The Bloody Chamber: Plot Summary (OCR A Level English Literature)
Revision Note
The Bloody Chamber: Plot Summary
One of the most important things you can do in preparation for the exam is to “know” the collection of short stories, including The Bloody Chamber, thoroughly. When you are familiar with all of the key events in the stories, you can then link them to larger themes and ideas. Having an in-depth knowledge and understanding of the stories will also help you to gain confidence in finding the most relevant references to support your response.
In this guide, you will find an overview for:
Examiner Tip
Although there are ten short stories in total in this collection, OCR’s advice is to include 3-4 short stories in a response. This is not a definite guide as it very much depends on the quality of the response as a whole.
In your studies, you should have become familiar with all of the stories so that you have a broad range to work with in the exam. In your exam response, you can use examples or give analysis of any of the stories in the text. For the purposes of revision, we have included the named story, The Bloody Chamber, along with The Tiger’s Bride and The Courtship of Mr Lyon in these Revision Notes.
The Bloody Chamber overview
Published in 1979, the titular story in this collection is written from the perspective of a young, unnamed female narrator who recounts her marriage with a French marquis. The story begins with the narrator, a keen pianist, and her new husband on the train to the Marquis’s castle in Brittany, which will be her marital home. As she lies awake, the narrator recalls her quick courtship and her mother’s hesitation at the marriage, while also pondering the Marquis’s limitless wealth and his previous three wives, who died under mysterious circumstances. She realises that she does not know her husband very well and wonders why he chose her, a naive girl, for marriage.
When they arrive at their marital home, an isolated castle, the Marquis is almost instantly called away on business. The narrator is a little frustrated by this, but she decides to explore the castle. She finds an out-of-tune piano and then finds some graphic pornography in the Marquis’s library.
The Marquis returns and finds her staring at these books. He then takes her to their bedroom and consummates the marriage. The Marquis is once again called away on business but, before he leaves, he gives his wife the keys to every room in the house, including one that he forbids her to enter. The narrator agrees that she will not enter the room and the Marquis then leaves.
Once he has left, the narrator meets a blind pianist by the name of Jean-Yves who is called from the village to tune the piano. After a while, the narrator begins to explore the Marquis’s office in order to learn more about her husband. There she finds a secret, hidden compartment that contains love letters and other items from his previous wives, which all suggest that the Marquis may have an appetite for dark perversions. The narrator finds this unnerving and decides to go against his orders and use the forbidden key to access the chamber in the west tower.
As she enters the room, she discovers the bodies of his first three wives and realises that it is a torture chamber. One of the wives had been strangled to death, another wife’s corpse is hanging from the ceiling while the most recent wife had her body pierced by a thousand spikes in a torture device called “the iron maiden”. The narrator, overcome by terror, accidentally drops the key into a pool of blood. Quickly, she picks the key up and runs out of the room, planning her escape. However, when she tries to phone her mother, the phone line is dead.
In her panic, she sits at the piano and begins to play while trying to devise a plan to escape. The piano tuner, Jean-Yves, enters the room and tells her that he had followed her down as he was eager to hear her play. The narrator then confides in Jean-Yves and tells him everything she discovered about the Marquis. Jean-Yves, while shocked, is not surprised as he had heard rumours of the Marquis’s interests. As the sun begins to rise, the narrator realises that the Marquis is returning early from his trip. Panic stricken, the narrator tries to wash the blood off the key, but a spot of blood still remains in the shape of a heart.
The Marquis returns and asks the narrator to return the keys. Upon receiving them, the Marquis notices the blood stain on the forbidden key and realises that the narrator has disobeyed him. He presses the key against her forehead and tells her to prepare for her execution and “martyrdom”. The narrator slowly begins to prepare as she realises that she is going to die. The Marquis sends all of the servants away for the day and begins the preparation for her beheading in the courtyard.
