The Tiger's Bride

"My Father lost me to The Beast at cards"
This initial sentence of the story epitomises many of the main themes Carter includes in her collection. This sentence addresses the taking of a child, a weak paternal figure, a reference to a beastial, powerful male figure, and also that women are purely objects of possession; foreshadowing 'The Tiger's Bride's' main issues.

Indeed, we are introduced to very weak paternal figure, who "beggars himself" of all his possessions. The spiteful condemning of the father by his daughter suggests our protagonist is not the naiive, sweet female we follow in the previous stories. She is astute and opinionated; looking down on her father as he "rids himself" of her inheritance. It is her who has to guide her foolish father away from casinos, and it is her that protects him from his own weakness, suggesting in this story, the power lies in females.

Her unprecedented power over men is reinforced by her humiliation and mocking of The Beast. With "heartless mirth" she lets out a "raucous guffaw" at The Beast's embarrassed request to see her naked. She further humiliates The Beast by shaming him, asking him to drop her "in front of the church" after he has had his way with her, to such an extent that she reduces him to tears.

However, despite her evident power over men, she is astute enough to show awareness of her social standing as a woman. She knows her father values her "at no more than a king's ransom", no more than an object he possesses. Her request to have her face covered whilst the rest of her body is bare suggests she wishes to have her identity separated from her body, as she realises her body, the female body, is just a mere object of usage without holding it's own identity.

Her awareness of the "male-gaze" is far more prominent than in any other story so far. She describes life as "a market place, where the eyes that watch you take no account of your existence". Women are bought and sold like objects in a market place, being constantly looked and objectified down to the status of "white meat".

Yet the ending of the story seems to give hope to women. She acknowledges that "the tiger will never lie down the with the lamb", if the tiger is symbolic of men, and the lamb represents women, this phrase suggests she believes men will never subject themselves to fall down to the same low standing as women. However, she states that "the lamb must learn to run with the tigers". This appears to be a strong, feminist message; that women must step up and become equals with men, a feeling which was very prominent in the 1960's at the time of publishing. Indeed, the ending of the story, where the protagonist does become equal to The Beast; acquiring "lovely fur" and turning into a tiger like her host, reiterating the main message of the story.

The setting of "The Tiger's Bride" contrasts with that of "The Courtship of Mr Lyon", to that this story follows classic elements of the Gothic, set in a foreign "sunless" and "treacherous" place far away, allowing us to suspend our disbelief and accept the magical happenings of the story. The Beast's home is also a classic Gothic, "ruined" setting; with "infinite complexity" and "broken windows", the palace seems "uninhabited", the place almost seems dream like, again allowing a suspension of our disbelief of the story, in comparison the modern, city setting of London in the previous story, which makes our suspension of disbelief less likely.