“The Kiss” by Angela Carter

Introduction: “The Kiss” by Angela Carter

Published in 1979, Angela Carter’s short story “The Kiss” quickly gained popularity among readers and critics alike. The story originally appeared in the collection titled “The Bloody Chamber,” known for its feminist reimagining of classic fairy tales. “The Kiss” stands out in the collection for its use of vivid imagery that is both captivating and unsettling. The story’s enduring popularity lies in its powerful exploration of female desire and agency, as well as its bold subversion of traditional gender roles and expectations.

Main Events in “The Kiss” by Angela Carter

1. Introduction of Samarkand: The story introduces Samarkand, a city in Central Asia, known for its harsh winters and vibrant summers.
2. Description of City Life: Details depict the city’s unique architecture, bustling markets, and the daily life of Uzbek peasant women.
3. Tamburlaine’s Wife’s Mosque: Among the city’s ruins stands a mosque built by Tamburlaine’s wife, who aimed to surprise him with its completion.
4. The Architect’s Demand: The architect refuses to finish the mosque’s arch unless Tamburlaine’s wife kisses him.
5. Tamburlaine’s Wife’s Cunning Plan: She cleverly tricks the architect by offering him colored eggs to illustrate love’s uniformity, leading him to realize the folly of his demand.
6. The Architect’s Lesson: He learns about love’s complexity through a test involving vodka and water, realizing the true nature of desire.
7. The Kiss and Consequences: Tamburlaine’s wife kisses the architect, leading to conflict with Tamburlaine upon his return.
8. Tamburlaine’s Anger: Tamburlaine beats his wife after learning of the kiss and seeks vengeance on the architect.
9. The Architect’s Escape: Fearing for his life, the architect flees to Persia, evading Tamburlaine’s wrath.
10. Symbolism and Conclusion: The story concludes with reflections on the simplicity and complexity of human emotions, symbolized by the city’s geometric shapes and bold color.

Literary Devices in “The Kiss” by Angela Carter

1. Simile:
   • “the air caresses like the touch of the inner skin of the thigh” (opening paragraph)
   • “flowers like blown bubbles of blood” (when describing wild tulips)
2. Metaphor:
   • “the city’s throat-catching whiff of cesspits” (opening paragraph)
   • “Tamburlaine, the scourge of Asia” (describing the historical figure)
   • “a wet nest of garnets” (describing a split-open pomegranate)
3. Personification:
   • “The throbbing blue of Islam transforms itself to green” (describing the mosque’s tiles)
   • “…it is as if she [the lily seller] were waiting for Scheherazade to perceive a final dawn had come…”
4. Sensory Imagery:
   • “…sweating, foetid summers bring cholera, dysentery, and mosquitoes…” (opening paragraph)
   • “The market has a sharp, green smell. A girl with black-barred brows sprinkles water from a glass over radishes.”
   • “…the wheedling turtle-doves are nesting among the rocks.”
5. Symbolism:
   • The Lilies: May symbolize purity, but also ephemerality as the lily seller seems suspended in time.
   • The Eggs: Used in the story of Tamburlaine’s wife, representing the deceptive nature of appearances.
   • The Vodka: Also from the embedded tale, contrasting with water and symbolizing the transformative experience that prevents Tamburlaine’s wife from returning to her old life.
6. Hyperbole:
   • “They fasten their long hair in two or three dozen whirling plaits.”
7. Anaphora:
   • “red and white, black and white, red, green and white…” (describing the colors of women’s clothing)
8. Juxtaposition:
   • The starkness of winter/summer vs. the beauty of April
   • The paleness of architecture against the vibrancy of other details
   • The external beauty of Samarkand vs. its underlying poverty (“cesspits”)
9. Allusion:
   • The mention of Scheherazade (from One Thousand and One Nights), framing the lily seller as part of a timeless storytelling tradition.
10. Paradox:
    • “They exist, in all their glittering and innocent exoticism, in direct contradiction to history.”
11. Contrast:
    • The Uzbek women’s purposeful walk contrasts with the city as an “imaginary” place.
12. Motif:
    • The recurring emphasis on the color red, appearing in pomegranates, clothing, and even eggs from the embedded tale.
13. Irony:
    • The gap between the Uzbek people’s perception of their world and the narrator’s more historically informed view.
14. Allegory:
    • The embedded story of Tamburlaine’s wife can be read as an allegory for the power of female wit and the consequences of defying expectations.
15. Diction:
    • Carter’s choice of words like “throbbing,” “wheedling,” and “iridescent” add to the sensual, exotic feel of the story.

