The Tiger's Bride

Okay, so I changed my mind about Angela Carter.
Not about the Bloody Chamber, I really think she overdid the whole imagery thing in that one.
But I really enjoyed the Tiger's Bride, which I just finished (I'm a tad behind...). I think her descriptions actually work quite well in the context of this story. I was actually pretty surprised by the ending, when the girl becomes some sort of animal, at least figuratively. And unlike in the Bloody Chamber, I found myself very intrigued by the events that took place, and wanting to read on and on. I found it particularly interesting that at one point in the story the girl actually becomes aware of her innate inferiority that being a woman gives her. In traditional fairy tales, women are portrayed as sort of limp, weak beings, there simply to please the men in their lives, to be saved by a prince or something. While the female in this version of the story is indeed portrayed as being something of an object, at least to the men in her life (as her father loses her in a card game...) she becomes aware of her femininity and what that means to her.
"I certainly meditated on the nature of my own state, how I had been bought and sold, passed from hand to hand. That clockwork girl who had powdered my cheeks for me; had I not been allotted only the same kind of imitative life amongst men that the doll-maker had given her?"
Here she experiences a moment of self-aware recognition of her inherent state as a human woman. While she does not appear to continue thinking on the subject, or noting any particular unfairnesses with the situation, the fact that Angela Carter puts this realization in her text is somewhat momentous, and rather changes the focus and point of view of this classic fairy tale. It also colors the perspective of the girl throughout the rest of the story.
I found it really interesting. And now looking back at the other two stories, I can definitely see that the role of females is something that is discreetly highlighted throughout each... Hmm...