The Tiger's Bride Analysis

I wanted to give a brief analysis of the themes in The Tiger's Bride reading. Well, here it goes.

One of the major themes in the piece is the objectification of women: The narrator's father loses her to the beast at cards. Both her father and the beast use words such as "pearl" and "treasure" to refer to her in the story. From this it is clear that Carter sought to emphasize the idea that the narrator's father saw his daughter as a possession to be wagered. When out riding, the protagonist realizes that men see women as soulless, which places them closer to animals. She makes it clear that she feels closer to the valet, the beast and their horses, than to men; these men who view both animals and women as physical property.

Another theme is self-acceptance: Both the heroine and the beast must except their animal nature in order to become free of the societal constructs surrounding them. It is revealed at the end of the story that she, like the valet and beast, is also more non-human animal than at first perceived. She even decides that she wants to stay at the beast's remote palace and chooses not to return to her father and to men's society.

The last theme that I want to discuss is sex and sexual desire: At the beginning of the story, the protagonist hands her father a white rose(representing purity and her virginal self), but she pricks her hand on it before she leaves with the valet and it gets smeared with blood(signifying her loss of virginity and bestial transformation). She decides to strip off her own clothes and feels her self changing, but also requires the beast's assistance in the act for the transformation to become complete; he licks the skin off of her, revealing her underpelt. This act symbolizes the beast and the heroine reclaiming sex as a collaborative act of creation rather than an act where the man claims the woman.