Class Notes on Angela Carter

"Courtship of Mr.Lyon"

Mandell's reading:
- About what it means to be human, about human life - almost like a parable: masculinity, femininity, coming to terms with violence, etc.

- There's something "real", and each "real" thing gets distorted in the story.

- Mr. Lyon is any young man coming of age, facing his manhood in or out of a relationship, and a young woman learning to be a woman in relation to a man. She is fascinated by him, but also revolting.

- Gender discourse that occurs between genders, though not always. A reaction to otherness, to reassure yourself of boundaries.

- "Masculine aggression" gets tamed - women and men have to be "tamed". Fundamental difference in these genderings, partly culturally determined, partly genetic (maybe?).

- Men find their own potential for violence horrifying, too; something has to happen in the male psyche to come to terms with its own potential for violence. For Mr. Lyon, it comes through redemption - revealing his bestiality, and being accepted for it anyway, and loved.

- Possibilities for containment through culture of homicidal violence - how does culture accomplish that? How do we, in the face of otherness, get past it?

Notes on the story "The Bloody Chamber":
- potential for corruption like potential for violence - main character had to be positioned for her talent for corruption to bloom
- Consummation equated to being stabbed - "impaled"
- Bloody Room - her locked sexual potential; a uterus; her husband's potential for violence
- Red mark - scarlet letter? What else?
- Parable of what everyone has to do to find a Piano-tuner husband - discovery of self, changing perspective, etc.