Angela Carter's Exploration Of Masks And Society
society's stereotypes? Perhaps it is a tautological circle in which people usually wear the masks they are meant to wear and thus continue creating the same classifications over and over.
One of the greatest modern writers, Angela Carter, deals often with stereotypes in her adaptations of classical fairy tales. Andrew Milne explains the power this practice has had in society, "rewriting of traditional European tales forces the reader to question himself and to think a great deal about the imaginary milestones of our cultural make-up...the reader sees not only his own reflection but also that of society and his culture" (Milne, Manuscrit-Universite).
Fairy tales present modern society's stereotypes, especially about the roles of men and women, and therefore create common ideas that many people believe without consideration. These stereotypes have become so ingrained in our subconscious that they register as facts and we continue the cycles of adorning the masks we are supposed to, according to the rules of society. Angela Carter's "The Bloody Chamber" and "The Tiger's Bride" are both explorations of masks and stereotypes in society. They explore the many masks people can wear, the difficulty of seeing the truth behind masks, and why living behind a mask is not truly living.
Types of Masks and Their Connotations
In many cultures masked creatures or people are represented as evil. Masked creatures, however, are not always evil and evil does not always wear a visible mask. In "The Tiger's Bride", a version of "Beauty and the Beast", a wealthy land owner is feared as a beast. He literally wears a mask though the exact reason is unknown. Perhaps it is because he is fearsome, as the Beauty muses, "it cannot be his face that looks like mine" (Carter 158). Did society force him into hiding his true form or did he choose to cover it himself? The Beast's mysteriousness makes it seem like he must be monstrous and frightening but no one really...
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