“It is ironic that the beasts are often more humane than the humans.” Consider at least two of the stories from the collection in the light of this comment (40 marks)
The beasts are not merely just beats in The Blood Chamber. The theme of the liminal is something that Carter uses when writing about the beasts: as they neither fit into the existing threshold of “beasts” nor do they simply comply with the twenty-first century conventions of being human. Carter uses equivocation by closely tying humanity with fantasy is open to debate; does Carter share her criticism of made up creations, the beasts, possessing more human attributes than the actual mortals in the text?
Carter can be seen to make explore the liminal to show that there is little that separates humans from beasts, as “Nothing about her is human except that she is not a wolf.” Carter uses the feral child in Wolf-Alice to question what actually separates beasts from humans, except from a mirror reflection. Wolf-Alice is presented as “only living in the present” and thus does not have consideration to the time constraints and conscious awareness of the past and future as humans do. In contrast, when Wolf-Alice has been donated to the half human, half beast Duke, she endures a very strange human experience. The start of the girl’s menstruation, can be seen to be the key part of the transitional stage, where the young girl actively begins to consider time, the experience was “a few days, which seemed to her an endless time”. Therefore, Carter’s use of time employs humanity into the character, emphasising the blurred lines between beastliness and humanity in the short story. In addition, the fastidious manner in which she clears the blood echoes her feelings of “shame” towards the human experience. Carter begins to highlight the human characteristics in Wolf-Alice, as feelings of shame can only be felt by