes.
As we can see in Dracula, lamias are figures of repulsive force and attractive force. Sometimes, their quarries can non truly be considered as victims, but alternatively they are attracted by a seduction component and by their extremely sexual character. Therefore, both fright and seduction make the quarry to be inactive and to fulfill their out desires. On the other manus, Angela Carter explores in the Bloody Chamber the behaviour of her heroine in forepart of what is habitually covert, forbidden or suppressed. Therefore, the thought of lamia is merely a stalking-horse to analyze gendered behaviour and heterosexual power dealingss by utilizing a adult female non so guiltless, who dares offending forbidden desires.
