The Lady of the House of Love: Presentation of the Male Character & Interpretations Questions

1. How is the young man presented?

The young man is presented as a stereotypical hero and represents a new world which contrasts to the Countesses ancestral ties which he overthrows by setting her free.



Virgin

Usually the of course as we all would expect; the position for women of the Gothic; 'the special quality of virginity' to highlight the fact that while these traits are challenged and questioned to women nobody questions the male gender and it’s  relative power  or as Carter describes it with 'unknowingness' and 'glamour'; more desirable it seems than in the previous stories – from the beginning with The Bloody Chamber, her power as a virgin still provides extra characterized wealth for her existence in relation to the Marquis , but it doesn't do so to the extent of this soldier. However both similarly escape the ultimate price for losing it.

Heroic

The stereotypical image of such a figure; ‘Blonde, blue-eyed, heavy-muscled' showing images of strength, fertility and (blonde being a colour associated with fertility also he could perhaps be commonly linked with beauty. It also, in fairy tales and folklore was the hair colour most favoured by the supernatural beings as they were most attracted to this characteristic.
Innocent

He is seemingly unaware of the impact of his adventure or any apparent danger he might be in.  'he saw all the humour of it: 'on two wheels in the land of the vampires''. Somewhat naive to an extent “laughing, he sets out on his adventure”
Rational

He shows a strong mind and the values of the new world which puts his rationality at its forefront. 'he had chosen the most rational mode of transport' his decisions made with 'pure reason'.

Doomed

He is picked out as part of 'that generation for whom history was already prepared' this suggests a touch of destiny and being trapped by a fate which is also seen through the Countess. He is to experience his 'fate in the trenches of France'.

2. What is the significance of the bicycle?

The bicycle arguably is the young gentleman’s protection against superstition, providing 'most rational mode of transport'. Carter has perhaps used it to symbolize the rationality of mankind in this new era of 'pubescent years of the present century'. It is also a modern invention that seems to contrasts sharply to the Countesses aging world and shows a clash between past and present. Lastly it could serve as a phallic symbol, 'two spheres and a straight line' which Carter has used to foreshadow the Countesses downfall at the hands of male domineered world.

3. What might be the significance of 'he gratefully washed his feet and hands' in the village fountain?

- Cleansing/transformation of sorts
- Religious imagery of washing
- He is oblivious to any apparent danger and shows his ignorance/nativity to the evil we recognize as readers in the village that surrounds him

4. 'Curiouser and curioser'. What does this suggest about the young man? Which other character/s are you reminded of?

- Inter-textual reference to Alice in Wonderland showing his youth and inexperience

- He is inquisitive to the point that he is blind to danger and is a demonstration of his sturdy rationality.

- The Father in Courtship of Mr Lyons is also lured in to the house by the beverages which are laid before him.

5. The crone as described as bringing the young man to 'Juliet's tomb'. What is the significance of this intertextual reference?

Romeo and Juliet's death however came about just to mistakes and misunderstanding which foreshadows the dropping of the glasses, a mistake on behalf of the Countess who is unable to kill him. This breaks the spell on her and she becomes human and ultimately dies leaving the room as 'Juliet’s tomb'. This also links in with fate and creates the question of 'star-crossed lovers' and love instead of sex. The crone is a direct relation to keeping the Lady stuck in the cycle she found inescapable. 

6. 'What a grisly picture of a capering skeleton! He covered it up with a happier one - of two young lovers , smiling at one another...' How is the young man presented here? What might Carter's purposes be?

Here his innocence tries to hide death and suggests several interpretations of this character and his journey. Firstly that he will prevent death with his love or that he will mask death with love and ultimately bring the Countess to her demise ... At this point however there is still hope that, just like in most fairy tales- love will conquer all. Carter here appears to make a statement that love is not without faults which hide underneath and sometimes love dies. Also his rational mind just sees them as 'cards' or 'pictures' and nothing special however there are elements of fate in consideration of the idea that he picked out the same two as the Countess.

7. 'Can a bird sing only the song it knows , or can it learn a new song?- 'One kiss , however and only one , woke up the Sleeping Beauty'.
Carter makes significance use of repetition in this story. Why might this be? What is the significance of the examples above , both of which are repeated in the course of the narrative?

The repetition of the phrasing has connections to the typical conventions of the fairy tale which would tend to repeat key information and descriptions to get across a message. The repetition also comes from the Countess' stream of consciousness showing how she is trapped and doomed to repeat her actions for what seems like eternity.

