The Snow Child Blog by Brock Bowers

The Snow Child was a very unique story. I picture the main character, the Count, as a very important man who has been very successful in life. As he sees things that he likes, such as the pale whiteness of snow, he begins to desire more of it. His desire for a girl as white as snow tells me that he is very desirous and is most likely used to getting what he wants. When he openly proclaims his unfaithful desires in front of his wife, she becomes envious. She does anything she can to destroy his desires and he goes as far as something equivalent to “raping a dead woman” that represented all of his sinful desires. These actions and events lead me to believe that it is a story about sin and jealousy. Because of the graphic nature of the story, I pictured dark scenery in an unpleasant place.

The Snow Child

This story shocked me. At the beginning, I was convinced that it was the story of Snow White and would continue according to the basis of that story. Then it suddenly went a completely different direction than the well-known story. The plot is very much like a fairy tale until the Count rapes the girl's corpse, and then it returns to its fanciful language and symbols. The story is full of symbols like the girl representing a man's idea of the perfect female. Its deviation from the story it is similar to is strange and makes you try to figure out why Carter wrote it that way.

Thoughts on The Bloody Chamber

After reading 'The Bloody Chamber,' what stood out to me the most were the parts detailing the girl's relationship with her mother. As a college freshman hours away from home and transitioning into a new period of my life, I can relate to the main character in some ways. Although I am not headed into marriage like she is, we both find ourselves away from familiarity and the comfort of having a solid relationship with someone close to us. The girl and I are both nostalgic about our pasts, but in some ways still excited about what the future brings (that is, until the girl finds out her husband is a murderer).

The Bloody Chamber Pg. 36

"...I saw the heart-shaped stain had transferred itself to my forehead, to the space between my eyebrows, like the caste mark of a brahmin woman. Or the mark of Cain."

I find it interesting that this story has all of these biblical allusions, but it's so dirty! I like how the story made a reference to Cain with the stain because it ties into the husbands brutality and murderous nature.However, I don't like that she is viewed as a sinner, when all she did was look in the chamber. I felt terrible for the poor girl! Even just imagining myself in her situation is terrifying enough! It's odd that her husband is condeming her as Cain as if he were God, when he is the one corrupt with sin and murder. Overall this story was unsettling, but I will say that Angela Carter wrote the story well enough to keep me on my toes.

The Snow Child Reflection

When first starting the reading of "The Snow Child", I hadn't realized its connection to the famous fairytale, "Snow White". After getting through the story and realizing what had happened, I realized that the child really closely resembled Snow White, with her black hair, white skin, and red lips. But instead of being poisoned and being awoken by her true love, she was killed by the prick of a rose thorn, and then raped. It is interesting how the little connection makes it easy to compare and contrast the two stories, even though they are completely different. The Countess seems to be like the evil queen in snow white, jealous that her husband thinks that the child is so beautiful. She also plots for the child to be left behind and forgotten, but nothing seems to work because of the Count's love for the child's beauty.

Comments on The Bloody Chamber

"His wedding gift, clasped round my throat. A choker of rubies, two inches wide, like an extraordinarily precious slit throat." - page 11

This necklace is used to great symbolic effect in The Bloody Chamber, and this particular line foreshadows its use as a representation of the vampire husband's perverse fascination with murdering ingenuous little girls. When I read this line, I wasn't sure if the reference to slit throats was stylistically emo or if it actually meant something. However, the title of the story and the increasingly creepy happenings later on brought me back to the figure of the ruby choker. Why was the vampire husband so intent on the girl wearing it all the time? Why did the text keep mentioning that it hurt her when she wore it? And why was it only mentioned when he was exercising his iron grip of control over her? The juxtaposition of slightly gaudy beauty and extravagance with sadism and impending death mirrored the style of the story perfectly.

Musings based on Quote

"Tale also tells the story of the minstrel whose only listeners were animals who simply wished to eat him but were stayed by the minstrel's music; eventually, of course, when the minstrel ran out of fresh tunes, they did eat him, but meanwhile..." -Coover

Why do writers write? I think it's a good thing to examine, especially in a class of people who are writers, and thus should know. Why do we write? Certainly it's not always easy to write. You have a great idea, something wonderful you want to express, and the words never come out right! You can't get the proper words in the proper order; rubbish on the page what was magficent in your head. And then, what's more, the trial I've yet to face: trying to get published. That can't be easy; fighting for your work, while it constantly gets rejected again and again and again. Lots of mental strain for barely any reward. Why on earth would anyone to be a writer?

But we do. We are. And if you ask me, I don't think it's a decision one makes. I think it's something that has to be done. If you're a writer, you write because you have to. No one is physically making you, but you are forced to write. Something compels you--like the minstrel playing for the animals so they'll leave him be, so a writer writes to keep at bay whatever dark force is after him, just for a little while more. It's a losing fight; always, the minstrel and the writer, at some point, will lose and will be devoured. But before that, they will make music. They will write, and write, and write, as if they're very lives depended on it.

And in many ways, maybe it actually does.