THE BLOODY CHAMBER by Angela Carter Harper & Row; 164 pages; $8.95
The most enduring stories carry the heaviest freight. Commentators as disparate as O.K. Chesterton, W.H. Auden and Bruno Bettelheim have recognized Mother Goose rhymes and fairy and folk tales for what they are: Rorschach tests for the fears of childhood. Cruel stepmothers, tyrannical taskmasters, the sudden wolf on the path, all stand vividly for the capricious powers that prey on the powerless, for the nightmare of helplessness that growing up fails to outgrow.
Such fundamental tales can be made to mean...
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