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Hell Hath No Fury

The story of Adam and Eve dictated how men and women were to act in the
Bible and consequently influenced the creation of gender roles in Western society.
Since the fateful day man and woman indulged in the forbidden fruit, Gods
message to Eve has put women in their place: in pain you shall bring forth children,
yet your desire shall be for your children, and he shall rule over you. To Adam, he
said in toil you shall eat of the [cursed ground] all the days of your life in the
sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground (Genesis 1-3).
The church sanctified these punishments and men, who felt that it was their Godgiven right to instill subservience in women, gladly obliged. Christianitys version of
Creationism isnt universally accepted, but the Christian interpretation of gender
roles spread throughout Western culture (Christopher 144) and became the
indisputable way in which society pigeonholed the sexes.
Ever since men treated the he shall rule over you part as if it were Gospel
truth, most women who desired to attain a respectable position of authority outside
of their own home were left sorely disappointed. The struggle for equality began
long before the 1970s, but in America it was the decade that gave women their best
chance to upset the entrenched oppression of women. The Civil Rights movement of
the 1960s pushed America toward thinking in terms of the equality of the sexes,
and soldiers in Vietnam left women at home to fill in the gaping hole left in the
workforce. The 60s had laid the groundwork for the subsequent decade of feminist
gains; Roe vs. Wade gave women the right to choose abortion, Title IX guaranteed
funding for womens athletics, and the number of women in the workforce
skyrocketed (Bailey 108). It was the first time that average women could feel
freedom of opportunity outside of a kitchen, and the first time women werent

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steered at an early age toward a narrow range of possibilities (Bailey 115).
Women were feeling powerful, yet there were still men that claimed the feminist
movement was nothing more than a small band of bra-less bubbleheads (Bailey
112).
Brian De Palmas Carrie manifests the domestic and social injustices felt by
some women of the era. The film explores the repression of women by a sexist
society and the scorn that is created among women themselves as a result. All of
the women in Carrie associate Carrie White with an aspect of female sexuality that
they fear or hate. Her mother, raped as a youth, sees the sexuality emerging from
Carries entrance into puberty and loathes it. Sex is scarring for Ms. White and she
uses extreme Christian fundamentalism to crush Carries pubescent curiosity before
Carrie becomes a victim as well. The other girls at school see Carrie as the
embodiment of their own sexual insecurities. They need a girl to scapegoat as the
ugliest or most awkward in order to boost their own self esteem. However, Carrie is
not pushed around for long. Her violent transformation from victim to villain means
the destruction of the society that has wronged her. Once an angel of purity, Carrie
is baptized in blood to become an angel of death whose charge it is to purge the
small town of the judgment and scorn it had unjustifiably passed. De Palma employs
a symbolism of violence to express the natural power of women as well as the
sexual repression and judgment imposed upon them.
The film opens on the volleyball court of a high school, where a friendly game
turns sour as Carrie is bullied for missing a pass. The malevolence directed at the
skinny, awkward girl is cut short as the set shifts and the camera pans across a
revealing scene. Dreamy music arises to accompany a menagerie of playful, naked,
young women in a steamy locker room. The girls frolic with each other good

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naturedly, reminiscent of nymphs at play in a secluded enclosure. They seem
innocent and carefree, and behind them you can see Carrie alone in the shower. The
camera cuts to her face, eyes closed, as a phallic showerhead sprays her down. She
scrubs her body and the camera follows her hands as they proceed downward to
her chest, then her stomach, and finally, her thighs. She cleans herself in slow
motion, hands moving back and forth, until blood begins to flow. The music stops.
Time recovers. Carrie looks down at the blood on her hand. Suddenly, the locker
room transforms into a place of panic as Carrie frantically runs, naked and bloody,
toward the worldly crowd of girls that know what she does not: she has just started
her period. Sensing her vulnerability, the girls force her into a corner and stone her
with tampons. The abrupt transformation of innocent young women into snarling
Harpies sets a tone of duplicity from which Carrie never recovers (Dmetri 4).
They choose to persecute Carrie because she is the weakest of them. Not only is
she ignorant of the female phenomenon that is menstruation, but she is also late in
developing it. This first scene delineates the alienation of Carrie from the rest of the
girls, and this split among women causes a chain reaction that results in the
downfall of the entire school.
The girls standing in the locker room look upon Carrie, stained with blood, in
horror and disgust. They push her away like a leper instead of offering reassurance
based on similar experience. The only advice they give is Plug it up!, which
echoes throughout the locker room as they pelt her with tampons. The disgust
directed at Carrie because of her period is hypocritical and typical of the stigma
placed on menstruation by Western culture. Even in audiences watching the movie,
the emergence of the period breaks the unspoken social contract that most
civilized men and women adhered to, which includes the notion that