The Marquis then summons the narrator into the courtyard to meet her fate. As she begins to walk slowly towards her husband, the narrator’s mother enters the castle on horseback to save her daughter. She shoots the Marquis and kills him.
The narrator then goes on to tell the reader that she has inherited the Marquis’s enormous wealth, but has given the majority of it away to charities and has turned the castle into a school for the blind. She teaches music in Paris and lives with her mother and her lover, Jean-Yves. The mark on her forehead is still visible, but she doesn't mind as her blind lover cannot see her shame.
Examiner Tip
Because this is a “closed book” exam, there is not an expectation that you learn dozens of quotations from your core text by heart. At the highest level, the mark scheme rewards the effective use of quotations and references to the text, which should be blended into your discussion. This means that whether you use direct quotations or textual references, they need to be precise, relevant and integrated into your response.
The Tiger’s Bride overview
The story begins in a small city in Italy where the Russian narrator and protagonist, a young girl, and her father are staying. Her father is a gambler and, despite the narrator’s attempt at avoiding casinos, every guest in the town must play a hand of cards with an individual called “The Beast”, who is masked and completely covered. The narrator looks on in horror as her father gambles their fortune away.
As she sits, the narrator thinks about her life and her childhood, which was spent with a nanny because her mother, tired of her father’s womanising and gambling, had died. Her father, having lost everything to The Beast, decides to gamble his daughter in the hopes that he can win everything back. However, he does not win and he stares at his cards in horror as he realises he has lost his daughter.
The narrator is taken to The Beast’s castle the next day and comes face to face with him. The Beast is masked and covered again, but he has a request for the narrator, which he communicates to her through his valet. His request is to see the narrator naked once, and her father will receive money and gifts as payment. The narrator laughs at this and makes another suggestion to highlight her disgust at the vulgar request. This causes The Beast to shed a tear and then the narrator is taken to her cell.
The next day the valet gives the narrator her riding clothes and they all go hunting together. Whilst hunting, The Beast decides to present himself to her naked. The narrator, moved by his form, shows herself naked to him. They then return to the castle, fully clothed. Through a magic mirror, the narrator sees her father, who is now wealthy again, and realises that The Beast has kept his word. She decides to stay at the castle rather than return to her father and goes to the Beast’s room wearing nothing but the diamond earrings that were presented to her by him. The valet, who is now in the form of a monkey, takes her to The Beast’s room, where The Beast licks away her skin to reveal fur underneath.
The Courtship of Mr Lyon overview
A young girl (“Beauty”) worries about her father’s safe return as weather conditions worsen. Her father is actually stranded, as his car is stuck in the snow. His wealth is gone and he feels guilt for not being able to buy his daughter the simple gift of a white rose.
He walks through the snow in an attempt to find shelter and comes across a mansion. Upon entering, he finds food and warmth but no one seems to be there to greet him. He eats his fill and finds a number for a garage that will repair his car and charge the owner of the mansion for the repairs. The father, now relieved and satisfied, leaves the mansion but plucks a white rose from the garden before leaving. A giant beast resembling a lion but dressed in human clothes appears and is enraged that the father took advantage of his kindness and stole a rose. The father, now petrified, apologises to the beast and tries to show a picture of his daughter to help the beast understand why he took the rose. The beast, overwhelmed by the beauty in the picture, instructs the father to bring his daughter to the mansion to have dinner with him. The father has no choice but to agree.
The girl is initially shocked by the beast’s appearance, but soon becomes used to him. She stays with him while her father goes to London to restore their fortune with the help of the beast. When her father calls to let her know that their fortune has been restored, the girl leaves the disheartened beast to go to her father, but promises to return before the winter ends. However, the girl quickly becomes accustomed to her new life of luxury and forgets to keep her promise. The beast’s spaniel finds the girl and takes her back to the mansion to find the beast dying. She apologises for not keeping her promise as the beast lies dying in his bed. As she kisses him, the beast transforms into a man and his health is restored. At the end of the story, it appears that they are living together happily married.
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