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AA* - English > Lady of the House of Love - quotes and context - complete > Flashcards

Lady of the House of Love - quotes and context - complete Flashcards

1
Q

give 5 themes highlighted by the exam board on this story

A

fairy tales
vampire conventions
reason/unreason
supernatural conventoins
sexual desire

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2
Q

give a short summary of the story

A
  • A cyclist visits a vampire woman who is queen of the vampires and eats men for food
    • She breaks her glasses, cuts her finger and he sucks the blood from her finger and heals her from the curse of being a vampire
    • She gives him a rose which is like a vagina dentata
    • He goes to war, and the rose magically comes back to life
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3
Q

In this story, lack of ___and its connection with innocence is explored. there is a question mark over which character is ___more and which one loses more innocence.

A

knowledge
transformed

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4
Q

in what ways are gender roles switched in this story

A

the female is more knowledgeable/more dangerous and powerful than the man

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5
Q

what is the lady of the house of love described as by the man (the cyclist)?

A

an ‘automaton’
- this could show her lack of autonomy, the rigid regularity of her daily rhythms

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6
Q

the story starts with ___evil and ends with ___evil - there is a question as to which is worse…

A

supernatural
human

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7
Q

give 5 key fairy tale characteristics

A
  • Short narrative
    • Familiar stories
    • Feel patch-worked
    • Passed down generations
    • Folkloric
    • Oral tradition
    • Magic/supernatural
    • Stock characters/motifs
    • Didactic/moral messages
    • Often anonymous
    • For the masses, not the elite
    • The uncanny
    • The abhuman
    • The damsel in distress
    • The femme-fatale
    • Monstrosity
  • Terror and horror
    note that the last 6 are also gothic themes
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8
Q

what fairy tale is this story based on?

A

sleeping beauty

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9
Q

briefly describe part 1 of Perrault’s narrative (1697) of sleeping beauty

A
  • an old fairy isn’t invited to a party for a newborn princess and so curses the baby saying she is henceforth to prick her finger on a needle and die
  • another princess steps in and makes the curse deep sleep instead of death
    • The king orders all spinning wheels be destroyed, but the princess finds an old woman in the castle with a spindle and is curious, so asks to try it, and pricks her finger as a result
    • The princess falls into a deep sleep
    • A prince is struck by her beauty (once he comes across the castle after braving the trees and thorns that protect the castle) and kisses the princess
    • Then the two marry and live happily ever after
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10
Q

describe part 2 of Perrault’s narrative of sleeping beauty

A
  • The prince and princess have two children
    • It turns out the prince’s mother is an ogre
    • She tires to eat the two children and the princess, but the cook tricks her and saves them
    • However the ogre mother discovers his trickery and tries to kill them again
    • However the prince returns and the ogress commits suicide after being exposed as an ogre
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11
Q

give Basile’s narrative of sleeping beauty

A
  • Sleeping beauty is called Talía and she falls into a deep sleep which her father thinks is death, and he leaves her due to his sorrow
    • Then he later comes back to the house and finds her unconscious but alive and has sex with her and then leaves again
    • Then Talía gives birth to twins, and one of them sucks out the flax in her finger which has caused her deep sleep
    • The king returns and they bond after he explains what has happened
    • The king whispers ‘Talía, Sun and Moon’ in his sleep and the Queen hears and finds out what has happened and asks Talía to send her baby twins to them (pretending to be the king)
    • She tries to feed the King’s children to him by asking the cook to cook them up
    • However the cook doesn’t cook the children but lamb instead
    • The queen tries to invite Talía to their kingdom to burn her alive but the king finds out what the queen has been up to
    • The king orders the queen to be burned and marries Talía instead
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12
Q

give a quote that specifically alludes to sleeping beauty in TLOHL:

A

‘a single kiss woke up the Sleeping Beauty

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13
Q

what is the protagonist described as which links her to sleeping Beauty

A

a ‘beautiful somnambulist’/ her state is one of ‘habitual tormented somnambulism’

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14
Q

like the princess in sleeping beauty the countess is ___ (status wise)

