Introduction
A story serves many purposes to both the author and the reader. At times, it is the former’s opportunity to express themselves or ideas they have about a certain topic. For the reader, they can read to gain an understanding concerning a particular phenomenon. In this paper, there are three stories by different authors that have been written to help explain the cultural change according to the times. For instance, in The Nameless City and The Erl-King, perceptions about both the environment and women are altered while in Xeethra, the idea of a supreme being, that had been in the past, is reintroduced. This paper examines the three stories and explains how they respond to contemporary cultural changes and intellectual and social developments.
The Nameless City
The unknown narrator of the take moves into the middle of the Arabian Peninsula in an attempt of seeking out and entering a lost city. After hearing clanging sounds, they inspect mysterious carvings as well as ruins until dusk. The following day, they discover a cliff that is riddled with buildings unsuitable for human residence (Reppin, 2019). While attending to their nervous animal, they find a larger temple with painted murals, alters, and a staircase moving down. After descending, the torch stops functioning and they crawl on their hands and knees until they enter a hallway with wooden coffins having inside them reptiles.
The narrator notices a great amount of light from an unrecognized source. After crawling to it, they see an enormous door made of brass moving down into a misty porta. They then hear moaning sounds from a coffin passage and a strong wind attempting to drawn them towards the coffin. The narrator resists and sees what seems to be a reptile with a body that resembles that of a crocodile as well as a seal with a mysterious head common to none of the two animals. The creature had as well a protruding head, lacked a nose, and possessed horns. After the wind calms, the door closes and leaves them in the dark. The author stated that the tale is based on a vision which in turn is inspired by a line in another story.
Critics argue that one of the main inspirations of this tale is At the Earth’s Core by Edgar Rice. They claim that reptile race, hidden universe of eternal day, and tunnel to the earth’s interior are elements of the two stories (Reppin, 2019). Environment can be one aspect of cultural change, for instance, an alteration of idea about the surroundings can influence the culture. For example, before the exploration, individuals did not want to be associated with the nameless city and had unclarified information about it. However, after the narrator’s activities, more people would be interested in visiting or even residing in the area in future.
The Erl-King
The title of the story is derived from a folklore persona called an erlking. Conventionally, this is a mischievous elf that coaxes the youth with the intentions of killing them. The protagonist and narrator of the story recognizes and understands the tales. She appears to quote one when she states that the Erl-King will cause harm. The statement as well reveals that similar to the heroine in The Bloody Chamber, they are aware of the peril they face and thus, complicit in their own jeopardy. The narrator of this tale is not a naïve teen at the moment of narration. Instead, they are mature as well as purposeful in their actions.
Harriet Kramer Linkin calls the narrator a sophisticated consciousness due to her maturity and knowledge at the moment of narration which makes her more complicit than other Carter’s narrators. She confirms that the latter draws on romantic ideologies in the entire story of The Bloody Chamber. Nevertheless, whereas the romantics focused on nature as their source of spiritual clarification and life, in the Erl-King, it is as well a source of death and confinement. The first description by the narrator concerning the woods predicts already her entrapment. She represents the light filtering via the vegetation as “…these vertical bars of a brass-colored distillation of light coming down from sulphur-yellow interstices in a sky hunkered with grey clouds” (Neimneh & A Shureteh, 2020). Since she is complicit in the entrapment, she understands that she is in a cage from the first time she steps in the woods.
The narrator is subject to the power from the woods since everything inside there is as it appears. Any individual who goes into them imprints their own wants on them. On the one hand, she desires to be caught and it is important to note that the trap-like patterns of light are reflections of the wishes. She recognizes her insights by claiming that the light allows no obscurities. By stating that the color resembles that of Sulphur, she is referencing and predicting death. In literary tradition which includes poetry of the Romantic William Blake, the chemical element is an aspect linked to damnation and hell. The narrator in a sense is damned to caging from the opening of the story.
The story utilizes music to confine the narrator in what the author claims to be an “…idealized domesticity’s golden cage…” or “…the cage of Romantic subjectivity…” This is whereby a woman is viewed as a reflexive image, a depiction of what the man wants her to become. Carter is playing on the wish of the Romantic hero to tame the females he meets. The Erl-King traps individuals of the female gender who he finds in the woods and confines them. Afterwards, he traps them from beings free will to slaves. The sound of the bird call offers a great summary of this ideology. The initial one sounds similar to girlish as well as delicious loneliness turned into a sound.
The second one, in contrast, sounds “…as desolate as if it came from the throat of the last bird alive.” The initial call is from a free being which is an independent female while the other is that of a confined animal which is a dominated woman. Since the woods seem away from civilization, someone might claim that they need to be exempt from social constructs, for example, well-mannered, subservient female. Based on the narration, the woods are as they appear until a human being imprints them with their own notions. As Linkin states, “It is impossible for human beings to enter the wood without bringing their own sociocultural maps with them” (Neimneh & A Shureteh, 2020). The story challenges how the society view women especially in the area of romance. The woods are being likened to the world which lacks civilization but needs people with different novel ideas to change it. The tale responds to the contemporary cultural changes and social development by inventing new ideas. Similar to the The Nameless City, the author wants the reader to understand about the aspect of environment.
Xeethra
In pastoral Cincor, a young Xeethra is wandering his goat herd to an unrecognized plain. In spite of it being late, he opts for exploration, as suggested by (Skinner & Sontag, 1992). Upon discovering a cave, he follows it via a tunnel to a hidden valley. While there, he finds a mysterious field with uncommon vegetation and two giants standing on guard. In the middle of the flora, he takes a bite of a fruit he finds to be strange and realizes he was long ago King Amero if the Calyz. Returning to Pormos, he admits the realization while accepting that he strayed far and late. While the latter refutes the thoughts, he comes to a conclusion that there are particular passageways to the underworld of an evil god.
The following day, the author starts his journey to find the lost kingdom. Ultimately, he meets lepers who inform him concerning the lost Calyz many years ago. Filled with grief and sadness and staring at Canopus, the evil being shows themselves to Xeethra. Giving a deal for the latter’s soul in return to living out the heyday of the lost kingdom, the narrator agrees and relives as King Amero. In this story, one can find aspects that are similar to those in the first two. For instance, exploration, new ideas as well as environment which are all elements of contemporary cultural change (Skinner & Sontag, 1992). The desire to explore leads the author to discover that there was a time in the past that he was a king. It is his current environment that has made him realize this information through exploring.
Conclusion
The three stories namely have been able to examine the three stories and explains how they respond to contemporary cultural changes and intellectual and social developments. The Nameless City and The Erl-King, the paper shows that views on both the environment and women are changed while in Xeethra, the idea of a supreme being, a matter of the past, is reintroduced. The last story shows how far the narrator’s world has come in terms of social development.
References
Neimneh, S., & A Shureteh, H. (2020). Nature, caged birds, and constrained women: An ecocritical feminist reading of Angela Carter’s story the Erl-King.AWEJ for translation & Literary studies, 4. Web.
Reppin, A. (2019). The divided Earth (The Nameless City, Book 3).Canadian Children’s Book News, 42(1), 24-24. Web.
Skinner, B., & Sontag, S. (1992). Short story/” Xeethra. MLA International Bibliography of Books and Articles on the Modern Languages and Literatures, 1, 290.