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‘The Bloody Chamber’ Key Quotations

- “he’d bought me … are you sure you love him?” - (marriage about wealth and status over
emotion - critical as the mother asks the question 3x and we respect her)

- “shot a man-eating tiger with her own hand” - (independence of the mother conflicts with her
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daughter, we look up to the mother so respect her views)
“defiantly beggared herself for love” - (honourable choice made for love, contrast to her
daughter, foreshadows conclusion)
“the wedding night, which would be voluptuously deferred until we lay in his great ancestral bed”
- (sexual imagery, desire/lust, image of what she expects over reality)
“leonine shape of his head” “dark mane” “seemed to me like a mask” - (beastly characteristics)
“he seemed to me like a lily” - (represents death - foreshadows/forebodes)
“a choker of rubies … slit throat” - (foreshadowing her death)
“reflected more white lilies than I’d ever seen before n my life” - (death imagery)
“a ritual from the brothel” “my purchaser unwrapped his bargain” - (wealth and status > emotion)
“her cunt a split fig” “knotted tails of the cat” “Reproof of curiosity” - (violence and sexual
imagery closely linked, short sharp words to show aggression - global taboo)
“My little nun has found the prayer books” “Baby mustn’t play with grown-ups toys” (paedophilic language, we feel disgusted by the Marquis and vulnerable for the childish girl)
“a dozen husbands impaled a dozen brides” - (violent and aggressive language - seems like a
spectacle, ceremony rather than heart-felt like she anticipated)
“my little love, my child” “perch on his knee” - (paedophilic language)
“the one who had inflicted the pain could comfort me”- (naïve girl, reader becomes frustrated)
“whose keyring was as crowded as that of a prison warder” - (controlling Marquis)
“this lovely prison of which I was an inmate” - (controlling Marquis - juxtaposed shows her internal
confusion between wealth and false love)
“the very first key I picked out of that pile” - (supernatural influence?)
“outlines of a rack … a great wheel … the Iron Maiden” “bowls of incense” - (torture devices, we
feel scared for the vulnerable girl)
“catafalque … four-foot-high jar [of lilies]” - (foreshadows death)
“he had embalmed her” “the Iron Maiden emitted a ghostly twang” “the candles flared” (supernatural and necrophilic suggestion)
“forming pool of blood” “the door of hell” - (satanic image and impending death of the girl)
“Saint Cecilia … my music room seemed the safest place” - patroness of music (beheaded)
“might not the police … even the judge be in his service”- (corruption of society through wealth)
“Castle of Murder” “black car” - (death imagery)
“a dozen vulnerable appealing girls reflected in as many mirrors” - (magnifies her vulnerability)
“he half-snarled” - (beastly imagery - beast within)
“he was in despair” “absolute despair” - (shows his human side and emotion, some sympathy)
“my great-grandfather’s ceremonial sword” - (past and inheritance - gothic ideas)
“coiled like a snake about to strike, lay the ruby choker” - (vulnerability)
“her black skirts tucked up around her waist” - (practical clothing for the job, independent
woman)
“the revolt of his pawns” “a single, irreproachable bullet through my husband’s head” - (turning
point in the plot, downfall of the villain)
“mark of Cain … he sees me clearly with his heart … it spares my shame” - (religious imagery,
prevents relationships? criticism? - but an emotional view of people is good)



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