A

aristocratic

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15
Q

how is sleep (as in sleeping beauty) manifested in this story

A

vampirism - they are both cursed states and passive/liminal in some way

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16
Q

what finally liberates the countess from her curse and how is this similar to sleeping beauty

A
  • The male cyclist kisses her finger which liberates her from her (ancestral) curse, just as sleeping beauty is awoken with a kiss
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17
Q

how is the countess subverting the conventional figure of Sleeping Beauty in this story

A
  • she is a villain and victim rather than solely a damsel in distress figure
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18
Q

how does the cyclist subvert the Prince Charming fairy tale trope

A
  • he is innocent/virginal rather than sexualised, and he doesn’t seem to have sexual motivations
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19
Q

how does the ending of the story subvert the fairy tale form

A
  • the cyclist’s fate seems to be doomed and the main characters don’t end up together
  • this fatalistic ending subverts the fairy tale form
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20
Q

give 5 gothic features

A
  • Patriarchal
    • Damsel in distress
    • Gothic oppositions (age v youth, good v evil, innocence v experience)
    • Fascination with innocence/purity
    • Magic/supernatural
    • Liminality
    • Boundaries
    • Forbidden territory/knowledge
    • Wild landscapes
    • Horror
    • Immortality/corruption/abuse of power
    • Questioning happy endings
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21
Q

what other fairy tale (apart from sleeping beauty) is there an allusion to? give a quote to support this

A

There is an allusion to jack and the beanstalk with the line ‘fee fie fo fum/I smell the blood of an Englishman’ when describing the countess feeding on men for her vampiric diet (before she meets the cyclist)

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22
Q

what is the story of jack and the beanstalk

A
  • Jack repeatedly visits the giant and steals precious items from him
    • The story ends with the giant chasing him, but it ends happily as he gets away and enjoys the stolen riches with his mother
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23
Q

what did Carter claim to be exploring in fairy tales

A

the ‘latent content’ of fairy tales

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24
Q

what does the bicycle symbolise

A

reason and rationality

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25
Q

what could the fountain symbolise

A
  • ○ The men go to the fountain to wash the dust off themselves, and the Countess’ servant meets them there asks them to see the Countess (which ends in them dying at the Countess’ hands as she feeds on them)
    ○ The fountain could symbolise purity, or an attempt at purity which is then thwarted?
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26
Q

what is growing outside the Countess’ castle

A

a ‘jungle’ of roses

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27
Q

give a quote describing the roses outside the countess’ castle

A

hey induce a ‘sensuous vertigo’ with ‘faintly corrupt sweetness strong enough, almost, to fell him’
○ They are ‘bristling with thorns’
○ The flowers are ‘too luxuriant…obscene in their excess…outrageous in their implications’
○ They are described as like her ‘red lips’
○ The bones of the men are buried under the roses, and these bones give them their ‘swooning odour, that breathes lasciviously of forbidden pleasures’

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28
Q

after becoming human again, what is set free in the story?

A

her pet lark (after she dies it says ‘she must have set her pet lark free’)

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29
Q

what is left behind on the bed when the countess disappears from the room (and the cyclist finds her sitting at her table with her tarot cards, dead)?

A

a ‘white neglige lightly soiled with blood, as it might be from a woman’s menses’
(menses means menstruation)

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30
Q

what is the rose that the countess has given the cyclist described as? what could this be symbolic of

A

‘dark, fanged rose I plucked from between my thighs, like a flower laid on a grave’
- the vagina dentata (the fanged vagina)

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31
Q

what does the vagina dentata link to anxieties about

A
  • fear of castration/injury for a man who has sex with a woman
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32
Q

give 3 different interpretations of the symbolism of the rose

A

Rose - the idea that the supernatural cannot be conquered

Rose - foreshadows the death of men in war (like how she killed men)/human evil/an ill omen/doom/fatalism/harbinger of death/inevitability of death

Rose - the vagina dentata (fanged vagina) is a folk tale ‘I leave you as a souvenir the dark, fanged rose I plucked from between my thighs, like a flower laid on a grave’ - the connection between sex and death in gothic fiction - sexual threat - adds to the ambiguity over whether the protagonist is the victim or sexual predator/villain

