Carter's Postmodern Techniques

Intertexuality

Intertextuality deals with the evident connections between texts, with relationships formed between reader and author and also the formation of relationships between text and other text. In regard to Carter’s work The Bloody Chamber Hasse reports “The collections strong use of intertexuality is consequently important: elements of erotic romance, the Gothic, Romanticism and other textual traditions provide powerful stereotypes of female identity that illuminate and intersect with those of the fairy tale itself. The ‘Bloody Chamber’ presents a sadomasochistic relationship that explores, through a deliberately nineteenth-century erotic narrative, women’s submission to male sexual experience” (pg.163). There are numerous examples in both examples which suggest influence from other literature, take for instance The Courtship of Mr. Lyon: the many references to snow including “you would have thought she, too, was made all of snow” (pg.43) could be reference to the fairytale of Snow White, and “On the table, a silver tray; round the neck of the whisky decanter, a silver tag with the legend: Drink me, while the cover of the silver dish was engraved with the exhortation: Eat me, in a flowing hand” (pg.45) is quite clearly reference to that of Alice in Wonderland. Faintly in the ending of The Courtship of Mr. Lyon the dishevelled Beast dying from desperation could quite relate to the fairy tale of Sleeping Beauty in the upmost room awaiting his love who is the one to soothe the pain and break the spell. But the main influence to both the texts of The Courtship of Mr. Lyon and The Tigers Bride the main influence is that of the traditional fairy tale Beauty and the Beast.

Pastiche

Both of these stories The Courtship of Mr. Lyon and The Tigers Bride are both adapted versions of the classic fairy tale, Beauty and the Beast. Roemer and Bacchilega state “Carter creates a double textuality, relying on imitation and insistent differentiation” (pg.129) meaning that although the characters and their themes of the story share the same connection, there are differences regarding their ideologies, interpretations and setting and narrative structure for “her text to depend on intertexuality and pastiche to proclaim its sense of belonging” (Roemer & Bacchilega, 1998). Carter acknowledged the influence of the classic fairy tale and drew on something that already existed to create a new ‘adult’ genre of the fairy tale; this pastiche form rather adopts the stylistics of a genre where it can be said that Carter plays tribute to classical literature.

 The modern gothic/ Romanticism 

A very popular element Carter uses regards that of the ‘modern gothic’ or a revival of the gothic movement which Carter states “We live in gothic times, where the subgenres of the past have necessarily become the appropriate and dominant modes of our present discourse” (Neumeier, 1996 g.141). In The Courtship of Mr. Lyon there is an assumption of claustrophobia surrounding the gothic setting of the alienated castle “it might have been the reflection of a star, if any stars could have penetrated the snow that whirled more thickly” (pg.44) an idea of shielding the beast in his castle from the outside world. There is also other gothic interest in overwrought emotion on the behalf of Beauty throughout the story as she is unable to “bring herself to touch him of her own free will” (pg.51) to “tears fell on her face like snow” (pg.54) contextualises Beauty’s change in character. The Tigers Bride presents us with a gothic setting suitable for its bestial atmosphere her content is highly descriptive “through archways and open doors, I glimpsed suites of vaulted chambers” (pg.63) with a description of the landscape being “melancholy, sunless, introspective ... cruel” (pg.62). The setting of the tiger’s home is also classical gothic with its ruined setting of “infinite complexity ... broken windows ... to which seemed uninhabited” (pg.63). The setting is almost dream like allowing our consciousness to disbelieve the story compared to one of the previous city settings whose belief seems to be more likely. Other notable gothic traits are mystery, and stimulated suspense, supernatural events, women in distress presumably threatened by a tyrannical male, entrapment and an element visible in both stories is the corruption of innocence.

Irony

We use it as a figure of speech in a way that the intended meaning opposes actual meaning although a literary feature used before postmodernism it is a literary technique widely used in postmodern literature. A great example worth questioning would be the title of Carter’s story The Courtship of Mr. Lyon. Courtship literally means a period of time when a couple’s relationship precedes either engagement or marriage and here Carter uses this antiquated term to elevate their love, it is a more traditional kind of love it is romantic and courtly for example both the Beauty and the Beast have been recipients of the ‘rose’ as a symbol of love and affection, when in fact there was no dating going on, instead she was pressurised into living with the Beast until her father’s finances returned. Another particular way of reading this which would indicate the aspect of irony ‘courtship’ is a way of possessing an object, and Beauty seems to be the object of exchange.

There are many other techniques that can be applied to literary postmodernism such as hyperreality, fragmentation, literary paranoia, metafiction and maximalism to name just a few.