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menstruation must remain hidden (Laws 182). Women of Western culture were
conditioned to believe that a womans period was something taboo, while in other
cultures, a woman menstruating was believed to express her deepest power
(Buckley and Gottlieb 121). The negative social stigma that a womans period bears
is also exemplified in the principals reaction in the following scene. Upon seeing the
blood stained shorts of the gym coach that saved Carrie, the principal sends Carrie
home in a visibly distracted and uncomfortable demeanor. His weak, bureaucratic
attitude toward the situation, coupled with his inability to remember Carries name,
deepens the alienation that Carrie already feels. His blatant ignorance frustrates
Carrie, who unconsciously asserts herself through telekinesis to flip an ashtray on
the desk in a fit of repressed anger. Here, we can see the beginnings of a power
developing in Carrie as a result of her first period in combination with intense
feelings of repression that are manifested in the subsequent scenes.
It becomes painfully obvious why Carrie has been ignorant of such a natural
female function when we are introduced to her mother, Ms. White. She knocks on
her neighbors door, and a woman around her age reluctantly lets her in. The
woman is the mother of Sue Smith, a girl in Carries class. Ms. White asks the
mother about the state of her daughters salvation and offers literature that falls on
uninterested ears. My Sue is a good girl, the mother says in defense. These are
godless times, Ms. Smith. Ill drink to that, replies Ms. Smith in ironic agreement.
The movie progresses to the Whites house; Carries father is not there and never
has been. The telephone rings, shocking Ms. White as if she had forgotten it was
even there. After a brief conversation, we can assume that the school secretary has
called to inform her that Carrie started her period that day. She calls Carrie
downstairs. Bashfully, Carrie approaches her mother who says, Youre a woman

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now. When Carrie responds with Why didnt you tell me, Mama?, her mother
lunges forward and strikes Carrie with a book. She then reads from the book a
chapter entitled The Sins of Women. She tells Carrie that Eve was weak and
unleashed the Raven of Sin upon the world, and as punishment she was stricken
with the Curse of Blood. Carrie cries as her mother perpetuates Gods punishment:
Repeat it, woman! Then, her mother drags her into a dark closet and locks her in.
Carries mother is an anachronism in modern society. She surrounds herself
with religion and fundamentalist notions that are as oppressive as the girls that
barraged Carrie with tampons earlier. Ms. Whites religion passes judgment on her
as freely as the girls at school judge Carrie. The rejection that she faces at her
neighbors house as well as her puzzled attitude towards her ringing telephone
implies that she has no friends. More importantly, it implies that the entirely
outdated and even ignorant attitude that she represents has no place in an
increasingly feminist society. The pamphlet she reads to her daughter is reminiscent
of what Western culture had been bred to believe hundreds of years ago. It taught
that Eve was solely responsible for unleashing sin upon the world because she was
weak, and that her period was a curse because of the sexuality it implied. Her
mother drags her daughter into a dark closet literally and metaphorically; her
actions represent Christian societys long history of female oppression. At this
important juncture in any young womans life, a mother is needed to communicate
about this shared experience to make sense of it psychologically (Kissling 95).
Carries mother instead represses Carrie in the same manner that religion has
repressed herself, keeping her ignorant.
Finally, Carrie is freed from the closet and sent to her room. After making
peace with her mother, she goes upstairs and cries in front of the mirror until it

