Wolf-Alice In The Bloody Chamber

In many ways, Wolf-Alice could be seen as the most faithful evocation of a gothic heroine in The Bloody Chamber. To what extent do you agree with this statement and why?

The gothic heroine can be easily defined as perfection; the best at everything she does, almost to the point of parody. She is often more intelligent, more beautiful, more accomplished, more chaste and more resilient than any other woman. These are the characteristics within the control of the young woman. There are, however, outside factors surrounding the behaviour of the gothic heroine. These women are faced with huge obstacles, particularly in their quest to maintain their perfection. Wolf-Alice is pure, chaste, and angelic; much more so than the other heroines of The Bloody

Chamber.
Wolf-Alice takes pity on the Duke because she sees him as the wolves saw her, pitied for being a human, an imperfect wolf.

Like the heroine in ‘The Courtship of Mr Lyon,’ she transforms the tormented half-being by her kindness alone. Wolf-Alice’s pity and kindness are not human traits, however. The heroines in ‘The Courtship of Mr Lyon’ as well as ‘The Tiger's Bride’ have to become both less civilized and less human in order to save their respective beasts. They both reject their fathers' wealth and the social standing in favour of lives with their beasts, whom the rest of humanity have forced into isolation. The heroine in ‘The Tiger's Bride’ regresses so far that she actually becomes a tiger herself. All the human peasants in the story want to kill the beast because they do not understand his hunger and bane, but Wolf-Alice can because she has experienced the same thing. In ‘The Tiger's Bride,’ the heroine transforms into a tigress. In ‘The Courtship of Mr Lyon,’ the beast transforms into a human. In ‘Wolf-Alice,’ the heroine becomes more human throughout the story, while still being animalistic enough for her kindness to save the Duke. Because her name does not change like Mr Lyon's does, Wolf-Alice is assumed to be still caught between worlds. As for the Duke, it is unknown as to whether he transforms into a human or a wolf. The mirror reflects ‘the face of the Duke’ – but what face is

that?
Wolf-Alice is so innocent she does not even know what her period is: she thinks ‘a wolf… must have nibbled her cunt while she was sleeping’. This shows how untouched she is – she is so pure her mind is untainted by knowledge of her ‘first blood’ and what it means. The wording of that phrase is indicative of the same; she has no stigma over the word ‘cunt’ because she sees no shame in her private parts and does not know about swearwords – how would she? She is unknowing of the vulgarities of the world and as such is not shamed by them.