The Loves of Lady Purple:
Gina Wisker:
“constructions and representations of power which render women as automata, puppets and
femme fatale”
“only the marvellous existed” infallible statement, potential foreshadowing of disaster but also the
miraculous.
“no such thing as daylight” sense of entrapment, can’t escape, obscurity and darkness and unknown
“puppet master” indicates control and manipulation, lack of free will
“puppet master always dusted with a little darkness” mysterious, potential for corruption, dusting
implies that perhaps not entirely visible initially, only the finer details
“the more accurate the symbiosis between inarticulate doll and articulating fingers” – lack of agency,
dominant control, submissiveness. Deception.
“puppeteer speculates in a no-man’s-limbo between real and that which seems to be real” liminality,
appearance vs. reality
“the dolls, the undead, who cannot live at all and yet who mimic the living in every detail” uncanny,
disguise, concealment. Transgressive as undead and yet have never lived.
“spring from their graves” death
“imitations of men and women with an exquisite precision which is all the more disturbing because
we know it to be false”
“a dark, superstitious Transylvania” archetypal setting of vampires and the undead
“beastliness in the forest”, forest is the place of the subconscious, uncivilised and wild.
“so delicately distanced from humanity” isolated and separate, pariahs and outsiders. Have no
home, wanders. Slightly other.
“comprehended to any degree the foreign”
“fairground … freedom from actuality”
Circus often associated with outcasts, otherness and pariahs of society. Things that the gothic is
interested in. “share the sullen glamour of deformity” “the grotesque is the order of the day”
“lady purple was Queen of the Night”
“glass rubies in her head for eyes” link to Rubie necklace in Bloody chamber
“her ferocious teeth” link to Lady of House of Love
“permanent smile” lack of control
“her beautiful hands seemed more like weapons”
“a purple the colour of blood in a love suicide” death
Gina Wisker:
“constructions and representations of power which render women as automata, puppets and
femme fatale”
“only the marvellous existed” infallible statement, potential foreshadowing of disaster but also the
miraculous.
“no such thing as daylight” sense of entrapment, can’t escape, obscurity and darkness and unknown
“puppet master” indicates control and manipulation, lack of free will
“puppet master always dusted with a little darkness” mysterious, potential for corruption, dusting
implies that perhaps not entirely visible initially, only the finer details
“the more accurate the symbiosis between inarticulate doll and articulating fingers” – lack of agency,
dominant control, submissiveness. Deception.
“puppeteer speculates in a no-man’s-limbo between real and that which seems to be real” liminality,
appearance vs. reality
“the dolls, the undead, who cannot live at all and yet who mimic the living in every detail” uncanny,
disguise, concealment. Transgressive as undead and yet have never lived.
“spring from their graves” death
“imitations of men and women with an exquisite precision which is all the more disturbing because
we know it to be false”
“a dark, superstitious Transylvania” archetypal setting of vampires and the undead
“beastliness in the forest”, forest is the place of the subconscious, uncivilised and wild.
“so delicately distanced from humanity” isolated and separate, pariahs and outsiders. Have no
home, wanders. Slightly other.
“comprehended to any degree the foreign”
“fairground … freedom from actuality”
Circus often associated with outcasts, otherness and pariahs of society. Things that the gothic is
interested in. “share the sullen glamour of deformity” “the grotesque is the order of the day”
“lady purple was Queen of the Night”
“glass rubies in her head for eyes” link to Rubie necklace in Bloody chamber
“her ferocious teeth” link to Lady of House of Love
“permanent smile” lack of control
“her beautiful hands seemed more like weapons”
“a purple the colour of blood in a love suicide” death