Characterization in “The Kiss” by Angela Carter

The Narrator:

• Observant and Outspoken: The narrator paints a vivid picture of Samarkand, with sharp attention to detail and often surprising comparisons. They are not afraid to voice opinions about the place and its people.
• Knowledge Gap: The narrator possesses historical and cultural knowledge that the Uzbek locals lack, creating a sense of dramatic irony. This highlights the story’s themes of perspective and constructed reality.
• Potential Unreliability: The narrator’s occasionally poetic, even florid language hints at potential subjectivity. Are their impressions of Samarkand completely accurate, or tinged with their own exoticism?

The Uzbek Women:

• External Focus: Presented primarily through their vibrant appearances: clothing, jewelry, hairstyles. This emphasizes how they are visually striking for the narrator, perhaps even objectified.
• Contradictions: Described as both “glittering and innocent”, suggesting a complex duality. The narrator is both fascinated by and dismissive of their painted eyebrows and seemingly unaware of their resilience in a historically patriarchal society.
• Representations: They symbolize both an enduring tradition (defiance of veiling) and a disconnect from the wider world and its historical forces.

The Old Lily Seller:

• Timeless: She’s characterized by her connection to nature (lilies, mountains) and seems to exist slightly outside of linear time. This links her with figures like Scheherazade, hinting at a connection to oral tradition.
• Passive: There’s an almost melancholic serenity to her, as if she’s not an active protagonist, but merely waiting.

Tamburlaine’s Wife (from the embedded folktale):

• Clever and Defiant: Her wit and resourcefulness are the core traits that drive the tale. She outmaneuvers the architect, highlighting both her intelligence and her resistance to male authority.
• Catalyst for Change: While her ultimate fate is unknown, her actions disrupt the status quo, both with the unfinished mosque and by rejecting her husband upon tasting a metaphorical freedom (“vodka”).

Additional Notes:

• Lack of Individuality: Outside of Tamburlaine’s wife, characters lack interiority. We don’t get their thoughts or deep motivations. This emphasizes the focus on surface impressions and cultural archetypes.
• Feminist Reading: The tale of Tamburlaine’s wife is a clear instance of a woman using her wit to defy power structures. However, it’s debatable how empowering Carter finds the other women, who seem more like props in an exotic landscape.

Major Themes in “The Kiss” by Angela Carter

Theme	Explanation	References from the Text
Perception vs. Reality	The narrator’s perception of Samarkand is shaped by their own cultural lens, contrasting with the lived reality of the Uzbek people.	* “They do not know what I know about them. They do not know that this city is not the entire world.” * “They exist, in all their glittering and innocent exoticism, in direct contradiction to history.”
The Power of Storytelling	Storytelling is a means of understanding and shaping the world. The embedded tale of Tamburlaine’s wife highlights this.	* The old lily seller linked to Scheherazade, hinting at the timelessness of oral tradition. * “This is a story in simple, geometric shapes and the bold colours of a child’s box of crayons.”
Female Agency & Defiance	Tamburlaine’s wife exemplifies female wit and the defiance of female social roles.	* Her cleverness with the eggs and vodka in outsmarting the architect. * Her rejection of her husband after her transformative experience (“no woman will return to the harem after she has tasted vodka”).
Illusion and Beauty	Samarkand is described as beautiful yet illusory. This tension highlights the deceptive nature of appearances and the constructed-ness of ‘exotic’ places.	*”Every city has its own internal logic. Imagine a city drawn in…bold colours of a child’s colouring box…” * “…beautiful as an illusion, where irises grow in the gutters.”
The Exotic ‘Other’	The Uzbek women are partially presented through the narrator’s outsider gaze, highlighting the act of ‘othering’ and its potential problems.	* The descriptions of their clothing, painted brows, and general lack of interiority. * The narrator’s awareness of their disconnect from historical forces shaping their world.

