Why do you think Carter chose the title for this tale? The Erl-King

The Erl-King

Why do you think Carter chose this title for this tale? How appropriate do you think it is and why?

Definition: The Erlking (German: Erlkönig, "Alder King") is depicted in a number of German poems and ballads as a malevolent creature that haunts forests and carries off travelers to their deaths.

The title ‘The Erl-King’ was used in a European folklore persona, as the ‘erlking’. An ‘erlking’ can typically be described in this form as a mischievous sprite or an elf that lures young people with the intent of killing them. Immediately from the beginning of the story we are made aware that the narrator is conscious of the fact that the Erl King offers danger to herself – ‘The Erl-King will do you grievous harm.’ Linkin goes as far as to describe the narrator as ‘a highly sophisticated consciousness.’ It is clear from this quote that the narrator is aware of her subjugation to the ‘green man’ as she responds actively to the birdcall from the Erl King informing the reader that she is aware of the consequences of her actions.  Throughout the other Bloody Chamber tales, specifically the Bloody Chamber, the female narrator can be described as naïve and immature. However, this is not the case of the woman, as she allows him to call her a ‘skinned rabbit’ as he bites her neck.

The narrator of the story becomes aware that the birds entrapped by the Erl King and unable to sing as they ‘cannot find their way out of the woods’. He entraps the women who wonder the forest at their own free will to become suppressed by his status of being a man, and therefore dominant, as they submissively (and perhaps unwittingly) become his servant. This conversely, does not apply to the narrator. The initial description of the woods foreshadows her later entrapment by the Erl King –‘these vertical bars of a brass-coloured distillation of light coming down from sulphur-yellow interstices in a sky hunkered with grey clouds…’ The ‘vertical bars’ can be linked to the gothic theme of entrapment, as the narrator becomes what can typically be described as passive, demure woman trapped and suppressed by the male’s dominant nature.

The adjective ‘sulphur’ is used to describe the colour of the bars envisaged by the narrator. In Blake’s The French Revolution, ‘sulphur’ holds connections with death, which can be identifiable in Carter’s Erl King as it is reflected in the foreshadowing of death of the Erl King as the tale concludes. The Erl King’s role as the dominant character in the tale is reversed in the conclusion of the story as the narrator decides her own fate as the dominant character when the death of the Erl King and the fiddle which is made of the Erl King’s hair calls her ‘mother’ is demonstrative of her as a woman with which the power newly resides.

Conclusively, the title can be called appropriate to the tale as the narrator describes the Erl King as a ‘tender-butcher’. It is the irony within this statement that allows the Erl King to fit with the description of someone who ‘lures young people with the intent of killing them’. Whilst the narrator allows the Erl King to dominate her arouses her, he is also corrupting her status as a free-willed female. Despite the Erl King being her lover, he is also a destroyer of the narrator at the same time. The entrapment that the Erl King offers in the cages he has trapped birds also fits with the description that he ‘lures young people with the intent of killing’ providing an additional reason that the Erl King is a suitable title.