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33
Q

what does the countess feed on

A

men

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34
Q

what does the countess spend a great deal of time doing (apart from feeding on men)

A

counting tarot cards

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35
Q

what do the tarot cards usually say when the countess turns them over

A

‘wisdom, death, dissolution’

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36
Q

what does the countess wear

A

a ‘neglige of blood stained lace’

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37
Q

is the countess happy with being a vampire

A

no - she wants to be human and she doesn’t want to eat men

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38
Q

what is the countess’ castle described as

A

‘neglected’ and dark
the red wallpaper is damaged by rain
it is labyrinthine (‘endless corridors’)

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39
Q

the cyclist has what job

A

he is a young officer in the British army

40
Q

what does the cyclist look like

A

blonde, blue eyes, muscular

41
Q

how does the cyclist come to meet the countess

A
  • he decides to cycle through Romania
42
Q

give a quote about cycling as a mode of transport

A

‘most rational mode of transport’

43
Q

the cyclist is most of all ___

A

innocent

44
Q

give a quote about the cyclist’s rationality

A

‘he is also rational’

45
Q

what protects the cyclist from superstition

A

his innocence - his ‘unknowingness’
- however this also leads him to vulnerability
- this is similar to Harker

46
Q

what does the cyclist think about the countess’ eyes

A

‘her huge dark eyes almost broke his heart with their waif like, lost look’

47
Q

what does the cyclist think when he sees the countess’ mouth

A

he was disturbed [by her mouth] ‘even - he put the thought away from him immediately - a whore’s mouth’
□ Showing he attempts not to sexualise women, but all men are fated to do it and so he can’t quite achieve it

48
Q

is the cyclist a cat? give a quote supporting that

A

‘he is not a cat: he is a hero’
(if he had been a cat he would have jumped from her in fear)
His heroism ‘makes him like the sun’

49
Q

what character does Carter compare the cyclist to and why?

A

§ ‘he is like the boy in the fairy tale’ (he cannot feel ‘terror’ only ‘unease’

50
Q

what position does the countess occupy amongst the vampires

A

‘beautiful queen of the vampires’

51
Q

what are the countess’ ancestors described as

A

‘demented and atrocious ancestors, each one of whom, through her, projects a baleful posthumous existence’
- suggesting her crimes are not her fault but the fault of the curse of her ancestors

52
Q

is the countess happy or sad? give a quote

A

‘perennial sadness of a girl who is both death and the maiden’

53
Q

what type of natural landform is the countess?

A

a ‘cave full of echoes’

54
Q

give 2 quotes describing the countess’ castle

A
  • ‘dark red figured wallpaper…patterned by the rain’
  • ‘mostly given over to ghostly occupants’
55
Q

what is the countess’ beauty described as

A

an ‘abnormality’ (as she is unnaturally perfect)

56
Q

what is the countess’ beauty a symptom of

A

her ‘soullessness’

57
Q

her bedroom is ____in its design

A

funerary

58
Q

what does the countess wear during the day in her coffin

A

a ‘white neglige stained with blood’

59
Q

after Nosferatu dies, what does the countess inherit from him?

A

an ‘army of shadows’ which ‘torment pubescent girls with fainting fits, disorders of the blood, diseases of the imagination’

60
Q

give some animalistic language used to describe the counter when she catches the scent of animals to eat

A

‘crouching, quivering’ / ‘sniff the air and howl’

61
Q

which animal is the countess compared to?

A

a ‘cat’

62
Q

what is the countess’ life described as

A

‘habitual tormented somnambulism, her life or imitation of life’

63
Q

what royal role does the countess occupy

A

‘the queen of terror’ (even though she has a ‘horrible reluctance’ for the role)

64
Q

when the sun sets what does the countess change into wearing

A

her ‘mother’s wedding dress’

65
Q

does the countess like eating rabbits and men?

A

no, she hates it and she would prefer to take care of them

66
Q

what is the future described as in the story

A

‘irreversible’

67
Q

whenever a man is brought in for her to eat, what do the tarot cards read?

A

the ‘Grim Reaper’

68
Q

give the description of the cyclist’s appearance

A

‘blond, blue eyed, heavy-muscled’

69
Q

what is the cyclist described as in relation to Virginity?