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suddenly shatters. This is the first moment that Carrie becomes aware of her
telekinetic power. Significantly, her newfound power destroys the image of Carrie
crying and pitying herself. This marks Carries duplicitous development into victim
and villain. The noise that Carrie makes draws the attention of her mother, who
ascends the stairs to find Carrie praying. It is clear that she knows something
strange is going on with her daughter. Her belief that her daughter is unusual is
important when she decides later in the movie that Carries strangeness is
antagonistic to her religious beliefs. Later, Carrie is in the library looking up the
power that she has come to possess- the power of telekinesis. As she looks up
calling cards under the tab Miracles, she passes several books with names such
as Hidden Powers of the Mind and Cosmic Consciousness, until she finds a book
titled The Secret Science Behind Miracles. The book defines telekinesis as the
ability to move or to cause changes in objects by force of the mind, but offers no
explanation for how this phenomenon takes place. Why does this power choose
Carrie to serve as its vessel? In Christian theology, telekinesis was a power believed
to be possessed only by angels and demons. Small spirits were thought to move the
object in question in accordance to the will of its metaphysical master. This
supernatural power arrives with the onset of Carries period or, as her mother
interprets it, The Curse of Blood. However, her mother ignores the fact that
Christianity views blood as a source of both sin and salvation. Carries power is one
of duplicity. It grants her the strength to stand up against the persecution passed
unto her by a sinful society as well as the ability to unmercifully annihilate it. Her
telekinesis empowers her to not only defend herself, but to later destroy the
societal norm that had kept her underfoot during these godless times.

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Meanwhile, scorn is being bred as a gym coach gathers all of the girls
responsible for pelting Carrie with tampons and reprimands them. They are given
punishment for harassing one of their own a weeks worth of detention. In
addition, the coach decrees that failure to comply with detention would result in
refusal of all the girls prom tickets. Instantly, moans, groans, and scoffs of
devastation echo throughout the gym. Obviously it is not Carrie Whites feelings
that they are concerned with, but rather boys, dates, and the prom. They are
consequently made to do physical drills like jumping jacks and sit ups while the
most popular girl, Chris, steadily grows more and more outraged. Finally, she breaks
down and refuses to be punished any longer. She openly rebels against the gym
teacher leading the drills and calls her a bitch, resulting in a strike across the face
from the coach. In an outrage she cries, You cant get away with this! She cant get
away with this if we stick together! All of the other girls remain silent, and Chris is
forced to storm off alone with revenge heavy on her mind.
Chris and the other girls who isolate Carrie from the rest of the group are part
of the sinful society that Carrie wants to change. They are all a part of a
dysfunctional matriarchy with Chris at the head and Carrie at the bottom. Carrie,
who seeks acceptance beyond her caste, threatens to overthrow the society in
which the other girls fit in perfectly. These girls parallel those in the 70s that
resented feminism and womens lib (Bailey 110). Those were the women that did
not object to the repression of which others complained, and perhaps had even
benefited from mens objectification of them. Chris is the most visible example of
such women. Because she is the prettiest and the most popular, she benefits the
most. Women that persecuted feminists for exploring their full potential are at least
as guilty as the society that kept them ignorant in the first place. Just as Chris cries

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for all of her female friends to stick together so that they may triumph, she selfishly
splits them when it is in her own interest. Even the gym coach is guilty of
perpetuating the hatred among the girls by brutally punishing them and striking
Chris. The coachs well intended, but overly meddlesome, punishment in defense of
Carrie intensifies the hatred Chris has for her. Chris, her position as head of the
matriarch challenged, directs her fury at Carrie for toppling her pyramid and seals
Carries fate.
A ray of mercy lightens the violent tension in the previous scene. Sue, one of
the girls guilty of persecuting Carrie, makes an attempt to assimilate her into
normalcy and establishes herself as the only repentant character in the movie. Even
though Sue was as excited for the prom as the other girls, she willingly sacrifices
her own ticket and asks her boyfriend Tommy to take Carrie instead. Tommy
reluctantly agrees asks Carrie to prom. Carrie refuses at first, wary of the boys
intentions and of the reaction of her mother, but later she accepts. This acceptance
implies Carries willingness to attempt to join the rest of the school; it implies her
hope that she has been accepted as an equal among the girls. The discussion that
Carrie has with her mother concerning her allowing Carrie to go to prom does not go
well. Ms. White, upon first hearing the mention of a boy, throws water at Carrie and
extinguishes the candles lighting the room, which symbolizes the dark and
obstinate world that she lives in. However, Carrie persists and lets her mother know
that I am going, and there is nothing that you can do to stop me. Sue, the girl
who asks her boyfriend to take Carrie to the prom, seems to understand Carries
need for acceptance and goes out of her way to make her a part of high school
tradition. Carries mother, forever in the dark, refuses to let Carrie go to the prom in
fear that she will sin. She insists that after the blood comes the boys, like sniffing

