Of Flesh and Phantoms: The Irigarayan Gothic Maternal in Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber and Beyond

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Assistant Professor of English Literature, Ershad Damavand Institute of Higher Education, Tehran, Iran

10.22080/jlab.2026.30842.1002

Abstract

This paper examines the spectral and physical aspects of the mother-daughter relationship in Angela Carter’s gothic short fiction, with a primary focus on The Bloody Chamber (1979) and stories such as “The Lady of the House of Love.” It applies Luce Irigaray’s theory of sexual difference, drawn from This Sex Which Is Not One (1985) and An Ethics of Sexual Difference (1993), where the maternal-feminine emerges as a fluid subjectivity that resists phallocentric control and erasure. Carter’s narratives present vivid scenes of female becoming, featuring maternal figures as powerful ghosts that challenge Oedipal structures through gothic transformation and embodied feminine language.



The study highlights key Irigaray concepts, including placental economy and parler-femme—a cyclical, sensory form of feminine speech. Carter’s mothers, depicted as wolf-like, vampiric, or tenderly monstrous, establish sites of bodily power; their rhythmic prose disrupts patriarchal meaning systems. In The Bloody Chamber, the mother arrives as a “shadow of yourself,” restoring mother-daughter reciprocity, while bodily fluids like blood, flesh, and milk signify pre-Oedipal bonds that interrupt linear identity formation.



Findings reveal the gothic mother as an active agent of feminist change, not mere lack or rejection: the vampiress embodies plural identity (“virgin, vampire, mother, maiden”). This Irigarayan-Carterian framework advances gothic maternal studies by redefining relationality through desire, difference, and self-other connection.

Keywords

References

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Journal of Literature Across Borders
Volume 1, Issue 1 - Serial Number 1
Winter/Spring
July 2026
Pages 173-190

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