Exploring Nature and Folklore in Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories

The The Erl Erl- -King King

Context European tale Less well-known due to not being animated like many other folk/fairy tales (a la Disney) Draws heavily on folkloric traditions of the Green Man personification of nature and energies of spring (latently sexual) Considered the most innovative and experimental of the stories for its narrative form not entirely chronological

AO3 AO3 Context Context Erlk nig (lit. "alder-king") is a name used in German Romanticism for the figure of a spirit or "king of the fairies". It is usually assumed that the name is a derivation from the ellekonge (older elverkonge, i.e. "Elf-king") in Danish folklore. According to Jacob Grimm, the term originates with a Scandinavian (Danish) word, ellekonge "king of the elves", or for a female spirit elverkongens datter "the elven king's daughter", who is responsible for ensnaring human beings to satisfy her desire, jealousy or lust for revenge. The New Oxford American Dictionary follows this explanation, describing the Erlking as "a bearded giant or goblin who lures little children to the land of death", mistranslated as Erlk nig in the late 18th century from ellerkonge. Erlking's motives are never made clear. Different version prey on different people, i.e. adults of opposite sex or children

Discuss the ways Carter uses nature in The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories. Discuss the ways Carter uses a sense of monster in The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories. Discuss the ways Carter uses the concept of freedom in The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories. Discuss the ways Carter portrays relationships in The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories. Discuss the ways Carter uses the imaginary and real world in The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories. Discuss the ways Carter explores complicity in The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories Discuss the ways Carter uses music in The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories.

Focus Key quotations Analysis and explanation of significance The wood/forest The Erl King The narrator The central relationship The old fiddle The birds Narrative Structure

Links with Other Stories and other texts Language, form, structure? Themes? Narrative mode/perspectives? Imagery? Symbols/Motifs? Good/Evil? Heroes/Villains? Settings?

Vocab Lancinating piercing/stabbing Cessation cease to exist Irrevocable not possible to revoke (take away/take back) Chanterelle edible mushroom Osier willow tree branches used for making baskets Complicity association or participating in a wrongful act Palliasse thin straw mattress Equinoctial happening on or near time of equinox (sun cross celestial equator: day and night are of same length) Diatonic dervish Dervish Muslim religious order vow of poverty and austerity noted for wild or ecstatic rituals Prothalamions poem or song celebrating an upcoming wedding Integument - tough outer protective layer Numinous strong religious or spiritual quality Phosphorous light emitted by radiation Lycanthropes werewolf Taffeta crisp, lustrous fabric Plaintive sad and mournful

Weather -0 nicotine stained fingers Setting: Anorexic turnbs in on intself the wood swallows you up Goblin or enchanted fruit There are some eyes can eat you Eat me, drink me Goblin-ridded Goblin feast of fruit The light from the fire sucked into the black vortex of his eye, [ ] exerts such a pressure on me, it draws me inwards Eyes green as apples. Green as dead sea fruit. I ll be trapped in it forever like poor little ants and flies Your green eye is a reducing chamber Consumed by you Mock my loss of liberty