Demythologizing Social Fiction in Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber
In Carter’s essay titled “Notes From the Front Line” she discusses her work on demythologizing the social fictions that people are taught over the course of their lives. In her essay Carter wrote, “I began to question…the nature of my reality as a woman. How that social fiction of my ‘femininity’ was created, by means outside of my control, and palmed off on me as the real thing” (“Notes,” 71; 70). Through the medium of the fairytale, Carter finds an opportunity to pick apart these notions of femininity that have been presented as ‘the real thing.’ In using the form of the fairytale to demythologize these notions of femininity that have been spoon fed to young girls as the only real way to exist within feminine identity, Carter is able to deconstruct these ideas of what femininity should be.
​
Carter’s story “The Erl-King” is one example of the way that she works to demythologize social fictions. “The Erl-King” points to the social fiction that femininity is equal to dependence, compliance, and docility by painting femininity as girls turned into songbirds that not only depend upon the Erl-King for existence, but who only serve the purpose of pleasuring and entertaining the Erl-King. Carter exposes the powerlessness and lack of agency that are associated with the construction of femininity by creating fully dependent, powerless, and agentless figures trapped by a larger, masculine figure whom they must serve.
​
The birds in cages throughout the Erl-King’s home are a critical piece of symbolism to understand over the course of the narrative of “The Erl-King.” These birds are a symbol for the construction of femininity that is fed to young girls through the fairytale structure. These birds are caged, powerless, agentless objects whose only purpose has become to pleasure and entertain the Erl-King. “That was the way I walked into the bird-haunted solitude of the Erl-King,” the protagonist narrates, “who keeps his feathered things in the little cages he has woven out of osier twigs and there they sit and sing for him” (110). The Erl-King took these girls and took away any sense of independence or autonomy they may ever have possessed and created out of them decorations to serve his own desires.
​
The girls that the Erl-King has trapped and taken hostage are wholly, entirely dependent on him for survival. They are subject completely to his desires, existing solely for his entertainment and pleasure. Reflected in these girls is a notion of femininity synonymous with being reliant upon a masculine figure as well as being without agency. As the protagonist falls into a relationship with the Erl-King, she feels the walls closing around them and trapping her inside the Erl-King’s world. With these walls closing around them, she begins to recognize the nature of her relationship with him. As she says, “I know it is only because he is kind to me that I do not fall still further….I would have to wait until he whistled me up from my darkness before I could come back again” (110). Carter exposes the powerlessness that the protagonist faces in her relationship to the Erl-King. She recognizes how close she is inching to becoming another one of the Erl-King’s birds, singing softly for his pleasure...​