The Snow Child questions

In what ways does the tale allude to (link to) other stories or fairy tales?
The Snow Child links to other short stories from the prose 'The Bloody Chamber' by Angela Carter, as it contains a dominant male figure who is wealthy and who obtains a powerful stance in society, alongside a young, vulnerable female character as in the other short stories like 'The Bloody Chamber' and 'The Courtship of Mr Lyon'. In this story, the count longs for a young girl with 'white skin, red mouth, black hair' which also relates to the fairy tale of 'Snow White', in which the appearance of the young princess in the tale, mirrors that of the pure, young girl in 'The Snow Child'. There is also a malevolent, devilish female character in most fairy tales, which wish to do harm to the young, innocent female character. 'The Snow Child' directly mirrors this, as the Countess seeks to find any way possible to get rid of the young girl and finally succeeds in her desire when the snow child 'pricks her finger on a thorn' and dies.


How does this story link to the other stories in The Bloody Chamber collection?
The short story of 'The Snow Child' links to many other stories in Angela Carter's book of short stories, 'The Bloody Chamber'. It links to 'The Tiger's Bride' as the male character in both of the stories, look upon the young girl's based on their own sexual desire. In the Tiger's Bride, 'the beast' wants to 'see the pretty young lady unclothed nude without her dress' to satisfy his own desire of visual pleasure, similarly in The Snow Child, the Count views the young girl as his sole desire, the female he has longed for and lusts for, yet, unlike in The Tiger's Bride, the Count gains desire from 'thrusting his virile member into the dead girl' (raping the girl) instead of looking at her. The Snow Child also links to 'The Erl King' because again, both male characters sexualise the young females; The Erl King uses the girl as almost a sex slave when the Erl King 'lays her down on his bed of rustling straw where she lies at the mercy of his huge hands', likewise the Count in The Snow Child has sex with the naïve, innocent female.


The girl melts at the end.  Why do you think this is the case?  What do you think Carter could be trying to communicate?
In 'The Snow Child', Carter presents the young girl as a symbol of purity due to her skin that is 'white as snow'. At the end the child 'began to melt', this could be to represent the washing away of her purity, innocence and virginity and as she's a symbol of purity 'there was nothing left of her' by the end of the prose, once she had been violated by the Count when he 'unfastened his breeches and thrust his virile member into the dead girl' all innocence that she ever possessed is crushed. Alternatively, she could be melting back into the snow, the place in which she was created based upon the dream of the Count to have a girl 'as white as snow', therefore she would not have been real, either a figure of imagination, illusion or sorcery.


What do you think it means when the Countess says "It bites!" at the end?  What is "it"?
 Despite getting her wish of regaining the Count's attention, the Countess is 'bitten' by the rose when it pricks her finger. The rose is a symbolises femininity or the vaginal area, so when the Countess thinks 'it bites' it represents the suffering of every woman in every social class, as the elite cannot escape natural happenings.