Symbolism of Red and White in The Bloody Chamber

The Bloody Chamber
1. 'Bright as aetoral blood'
2. Bloody bandage of rubies
3. Crimson water swirled down the basin but, as if the key itself were hurt, the bloody token stuck
4. I scrubbed my forehead with the nail brush as I had scrubbed the key but this red mark would not go away
5. No paint nor powder, no matter how thick or white, can mask that red mark on my forehead
6. cobra-headed, funereal lilies whose white sheaths are curled out of a flesh
7. the white dress; the frail child within it
8. more white lilies than I'd ever seen in my life before
9. crowned with a wreath of white roses, and a veil of lace, the final image of his bride.
The Snow Child
1. 'I wish I had a girl as red as blood
2. So the girl picks a rose; pricks her finger on the thorn; bleeds; screams; falls
3. a bloodstain, like the trace of a fox's kill on the snow
4. . The Count picked up the rose, bowed and handed it to his wife;
5. 'I wish I had a girl as white as snow
The Company of Wolves
1. the red shawl that, today, has the ominous if brilliant look of blood on snow
2. There is a faint trace of blood on his chin; he has been snacking on his catch.
3. the scarlet shawl she pulled more closely round herself as if it could protect her although it was as red as the blood she must spill
4. her cheeks are an emblematic scarlet and white and she has just started her woman's bleeding
5. It was a white night of moon and snow
6. her hair looked white as the snow outside
The Werewolf
1. A bloody stump where her hand had been
2. red eyes and running, grizzled chops
Wolf Alice
1. Her first blood bewildered her
2. this white dress made her shine
3. hey saw the white bride leap out of the tombstone
The Tiger's Bride
1. My tear-beslobbered father wants a rose to show that I forgive him. When I break off a stem, I prick my finger and so he gets his rose all smeared with blood.
2. This white rose, unnatural, out of season, that now my nervous fingers ripped, petal by petal
3. Where my father had been red as fire, now he was white as the snow that caked the window-pane
4. watching me peel down to the cold, white meat of contract
The Lady of the House of Love
1. négligé of blood-stained lace
2. The blood on the Countess's cheeks will be mixed with tears
3. When she kneels to try to gather the fragments of glass together, a sharp sliver pierces deeply into the pad of her thumb; she cries out, sharp, real. She kneels among the broken glass and watches the bright bead of blood form a drop. She has never seen her own blood before, not her own blood
4. a lace négligé lightly soiled with blood, as it might be from a woman's menses, and a rose that must have come from the fierce bushes nodding through the window
5. intoxicated surge of the heavy scent of red roses
6. Her voice, issuing from those red lips like the obese roses in her garden
7. And I leave you as a souvenir the dark, fanged rose I plucked from between my thighs
8. 'the bridegroom bleeds on this inverted marriage bed
The Courtship of Mr Lyon
1. the road is white and unmarked as a spilled bolt of bridal satin
2. his Beauty, his girl-child, his pet, the one white rose she said she wanted
3. one last, single, perfect rose that might have been the last rose left living in all the white winter

Next up

Symbolism of Red and White in The Bloody Chamber

Description

Resource summary

Similar

	Created by 2007hallam almost 10 years ago