The first example suggests a metamorphosis could occur and links in to the later stories of this chronological collection. While the second one shows that the love shown in fairy tales has become some kind of conditioning which we all follow such as 'true loves kiss' however the world which we like to believe as the ‘real world’ the fairy tale does not exist within it and now instead of one kiss waking her from her living nightmare it leads to her death.

8. 'And so he puts his mouth to the wound. He will kiss it better for her , as her mother , had she lived , would have done'. What is the significance of this quotation? 

There is to one side a sense of role reversal as 'he puts his mouth to the wound' he has almost transferred into that vampiric state about to drink from her. There is a sense of caring and love in relation to how 'he will kiss it better'; it’s more innocent that her previous ‘relationships’/ sexual affairs with 'dead lovers' that she was used to and provides that antagonising male figure to what has come before- However it’s still a society and ideology that he has to care for her as the man and he perhaps ‘naturally’ feels it is his duty to do so.

9. 'When he returned from the mess than evening , the heavy fragrance of Count Nasferatu's roses drifted down the stone corridor of the barracks to greet him , and his spartan quarters brimmed with the reeling odour of a glowing , velvet , monstrous flower whose petals had regained all their former blood and elasticity , their corrupt, brilliant , baleful splendour. Next day his regiment embarked for France.

How might we interpret this ending?

One interpretation of the ending could be her metamorphosis and a suggestion that she wasn't completely dead and may live on just as the flower did. It could also represent the revival of the curse as the flowers grew in the garden as a by-product of the curse. This use of the flower feeding on the dead could live as a symbol of his eventual death in War. It has also been revealed that he had a 'fate in the fields of France' and that nothing would make him shiver in fear until the trenches. Here the flower died with her only to bloom and be revived by his death just as she and the garden would feed and survive on his death. By using a supernatural and negative semantic field of words such as 'reeking', 'monstrous' and 'corrupt' to juxtapose the other words Carter creates a sense of unease for the reader. The finality of the last line, 'his regiment embarked for France' further suggests the inevitability of death.*the ending suggests that the soldier will die during the war. The revival of the rose – could be the Lady’s ‘spirit’ inhabiting the rose, the curse of Nosferatu will continue…

10. Overall how would you explain Carter's presentation of the lady and the soldier in this narrative?

The two characters act to an extent as binary opposites to each other, we have this dark, predatory, ('she sinks her teeth into their neck') cursed, soulless and superstitious character ('tarot cards.' ) And then on the other hand we have the rational, light (blond, blue eyed), gifted (special quality of virginity) and innocent persona. Within the Gothic there are aspects of the characters which have been subverted such as the hero is now symbolising the innocence which is attributed to the virgin. The Lady is trapped in the past, 'her voice reverberated as if in a cave' as her views 'echo' the past as she finds herself trapped by her ancestors and the curse. She’s unable to move on. He represents the new world however, which destroys some of her old habits and frees her in a sense only to be replaced by her, (as the flower blooms for him at the end). Altogether they are both boding the conventional Gothic novel and makes us question the past heroes and heroines we have encountered as well as their relationships in TBC.

11. Consider the following quotation. How does it help you to develop your own ideas about this narrative? "The heroines of these stories are struggling out of the straitjackets of history and ideology and biological essentialism. There's a story in The Bloody Chamber called 'The Lady and the House of Love'," said Carter, "part of which derives from a movie version that I saw of a story by Dostoevsky. And in the movie ... the woman, who is a very passive person and is very much in distress, asks herself the question, 'Can a bird sing only the song it knows, or can it learn a new song?' Have we got the capacity at all of singing new songs? It's very important that if we haven't, we might as well stop now."

The Heroine, the Countess, is struggling out of the straitjackets of history as she is trying to escape her ancestors whom constantly bear their presence on the young woman. However she does constantly ask herself the question but never seems to act upon it. When she does appear to act, when the spell is broken by the breaking of the glasses it was because she made a mistake and couldn't bring herself to kill him. Up to that point she is simply  behaving the way she feels appropriate for herself - as she metamorphoses into a human it all appears different for her and she tries to learn a new song  metaphorically only to end up paying the price of death. Overall she is very 'passive' in her fate but this could be due to her ancestry 'ideology' being so ingrained into her thinking and belief that she can't escape.