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  • Essay / Characters who are victims of their own nature in Angela Carter's short stories

    Carter's characters in The Lady of the House of Love (LHL), Wolf-Alice and The Werewolf make the difference between being victims of their own nature and victims of circumstances. These characters classified as "victims" are often depicted as being incapable of helping themselves because they cannot escape their fate or situation, such as the Countess in The LHL; one can, however, object that certain characters, the Werewolf's child for example, are first of all victims who subvert their role and save themselves by escaping from this role. The characters in these stories, especially women, are often victimized due to the circumstances of their sexuality and society's expectations of them. However, the Countess is a victim of her own nature – her vampire nature which traps her. Say no to plagiarism. . Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an Original EssayThose characters who are victims of their own nature, in other words trapped in their roles due to their inherent makeup. The Countess is an example of such a character, as is the Duke of Wolf-Alice and the grandmother of The Werewolf. The three characters are trapped in their states – werewolf and vampire – which are sometimes identified as specifically genetic, the countess's vampirism descending from her father, also named vampire "Nosferatu", alluding to the vampiric interpretation of Dracula in the film. . As a result, the Countess becomes the "hereditary commander of the army of shadows", which in a sense makes her a victim of circumstances since she inherits the isolation and "insane" history after the assassination of his father. However, the entire story repeatedly references his inability to escape his vampire nature, symbolized by the caged lark, and his inherent need to kill in order to survive. The repeated references to her isolation and abandonment and the dark connotations of her description "all alone in her dark, high house" and her "habitual tormented sleepwalking" create sympathy in the reader for her and highlight her incapacity. to escape his soulless state. She is unable to realize her dream of being human on her own and therefore the "young officer" who is pure and possesses the "special quality of virginity" is needed so that she can escape her haunted nature and be human as she wishes. Likewise, the Duke also relies on an external character to save him from his animal and haunted nature. It is implied that his nature is to be a "corpse eater" as he is not human. Wolf-Alice humanizes him at the end of the story, saving him from his own nature. However, the grandmother is unable to save herself due to her werewolf nature and is not saved by anyone else but dies a victim of her nature. However, she also dies as a victim of circumstances, circumstances from which she cannot escape. It could be argued that the grandmother is a victim of her role as a woman, a role from which she attempts to escape – by taking the form of a woman. wolf and reversing her role as a domestic and pure woman – she dies. It is evident that she is unable to help herself as Carter characterizes her as a weak woman "who has been sick", thus suggesting that even though she is a wolf, she is still weak and Little Red must bring her strength. food and care. for her. She is trapped in her role as a domestic grandmother and thus tries to escape through her wolf side, which in turn locks her into a life doomed to persecution. It can also be argued that Wolf-Alice is also a victim of circumstance, as she is trapped in "nature"..