Writing Style in “The Kiss” by Angela Carter

Characteristics:

• Sensory Evocation: Carter uses vivid imagery to appeal to all the senses.
  • “the air caresses like the touch of the inner skin of the thigh”
  • “The market has a sharp, green smell”
  • “wheedling turtle-doves”
• Surprising Comparisons: Metaphors and similes are often unexpected and slightly unsettling.
  • “flowers like blown bubbles of blood” (describing wild tulips)
  • “the city’s throat-catching whiff of cesspits”
• Blending of the Poetic and the Mundane: Carter mixes lyrical, almost fairytale-like descriptions with stark observations
  • “The Revolution promised the Uzbek peasant women clothes of silk…” (This factual statement is stark in contrast to the more poetic language around it)
  • The juxtaposition of vibrant beauty (“iridescent crusts of ceramic tiles”) with reminders of poverty (“cesspits”)
• Emphasis on Color: The story is full of vibrant color descriptions, particularly focused on reds, bold stripes, and the contrast between pale architecture and other elements.
  • “red and white, black and white, red, green and white, in blotched stripes of brilliant colours”
  • “…low, blonde terraces of houses…”
• Playful, Sensual Tone: There’s a subtle sensuality to Carter’s prose, hinting at an undercurrent of desire and the exotic.
  • The initial comparison of air to the “inner skin of the thigh”
  • Words like “throbbing” and “voluptuous” in describing the mosque
• Embedded Folktale: The story-within-a-story of Tamburlaine’s wife shifts the style, mirroring a traditional folktale with its archetypes and simple language.

Possible Influences/Connections:

• Gothic Sensibility: The slightly unsettling comparisons and focus on the grotesque hint at a connection to the Gothic literary tradition.
• Myth and Fairy Tales: The structure, as well as some of the language, link to archetypes found in fairy tales and myths.
• Modernism: The fragmentation of perspective (narrator vs. Uzbeks) and questioning of conventional reality could be linked to modernist literary concerns.

Overall Effect:

Carter’s style creates a sense of lushness and disorientation, mirroring the narrator’s experience of Samarkand as both beautiful and slightly unsettlingly ‘other.’ It is deliberately evocative rather than coldly objective.

Literary Theories and Interpretation of “The Kiss” by Angela Carter

Literary Theory	Key Concepts	How it Applies to “The Kiss”
Feminist Criticism	* Examines representations of women. * Challenges traditional gender roles. * Analyzes power dynamics and patriarchal structures.	* Focus on the defiance of Tamburlaine’s wife, highlighting her wit and agency. * Critique of the narrator’s objectifying gaze towards Uzbek women. * Exploration of how the story reinforces or subverts stereotypes about women in the ‘East’.
Postcolonial Criticism	* Looks at works through the lens of colonization and its aftermath. * Questions the ‘exotic’ portrayal of non-Western cultures. * Examines power imbalances between the observer and the observed.	* Analyzes the narrator’s position as an outsider with superior knowledge to the Uzbeks. * Explores how Samarkand is portrayed as both beautiful and frozen in time, potentially reinforcing Orientalist tropes.
Reader-Response Criticism	* Focuses on the reader’s role in creating meaning. * Different readers might have vastly different interpretations. * Emphasizes subjective experience in reading literature.	* Highlights potential ambiguity in the story – is the narrator reliable, or are their views colored by prejudice? * Considers how a reader’s own cultural background might shape their understanding of Samarkand and the women portrayed.
New Historicism	* Examines literature in its historical context. * Recognizes that history is a construct, not an absolute truth. * Considers how power structures shaped the creation of the work.	* Explores Carter’s writing in the context of late 20th-century feminism and evolving views on the ‘East’. * Questions how the story represents Central Asia, given that Carter likely never visited the region herself.
Psychoanalytic Criticism	* Explores unconscious desires and motivations. * Uses Freudian concepts like the id, ego, and superego. * Looks for symbols and repressed meanings.	* Potentially investigates the sensual descriptions of Samarkand as hinting at the narrator’s underlying desires. * Analyzes the tale of Tamburlaine’s wife in terms of a woman’s struggle against patriarchal restrictions.

