'The Lady of the House of Love'

The Lady of the House of Love

Quotes

-  ‘Vous serez ma proie’

-   ‘Too many roses’

-  ‘Now you are at the place of annihilation’

-  ‘Fee fie fo fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman’

-  ‘A single kiss woke up the Sleeping Beauty in the Wood’

-  ‘wisdom, death, dissolution’

-  ‘chinoiserie escritoire’

-   ‘this ornate and rotting place’

-   ‘Can a bird…learn a new song?’

-  ‘the bicycle is the product of pure reason applied to motion’

Characters

-  Countess

-  ‘her beauty is an abnormality’

-  ‘hunger always overcomes her’

-  ‘white lace négligée stained a little with blood’

-  ‘the fangs and talons of a beast of prey’

-  ‘a cave full of echoes’

-  ‘the fragility of the skeleton of a moth’

-  Soldier

-  ‘pentacle of his virginity’

-  ‘youth, strength and blonde beauty’

-  ‘symbol of rationality’ (bicycle)

-  ‘the trenches of France’

AO2 - language, form and structure and how they shape meaning

-  Language

-  Foreign words are slipped into the narrative - allows reader to enter Countess’s bilingual mind e.g. ‘chinoiserie escritoire’ meaning Chinese-style desk/cabinet

-  Form

-  Reworked fairy tales - Carter called them ‘new stories’ not ‘versions’

-  Short stories maximise the impact of Carter’s messages

-  Structure

-  Broken up by inset couplets of thoughts, either fairy tale villains’ famous lines, or menacing French phrases, which suggest this is the inner voice of her predatory nature - increase ambiguity

-  Story is divided in two - first half is present tense, second half is past tense - more fairy-tale like

AO3 - connections between texts and different interpretations

-  References to the modern world - ‘the trenches of France’ (see BC)

-  Humour - ‘you will be led by hand to the Countess’s larder’ (see PIB, COW)

Gothic Features

-  Weather/setting

-  ‘cracked mirrors’ - the Countess does not bear a reflection

-  ‘Too many roses’ - roses are beautiful and dangerous like her

-  Bird in the cage symbolises her entrapment in her vampiric body - ‘she likes to hear it announce how it cannot escape’

-  Predatory females

-  ‘the fangs and talons of a beast of prey’ yet she evokes sympathy as she tries to change her fate

-  ‘Fee Fie Fo Fum’ places her in the role of the villain, ‘Sleeping Beauty’ places her in the role of the victim

-  Supernatural 

 - Soldier does not believe in supernatural: ‘this lack of imagination gives heroism to the hero’

-  Foreshadowing 

 - The Tarot cards change for the first time ever