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dogs. When Carrie uses her telekinesis to push back her smothering mother, Ms.
White feels an unholy presence in Carrie. Carrie tells her mother that things are
going to change around here just as she wants her life at school to change, where
she can be free from the repression and oppression once and for all. Her mother
calls her a witch and a possessor of Satans power. Her mother starts to fear
Carrie as Chris fears her. Carrie threatens both of their ways of life and in turn they
resist this change, promising a violent resolution.
Chris, while in the car with her boyfriend Billy, exchanges a sexual favor for a
different kind of favor. She kisses her boyfriend, whom she refers to as a dumb
shit, and tells him that she hates Carrie White. Even though the boy hits her
several times in the car, he is overcome with carnal desire and indulges in the sin of
the flesh. Later, he goes out with his friends to slaughter a pig and collect its blood,
which they then fix above the stage at the prom. Chris has planned to humiliate
Carrie by fixing her election as prom queen, and then crowning her with pigs blood.
This scene denotes a delicate balance of power between man and woman in the
way Chris and Billy interact. Billys physical strength is at least offset by Chris
ability to grant or withhold sexual favors, allowing her to persuade him into enabling
her vengeance upon Carrie. The pigs blood included in her malicious plan implies
sin at its most basic. Pigs in the Bible are considered greedy and unclean, and the
brutal murder of such a seedy creature with intent to harvest its blood is nothing if
not Satanic. Blood will be spilled at the prom, but it wont all belong to the pig.
At the prom, Tommy Ross is initially embarrassed to be seen with Carrie. He
eventually warms up to her as the night wears on. Taken by her innocence and
charm, he shares a kiss with her on the dance floor, and Carrie is swept away. The
election of the prom king and queen yields a seemingly even more magical night.

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She stands onstage in front of her peers finally achieving the acceptance she
desired, but her carefree innocence is soon to be replaced with a bloodlust.
Suddenly, Chris pulls the rope and the bucket falls. The blood soaks Carrie, who is
immobilized by shock. Tommy is outraged, but when the bucket falls on his head he
is knocked out and crumples at Carries feet. The camera shifts to Carries
perspective which Brian De Palma interprets as a kaleidoscope. Her warped vision
focuses on different people in the audience scornfully laughing at her, which stirs
the scorn in her own heart. Even the gym coach, whom Carrie regarded as a friend,
is laughing. Awoken by her unholy baptism, Carrie unleashes the repression and
anger that she has internalized in an awesome display of telekinetic power. She sets
fire to the gym and locks everybody inside. Drenched in blood, Carrie purges the
gym of all of those who mocked and ridiculed her. She burns the school as God
burned Sodom and Gomorrah, a salvation that could be achieved only by
destruction.
Everyone in the gym dies that night save for Sue, the only one innocent of
eternalizing the scorn amongst the women. Carrie walks home to her mother, who
tells Carrie of her conception. One night, her mother refused her husbands sexual
advance. Mr. White leaves their house and returns later, drunk. He forces himself on
Ms. White in a bizarre form of marital rape which she enjoys and hates, leading to
the conception of Carrie and indicating Ms. Whites own form of duplicity. Following
her strange sexual manifesto, she stabs Carrie in the back and Carrie becomes a
victim once again. She falls down the stairs while her mother chases her,
brandishing the knife with a maniacal look in her eye. Carrie uses her power to fling
several knives at her, all of which penetrate her mother as she cries out in both
ecstasy and pain. Her mother is pinned against the wall in a martyred fashion,

