The Snow Child Angela Carter

It may be the shortest story of The Bloody Chamber collection (it’s approximately 500 words), but Angela Carter manages to pack a lot into ‘The Snow Child’. It takes the theme of jealousy from its ‘Snow White’ origins and explores aspects of male power and desire, adding a heavy dose of horror to the fairy tale inspiration as well – though fairy tales are horror stories anyway, aren’t they? Have a read before I go and spoiler it all – you can find it here.

It begins in the present tense, an immediate departure from the ‘once upon a time’ tradition of fairy tales that shows Carter subverting the genre from the outset. It is, however, a technique typical of an oral narrative, which is how such tales were originally told, and though this is soon

She wears “pelts of black foxes”, an association suggesting a predatory and cunning nature. She also wears “scarlet heels, and spurs” and it may be that the colour of the heels comes from the actions of the spurs, which adds to this idea of violence. We see this nature when she is threatened by the child regarding the Count’s affections, “wife” becoming “the Countess” in a shift emphasised by finally having her own thoughts and feelings in the narrative; we are told the Countess “hated” the girl and we are granted direct insight into her character with the thought “how shall I be rid of her?” establishing the story’s focus on

The red can also be seen to represent the girl’s sexual maturity, though, and rather than allowing either representation, Carter draws on both to link sex with death, giving the story a shocking climax (if you’ll excuse the pun). Sex and death is not an unusual partnership in horror, of course, and addressing taboo subjects is a typical and effective way to horrify, but here we have it in excess, the Count’s incestuous and paedophilic desire appeased by