Questions and Thesis Statements about “The Kiss” by Angela Carter

Research Question	Thesis Statement
How does Angela Carter’s portrayal of the Uzbek women both reinforce and challenge Orientalist stereotypes of the exotic ‘Other’?	Angela Carter’s “The Kiss” reveals a tension between fascination with the ‘exotic’ in her descriptions of Uzbek women and a subtle critique of the outsider’s gaze that objectifies them.
How does the embedded folktale of Tamburlaine’s wife function as a subversive commentary on female agency within the larger context of the story?	The folktale of Tamburlaine’s wife disrupts the more passive representation of Uzbek women in the main narrative, offering a model of female wit and defiance against patriarchal expectations.
How does Carter use sensory imagery and vivid color symbolism to create a sense of both allure and disorientation in her depiction of Samarkand?	Carter’s rich sensory language and emphasis on color in “The Kiss” construct Samarkand as a place of dazzling beauty, yet also convey a subtle unease, mirroring the narrator’s complex experience of the city.
To what extent can the narrator of “The Kiss” be considered a reliable observer of Samarkand and its people?	The narrator’s position as an outsider, their tendency toward poetic overstatement, and their historical knowledge call into question their reliability, highlighting the subjective nature of perception in Carter’s story.
How does Carter’s writing style blur the lines between the poetic and the factual, and how does this contribute to the themes of illusion and reality in “The Kiss”?	Angela Carter’s blend of lyrical prose and stark observations undermines a clear distinction between reality and the imagined in “The Kiss,” reflecting how Samarkand itself is presented as both beautiful and deceptive.

Short Question-Answer “The Kiss” by Angela Carter

Q1: How does the story’s setting shape its themes?

A1: Samarkand, with its ancient mosques and vibrant markets, acts as a stage for exploring the clash between perception and reality. The narrator’s initial awe at its beauty (“iridescent crusts of ceramic tiles”) contrasts with reminders of its harsh climate and the Uzbek women’s resilience. This tension highlights how ‘exotic’ places are often constructed through an outsider’s lens, potentially obscuring the lived reality of its inhabitants.

Q2: What role does the story of Tamburlaine’s wife play?

A2: The folktale provides a counterpoint to the narrator’s observations about Uzbek women. Unlike their seemingly passive acceptance of tradition, Tamburlaine’s wife embodies wit and defiance. Her refusal to return to her husband after a transformative experience (“tasted vodka”) suggests a potential for female agency, even within a patriarchal structure.

Q3: Is the narrator reliable?

A4: The narrator’s tendency towards poetic flourishes (“the air caresses like the touch of the inner skin of the thigh”) and their outsider status calls their reliability into question. Their focus on the Uzbek women’s appearances, rather than internal lives, hints at objectification. This raises questions about the dangers of an exoticizing gaze that prioritizes surface impressions over deeper understanding.

Q4: What is the significance of the lilies?

A5: The lily seller, with her connection to nature and seeming indifference to linear time, symbolizes a different worldview from the narrator’s historically-informed perspective. The lilies could represent both purity and the fleeting nature of beauty. This contrasts with the city’s manufactured illusion of permanence, hinting at a deeper reality beyond what the narrator can fully grasp.

Suggested Readings

Critical Studies on Angela Carter:

• Day, Aidan. Angela Carter: The Rational Glass. Manchester UP, 1998.
• Munford, Rebecca. Re-visiting Angela Carter: Texts, Contexts, Intertexts. Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.
• Sage, Lorna. Angela Carter. 2nd ed., Northcote House Publishers, 2005.

Works Dealing with Themes of Orientalism and ‘Othering’:

• Said, Edward. Orientalism. Vintage Books, 1979.

Collections that Include “The Kiss”:

• Carter, Angela. American Ghosts & Old World Wonders. Vintage, 1994.
• Carter, Angela. Burning Your Boats: Collected Short Stories. Penguin Classics, 2008.

Online Resources:

• The Angela Carter Society. http://angelacartersociety.com/.