A

he has the ‘special quality of virginity, most and least ambiguous of states: ignorance, yet at the same time, power in potential, and, furthermore, unknowingness, which is not the same as ignorance’

70
Q

what is the context around the ‘a single kiss woke up the ____ ____in the wood’?

A

sleeping beauty
- the countess overturns the tarot card of love (and then death) just after the description of the cyclist

71
Q

what is the context around the quotes from jack and the beanstalk and give the quotes

A

‘fee fie fo fum/i smell the blood of an Englishman’ and ‘be he alive or be he dead/I’ll grind his bones to make my bread’

  • these lines bookend the description of the cyclist (one is directly before, and the other is just after the countess overturns the tarot card for love)
72
Q

what animal is the mouth of the fountain in the square where the men stop to drink and wash and the countess’ servant lures them into the castle

A

a lion

73
Q

the roses are ‘bristling with ____’ and have a ‘___ sweetness’

A

thorns
corrupt

74
Q

what is the cyclist described as just before he enters the countess’ castle?
he exists within the ‘……’

A

‘invisible, even unacknowledged pentacle of his own virginity’

75
Q

what does the cyclist describe the countess’s body as

A

a ‘girl with the fragility of the skeleton of a moth’

76
Q

what does the countess look like to the cyclist?

A

a ‘child dressing up in her mother’s clothes’

77
Q

the countess’ eyes are ‘___’ but her mouth is ‘a ____ mouth’

A

waif like
whore’s

78
Q

give quotes comparing the countess to an automaton

A

‘she is like a doll…a great, ingenious piece of clockwork’
‘the idea that she might be an automaton’

79
Q

give a quote showing the control her ancestors have over her life:

A

‘she herself is a haunted house. she does not possess herself; her ancestors sometimes come and peer out of the windows of her eyes’

80
Q

give a quote about the countess’ liminality

A

‘she has the mysterious solitude of ambiguous states; she hovers in the no-man’s land between life and death, sleeping and waking’

81
Q

which rose is the countess compared to?

A

‘Nosferatu’s sanguinary rosebud’

82
Q

what is the cyclist immune to due to his virginty

A

‘shadow’

83
Q

what gives heroism to the hero?

A

‘lack of imagination’

84
Q

what will the cyclist learn to do in the trenches?

A

‘shudder. But this girl cannot make him shudder’

85
Q

when the bones of the countess’ victims are buried what happens to the roses the bones are buried under?

A

‘the food her roses feed on [bones] gives them their rich colour, their swooning odour, that breathes lasciviously of forbidden pleasures’

86
Q

when the cyclist follows the countess into her bedroom, what situation is he reminded of?

A

he was offered (but refused) access to a brothel where you could spend the night with a girl pretending to be dead on a coffin

87
Q

how do we know the cyclist is a sexual virgin?

A

he refuses the ‘initiation’ of the necrophilic brothel

88
Q

what happens to break the curse

A

the countess drops her glasses
as she picks up the glass it draws blood from her fingers
the cyclist kisses the wound
then she becomes human
then she dies

89
Q

what is the cyclist compared to when he kisses her wound?

A

her ‘mother’

90
Q

‘the end of exile is the end of ___’

A

being

91
Q

what was the cyclist planning to do with the countess before he found her dead?

A
  • he was going to take her to a clinic in Zurich to treat her for ‘nervous hysteria’
  • then to an optician for her ‘photophobia’ and a dentist for her teeth, a manicurist for her claws
  • he wants to ‘cure her of all these nightmares’
92
Q

what happens to the rose she gives him at the end of the story

A
  • the cyclist is called to his regiment
  • the flower doesn’t die
  • he puts it in water and it comes alive again
  • then he embarks for France (the final line)
93
Q

where is the countess’ castle

A

Romania

94
Q

give the quote describing the rose at the end of the story

A

‘flowing, velvet monstrous flower whose petals had regained all their former bloom and elasticity, their corrupt, brilliant baleful splendour ‘

95
Q

what is the final line?

A

‘next day, his regiment embarked for France’

96
Q
A

AA* - English (19 decks)

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