Mythic Revisions and Gender Politics in Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber and Jeanette Winterson’s The Passion

Abstract

This article seeks to examine the ways in which myths still merge identities in the modern global and post-colonial settings especially in the writings of Angela Carter in The Bloody Chamber and Jeanette Winterson in The Passion. Through it, it attempts to find the violence inherent in these myths and criticize the positivist presuppositions they present. This paper will use a comparative literary analysis method, where similar approaches to narration techniques that Carter and Winterson adopt to address myth will be compared. This implies a study of the relationship between myth and oral traditions (including fairy tales) that each author displays and how these authors negotiate the frontiers between myths pre-and post-textual readings. The results indicate that the two texts are highly mythical, although they take different stances in their narrative. The work of Carter can be characterised as revisionist as the existing myths are rewritten to show their implications and contradictions. Conversely, Winterson story is a radically new interpretation of myth that questions dominant paradigms and cultural imperialism under which substitute narratives have historically been marginalised. The difference in their approach to the task demonstrates how myth and identity in a globalized setting can be dynamically related to each other. The revisions of Carter make one consider the power of the accepted myths and propose a more sophisticated perception of its influence on the personal and social identities. Winterson, in his turn, is more radical, focusing on the necessity of the re-evaluation of the cultural assumptions and supporting the reclaiming and empowering of disenfranchised voices in the context of mythological narratives. To sum it up, the works of The Bloody Chamber and The Passion help to gain valuable insights into what myth is and what it implies in the development of identities. By using the unique approaches to narration, Carter and Winterson emphasize the significance of the critical approach to the analysis of myths as not only the products of the past but also the processes that still affect the modern cultural topographies. This investigation supports the need to challenge the paradigms according to which myths are interpreted and the cultural discourses that they reproduce.