In "The Tiger's Bride,"Angela Carter uses the theme of the objectification of women to transform the heroine from mere possession into a strong and powerful narrator. With dialogue the reader is aware that the heroine is compared to an item. Once the heroine notices the symbolism around her, she realizes that she is an object. The heroine must embrace her animalistic qualities to rid herself of objectification.
With the opening scene of "The Tiger's Bride," the reader is aware that the heroine is seen as an object that can be bought and sold for her owner's pleasure and advantage. The key example of the theme of objectification is the heroine's father losing her to the Beast during a card game as though she were a mere possession. Carter uses the words "pearl" and "treasure" to demonstrate that the heroine is an object (157) . These words are considered compliments, but Carter reveals their objectifying overtones by having both the heroine's father and The Beast use them in the context of her sale.
The theme of objectification continues throughout the story with the resemblance of the heroine to the soubrette. Not only is the soubrette like a doll, but the heroine powders her cheeks so that she looks like one. This symbolism is aware to the heroine, who speculates, "That clockwork girl who powdered my cheeks for me; had I not been allotted only the same kind of imitative life amongst men that the doll-maker had given her?" (165) Carter uses the soubrette as a symbol of society's ideal creation of femininity. The soubrette embodies the vanity and shallowness that characterize society's idea of a woman. The soubrette needs someone to wind her up so that she can perform her maid's tasks. This demonstrates that women are thought unable to think and act for themselves. Once the heroine begins to claim her own desires, she says that she no longer resembles the soubrette. Since she can no longer submit to society's female stereotypes and she plans to send the soubrette home in her place. She declares, "I will dress her in my own clothes, wind her up, send her back to perform the part of my father's daughter" (167) . Through the symbol of the soubrette, Carter shows the reader that this view of women weakens their character and prevents them from fulfilling their potential.
The heroine in "The Tiger's Bride" realizes that men treat her like the soubrette and that no matter how hard she tries to equal them, they will always see her as a poor imitation of a person. Suddenly, she realizes that she is no different from The Beast, who wears his mask painted with a man's face to pretend he is a man. The perfection of this mask frightens the narrator because it represents the model of perfection, civility and conformity to which she is bound. She does not want to be an object and therefore is disgusted that the Beast looks like one. The heroine again expresses her hatred of objectification when she throws her present of diamond earrings into a corner.
The heroine's objectification continues until the end of the story. When out riding, the heroine contends that men see women as soulless, just as they see animals as soulless; she says, "The six of us, mounts and riders both-could boast amongst us not one soul ... Since all the best religions in the world state categorically that not beasts nor women were equipped with the flimsy, insubstantial things" (165) . For this reason, she feels closer to Beast, the valet, and their horses, than she ever has to a man. Instead of wishing for a soul, she condemns them by calling them "flimsy" and "insubstantial" (165) . She feels that the men who claim to possess souls consider her no more than an item of physical worth.
In "The Tiger's Bride", the heroine must accept the animal nature in herself and in The Beast so that she can be free of the human world with its social constructs and objectification. Women, Carter feels, must break free of their weak, doll-like social identities and embrace the parts of them that are strong, and "the lamb must learn to run with the tigers" (166) . However, Carter does not say that women are lambs and must learn to be tigers. Instead she shows that they are tigers who are made to think they are lambs. Carter wants the reader to learn that the heroine has not been an object. Instead she has been a tiger underneath her skin for all her life.