Puss in Boots | initial response

- Only male narrator in The Bloody Chamber.

- Talking cat - fairytale-like

- Refers to himself in the 3rd person - 'Figaro here; Figaro, there, I tell you!' (76)

- Way in which it is written (Alliteration/ disjointed structure/ linguistic acrobatics) reflects his acrobatic character. 'tangerine tessellations' (76)

- Sexually promiscuous 'this little Figaro can slip into my lady's chamber' (76)

- Long sentence structure - Attention grabbing, makes the reader slow down.

- 'For all cats have this' (77)- aware of his audience, suspends disbelief.

‘The Bloody Chamber’ & ‘Visual Pleasure & Narrative Cinema’

I found a few quotes which I think makes the link between the two a strong one...

‘With the assessing eye of a connoisseur inspecting horseflesh.’ ‘inspecting cuts on a slab’ (6) - this is very impersonal/ objectifying her a just a piece of meat.

‘The chauffer eyed me; he was comparing me’ (8) - again, objectification, not seeing her as a person, comparing her to other women.

‘I have acquired a whole harem for myself!’ (10) - just looking at her as another ‘object of lust’.

‘as if he were stripping the leaves off an artichoke’ (11) - comparison to preparing food, a menial, everyday task.

Mulvey: 'The Gaze' & 'Visual Pleasure & Narrative Cinema'

"The Gaze"

Describes the act of looking; began as the study of the objectification of women in visual texts.

The commonality of female nudity - display implies subordination

Internalization of the gaze, changes women's perceptions of themselves and makes them think of themselves as objects

Objectification as a source of pleasure (for both the looker and the looked-at)

Men as the dominant group have been the looker (the subjects; women the objects)

Links back to another aspect of the feminist critique of Freud - the degree to which Freudian theory is based on visual dynamics.