The Gothic is undeniably intertwined with states of transformation, both literally, as with the presentation of supernatural beings who find themselves between life and death, and also thematically, with the idea of ​​transition periods and contexts. One of the great contradictions of Gothic literature is that, while transformations are an integral part of the genre, there remains a divide between novels that use it to portray a transgressive message and others that promote conformist morality. This contradiction becomes even more apparent when comparing Angela Carter's 20th-century The Bloody Chamber to Bram Stoker's 19th-century Dracula, as while both feature transformation, the former uses it as a positive force while the latter can be seen as cautionary and moralistic . to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essayBoth Carter and Stoker combine the Gothic trope of the "abhuman" with the idea of ​​transformation to convey completely different ideas about sexuality and gender. Dracula is perhaps most famous for his eponymous vampire, who serves as the novel's main antagonist. The vampire itself can be seen as an inherently transformative being, anthropomorphic overall but with disturbing corpse-like differences such as "sharp, protruding teeth" and "pale" complexions. But what distinguishes the Victorian vampire - as opposed to the original folklore - is his sensuality and "voluptuousness", also shown through the female vampires and halfway through the novel with the vampirisation of the protagonist Lucy. Lucy's literal transformation from an innocent into a "bloody and voluptuous" creature with a complexion reminiscent of "Medusa's serpents" embodies the role of the vampire in Stoker's novel. Early Gothic novels often focused on individual vampires, such as Polidori's "Vampire", and especially the lesbian vampire of Carmilla, from whom Stoker borrowed heavily. However, what distinguishes Stoker's vampires is not just the threat of a Dracula, but the threat of mass transformation – an anxiety that is undeniably intertwined with female sexuality. Even before her transformation Lucy showed signs of breaking Victorian sexual taboos, expressing a desire for polygamy when she proclaims "why can't a girl marry three men". Thus her transformation and extermination by her boyfriend who drives a phallic stake into her “deeper and deeper” can be read as a control of female sexual expression, and some modern critics have even interpreted the sequence as a euphemized form of corrective rape. , the transformation of Carter's protagonist in Tiger Bride can be read as an absolute rejection of traditional sexual morality. The protagonist of the story learns that to challenge the patriarchal system – expressed through her father who “lost me to the beast at cards” – “the lamb must learn to run with the tigers”. Carter uses the tiger and lion as representations of men and women, and in the novel's climax these biblical images become literal. In an almost magical realist manner, the narrator's skin is licked by the beast, revealing a "nascent veneer of lustrous hair." It is possible to see this as a Sadean approach to morality, with Carter appropriating the traditional story of Beauty and the Beast into a story in which beauty becomes beast and escapes her sacrificial role as lamb or - as Carter calls it - "exists in passive sense". . From a sex-positive feminist perspective, Carter, unlike Stoker, uses the Gothic trope of the transformation from human to ahuman to embrace female sexuality as a methodto overcome a system of oppression. In her novel The Sadian Woman she states that "either eat or be eaten", and the transformation of the Tiger's bride is perhaps best read as a fictionalized version of this vision. In the context of the 1970s this approach was radical, as even feminist opinion was divided over Carter's probably sympathetic interpretation of the sadistic Marquis de Sade. Therefore, unlike Dracula, the transformation is intentionally transgressive. Another way both authors convey a sense of transformation through structure and perspective. Stoker uses the form of an epistolary novel to tell his story, constantly changing perspectives to provide the reader with subjective accounts of events. This technique is also used in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein to similar effect, inducing a sense of verisimilitude, a common technique in Gothic literature to give the story a sense of realism. Carter also uses structure to evoke transformation. Her stories can be seen as the literary equivalent of a "Chinese box", as although they appear self-contained, some critics such as Sarah Gamble argue that when put together her narrators and protagonists become indistinguishable from each other. Therefore, it is not surprising that The Erl King, which serves as the central point, has a structure that reflects its transitional position in the collection; the tempo goes from “the woods enclose” to “Erl King will do you great harm in space” to “I walked through the woods” in the space of a few paragraphs. Through constantly shifting perspective and tension, Carter evokes a sense of transformation not only in his story but in the language itself. This is further supported by the oxymorons that pervade the piece, such as "grow enormously small", which reflects the narrator's contradictory feelings of repulsion and attraction towards Erl King. It is impossible to ignore the setting when dealing with the Gothic transformations in the work of Stoker and Carter. . Dracula begins in pre-industrialized Transylvania, in a “cornucopia” where “all the superstitions of the world combine.” Stoker's description of Transylvania distinguishes it as a world separate from the modernity of Victorian London, the former remaining a feudal system and the latter now dominated by the bourgeois middle classes. The clash between two settings and two time periods is a typical feature of the Gothic, and the genre has been read by critics as an expression of anxieties about demolishing the established order through social change. In fact, the very word “Gothic” comes from the original Goths who contributed to the fall of the Roman Empire. Dracula represents the turn-of-the-century strain of this anxiety, with turn-of-the-century fears of moral decline fueling much of the literature. For example, Wilde's – Stoker's friend – The Picture of Dorian Gray, and the movement of decadence that surrounded it. Furthermore, some postcolonial critics have linked the fear of the “vampirization” of London not only in a sexual light, but also as a representation of the collective unconscious: an invasion paranoia caused by the decline of the British empire and global presence. In both cases the transformation is presented in a negative light. In contrast, the transformation of the established order is presented positively in Carter's play The Lady of the House of Love. The setting of this story is also that of a gothic world which is externalized in the castle setting and internalized in the vampire woman who herself is "a cave full of echoes... a system of repetitions... a closed circuit" . By choosing to set his novel on the brink of World War I, Carter has the benefit of 20th-century hindsight.