To start off my research on my chosen author ANGELA CARTER, i decided to read her most well known tale:
⌇ THE BLOODY CHAMBER ⌇
I knew nothing about this story beforehand so was INTRIGUED and excited to find out the tale.
The first thing i noticed about Carter's writing was her use of metaphors, i had such vivid imagery in my head, this will be really helpful for me when coming to creating illustrations and images based on Carter!
I noted down quotes from the story that I particularly liked, some being metaphors, some just quotes and sentences that stood out to me:
PAGE 8 "A collar from which my head rose like the calyx of a wildflower."
PAGE 8 "I swear to you, I had never been so vein until i met him"
PAGE 8 "Sea; sand; a sky that melts into the sea - a landscape of misty pastels with a look about it of being continuously on the point of melting."
PAGE 9 "A mysterious, amphibious place, contravening the materiality of both earth and the waves with the melancholy of mermaiden who perches on the rocks and waits, endlessly for a lover who had drowned far away, long ago.
PAGE 10 "I imagine myself the queen of the sea"
PAGE 10 "The play of the waves outside in the cold sun glittered on his monocle."
PAGE 11 "He stripped me...as if he were stripping the leaves off an artichoke"
PAGE 11 "Sheilding her face with her hand as though her face were the last repository of her modesty."
PAGE 11 "As bare as a lamb chop"
PAGE 13 "The girl with tears hanging on her cheeks like stuck pearls."
PAGE 14 "I had seen his deathly composure shatter like a porcelain vase flung against a wall.
PAGE 15 "Voluptuous Cheese"
PAGE 15 "He seemed especially fond of it, my breasts showed through the flimsy stuff, he said, like little soft white doves that sleep, each one, with a pink eye open."
PAGE 17 "No. I was not afraid of him; but of myself. I seemed reborn in his unreflective eyes, reborn in unfamiliar shapes"
PAGE 18 "The key to your heart? Give it me!"
PAGE 19 "A man whose skin, as theirs did, contained that toad-like, clammy hint of moisture"
PAGE 20 "The taps were little dolphins made of gold, with chips of turquoise for eyes"
PAGE 22 "The castle would shine like a seabourne birthday cake lit with a thousand candles"
PAGE 22 "With the jewelled turban and aigrette on the head, roped with pearl to the navel"
PAGE 26 "I might find a little bit of his soul?"
PAGE 26 "There is a striking resemblance between the act of love and the ministrations of a torturer"
PAGE 27 "And this skull was strung up by a system of unseen chords, so that it appeared to hang, disembodied, in the still, heavy air, and it had been crowned with a wreath of white roses and a veil of lace, the final image of his bride.
PAGE 33 "The turquoise eyes and the dolphin taps winked at me derisively"
PAGE 36 "The heart shaped stain had transferred itself to my forehead, to the space between the eyebrows"
PAGE 37 "The mass of lilies that surrounded me exhaled, now, the odour of their withering. They looked like the trumpets of the angles of death."
PAGE 38 " 'You disobeyed him,' He said. 'That is sufficient reason for him to punish you.'
'I only did what he knew I would.'
'Like Eve,' he said."
PAGE 40 "A neck like the stem of a young plant"
PAGE 40 "A little green moss, growing in the crevices of the mountain block, would be the last thing i should see in all the world."
PAGE 40 "The puppet master, open mouthed, wide eyed, impotent at the last, saw his dolls break free of their strings"
PAGE 41 "The maternal telepathy"
When reading the bloody chamber, i was so engaged and enthralled by carter's writing, I think thats how I found myself taking so many notes of quotes!
All of the quotes I have noted down here speak to me, but the larger ones I specifically like and are somethings that i'd like to explore further.
One thing that really captured me from reading The Bloody Chamber was Carters comparison of females to nature and delicate specimens, her writing paints a portrait of females as something so precious yet so powerful and dominant.
From reading the bloody chamber, I got the impression of womens reliance upon men, the facinasion and desire to be wanted and loved, yet ability to grow apart and stand alone, this is so so interesting to me! I can't wait to find out and explore more!!
No comments:
Post a Comment