The Lady of the House of Love - Critical Extract C

Sometimes the legends are uncanny just because they are so enigmatic. [...]

   - Angela Carter, 'The German Legends of the Brothers Grimm', in Expletives Deleted

The interpretation furthers our understanding of The Lady of the House of Love by suggesting that the characters are unsettling or mysterious, especially the Countess, because they are so difficult to understand and shrouded in mystery. Carter provides this rich and darkly vibrant description of the Countess' surroundings and describes the Countess herself as simultaneously death-like yet perfect. Carter develops this character into a seductress, almost like a succubus. These ideas of perfection combined with chaos present a confusing image designed to draw us in to the danger and death that surrounds this character, similar to the how the characters are also drawn in and fall victim to the Countess.

"The beautiful queen of the vampires sits all alone in her dark" is a good example of this. We get this obvious description of "beautiful" but are then faced with her being "all alone in her dark"; we question why she is all alone if she is so beautiful. Also, it is "her" dark, which shows that she has an air of mystery about her, that darkness follows wherever she goes; she is this dominant, supernatural entity that represents or indeed is death!
"Keep out every leak of natural light" emphasises once more the darkness that surrounds the Countess. By noting that it is "natural light", we can therefore contrast the Countess with this and assume that there is something unnatural about her.

Carter, therefore, begins to show how she uses the Gothic elements of the supernatural and also duality, notably with life and death (which is heavily present throughout the story), to create an enigmatic character which helps to build the unsettling nature behind them.