The Bloody Chamber

Angela Carter’s series of short stories in The Bloody Chamber all reference classic fairy tales, re-imagined within the context of feminism in 1970s Britain. Your York Notes study guide will take you through each story in The Bloody Chamber with both detailed plot and action summaries and study focus sections which will help you understand key messages in the text, which you can revise and use in your essays and exam questions. Throughout the study guide you will also see key quotes from The Bloody Chamber to revise.

To gain top marks in your English Literature A Levels when studying The Bloody Chamber you’ll need an understanding of Carter’s use of characters in the stories, and in particular the female protagonists like the Bride of The Bloody Chamber who plays a pivotal role. Using the York Notes online study guide to The Bloody Chamber you can make your own notes on each character as you study them. When you come to revising The Bloody Chamber before your exam you can scan through your own notes and quotes from each character.

Examiners will expect responses to questions on The Bloody Chamber to go beyond recounting the story and to make regular references to the context of Carter’s work, its feminist undertones and its often negative portrayal of male characters. Questions on The Bloody Chamber are likely to ask you to reference several stories in a single answer, and top-achieving students will be able to form coherent arguments backed up by comments and examples from multiple stories within the book. By reading exam-style sample answers on The Bloody Chamber and utilising revision tools from York Notes+ like the Critical Wheel and Essay Wizard you’ll quickly learn to form high quality answers which meet the examiners criteria for high grades.