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indicating her delusional belief that she was righteously punishing Carrie in
accordance to Gods will. Carrie crawls back into the prayer closet as her house
crumples around her like Samson, pulling down the temple (King 143). In the final
scene of the movie, we find Sue dreaming in bed. She dreams of visiting Carries
house, now a pile of rubble with a cross reading Carrie White Burns in Hell, and
walks up to where Carrie is buried. She lays flowers down at the grave, and
suddenly a bloody hand reaches up and grabs her arm. She wakes up screaming at
the final, violent reminder of the society that fell by the hands of the girl it tried to
crush.
The violent, religious subtext in the movie can be explained by a parallel rise
in a fire and brimstone interpretation of the Bible during Carries release. In the
1970s, Christian fundamentalism experienced a resurgence that was promoted by
popular televangelists. Some of these evangelists, known as neofundamentalists,
took it upon themselves to fight Satan and his army of darkness and viewed
themselves as saint-like. They regarded anyone that did not share their beliefs as
unfaithful to Christ or as damned heathens. De Palmas portrayal of Ms. White
parallels these religious extremists and, throughout the movie, De Palma satirizes
their hypocrisy. Even though Ms. White seeks to fight darkness, she is constantly
shrouded in it and uses it to scare Carrie into conforming to her beliefs. The
righteous power that Carrie comes to possess is viewed by her mother as Satans
power, but it is a power that she has been given to pull down the society that has
given in to intolerance and sin. Carries actions are allegories to the destruction of
the twin towns of sin, Sodom and Gomorrah, and Samsons toppling of an unholy
temple whose collapse killed Samson as well. Ms. White, in her own twisted
reenactment of the test God gave Abraham to kill his son, is killed by a virtual

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crucifixion of knives. De Palma, through Carrie, not only suggests that the wave of
neofundamentalism prevalent in the 1970s was intolerant itself, but that it was
harming the cause it claimed to support.
Carrie also explores the channels by which women find their own power. The
main characters, Carrie, Ms. White, and Chris, each find their own method of
empowerment. For Ms. White, power is through religion and spirituality. Chris finds
her power in the secular world; she is content to head the matriarchy at the school
and manipulate her boyfriend through sex. Carrie finds her power simply within
herself. Carries enemies, her mother and Chris, seek to force Carrie into their
respective ways of life. Ms. White wants Carrie to isolate herself from men and lead
a life exactly like her mothers. Chris wants Carrie to forever remain submissive to
her and her friends so that they may abuse her without repudiation. Carrie denies
both of these roles and seeks her own; she wants to go to the prom and make
friends that accept and love her. The independence that Carrie shows throughout
the movie, while not feminist in an equal rights sense, is feminist in spirit. She
desires to act of her own accord and not run her life based off of what society tells
her to do. De Palma uses Carrie to express independence of mind and a willingness
to fight against a culture that wishes to scrutinize and monopolize.

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Annotated Bibliography

Bailey, Beth L., and David R. Farber. "She "Can Bring Home the Bacon"" America in
the Seventies. kkkkkkkLawrence: University of Kansas, 2004. 107-25. Print.
Buckley, T., and Gottlieb, A., eds. (1988). Blood Magic: The Anthropology of
Menstruation. Berkeley: kkkkk University of California Press.
Christopher C. "Eve and the Identity of Women: 3. Eve's Identity." Eve and the
Identity of Women. kkkkkkkChristopher Witcombe, Oct. 2000. Web. 14 Nov. 2011.
Dmetri K. "Myth and Magic in De Palmas Carrie." Senses of Cinema. Senses of
Cinema, 6 Feb. 2000. kkkkkkkWeb. 14 Nov. 2011.

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Kissling, E. A. (1996). "Bleeding Out Loud: Communication about
Menstruation." Feminism and kkkkkkkPsychology 6:481504.
King, Stephen (1987). Danse Macabre. Philadelphia: Berkley.
Laws, S. (1990). Issues of Blood: The Politics of Menstruation. London: Macmillan.