The Bloody Chamber

A Short Story anthology by Angela Carter based around the gothic retelling of old fairy tales.

• The eponymous story is a retelling of "Bluebeard".
• "The Courtship of Mr. Lyon" and "The Tiger's Bride" are based on "Beauty and The Beast".
• "Puss-In-Boots" is a bawdy commedia piece, inspired by "Puss in Boots".
• "The Erl-King" is based on the legend of "The Erl King".
• "The Lady in the House of Love" is "Sleeping Beauty" ...with vampires!
• "The Snow-Child" is "Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs", minus the dwarfs.
• "The Werewolf" and "The Company of Wolves" are takes on "Little Red Riding Hood" ...with werewolves!
• "Wolf-Alice" has elements of "Beauty and The Beast", "Little Red Riding Hood" and Alice in Wonderland.

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Tropes used in The Bloody Chamber include:

• All Girls Want Bad Boys: Genre Savvy Puss-in-Boots is well-aware of this trope and suggests that the best way to woo an unattainable woman is to "convince her her orifice will be your salvation, and she's yours!"
• All Men Are Perverts: A common theme in Carter's stories, but taken to an extreme in "The Snow Child". There is a very unpleasant scene in which a dead adolescent girl is violently raped by a sobbing man, just because he can. It is awful.
• A Man Is Not a Virgin: Averted in "The Lady In The House Of Love" - the hero's virginity is mentioned several times, and hinted to give him Virgin Power.
• Big Damn Heroes: The heroine's mother in "The Bloody Chamber". Also serves as a Crowning Moment of Awesome.
• Disappeared Dad: In "The Bloody Chamber".
• Grimmification
• Humanoid Abomination: The Erl-King could be argued to be this. Appearing as a peculiar green tree-like man that represents the feral side of humanity, he has a tendency to kidnap young girls, rape them and transform them into songbirds, as well as being able to control the forest and its inhabitants. He is also not a nice guy.
• Lighter and Softer: If this trope can apply within a work, then "Puss-in-Boots" fits, being a Restoration sex comedy amidst mostly Gothic horror. "The Courtship of Mr. Lyon" is also not a horror story.
• Mama Bear: The heroine's mother in "The Bloody Chamber".
• Missing Mom: "The Courtship of Mr Lyon" and "The Tiger's Bride".
• Our Vampires Are Different: In "The Lady in the House of Love".
• Our Werewolves Are Different: Werewolves figure in several stories.
• Parental Abandonment: Crops up a lot in the form of Missing Mom and Disappeared Dad.
• Retired Badass: The heroine's mother in "The Bloody Chamber". She had already dealt with pirates, nursed back to health a plague ravaged village, and singelhandedly shot and killed a maneating tiger, all before she was even 18. She comes out of retirement at the very end of the story.