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In Carrie, blood symbolizes the trauma and violence of Carrie’s upbringing—and the trauma and violence she inflicts on others as a result. Blood first appears at the beginning of the novel, when Carrie gets her first period and panics because she mistakenly believes she’s dying—her mother, Margaret, never taught Carrie about menstruation because she deems bodies and sexuality as sinful. Carrie’s ignorance causes the other girls to torment her. In this situation, then, blood represents how Carrie’s ignorance—the result of her sheltered upbringing—causes her great emotional suffering.
Blood is also an important aspect of Christian theology, and Margaret frequently fixates on blood as a redemptive force: first in the miscarriage that Margaret suffers before having Carrie, and then later when she formulates her plan to stab Carrie to death to prevent Carrie’s telekinetic powers from growing stronger. In this way, then, blood imagery underscores the violence that Margaret’s extreme religious views inspire her to inflict on Carrie.
Lastly, blood is the instigator of the disaster in Chamberlain: Chris and Billy dump pig’s blood on Carrie in front of all the promgoers, echoing and escalating the novel’s opening imagery of Carrie covered in blood and cowering in humiliation as her peers torment her. The humiliation of this “prank” at the prom prompts Carrie to telekinetically massacre hundreds of people. At the end of the night, Margaret stabs Carrie, who ultimately bleeds to death. Carrie’s violent, bloody fate signals that her childhood trauma has come full circle, with Margaret effectively killing Carrie as punishment for violent behavior for which Margaret herself, by virtue of the trauma and violence she has subjected Carrie to, is indirectly responsible.
Blood Quotes in Carrie
The Carrie quotes below all refer to the symbol of Blood. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Part 1: Pages 1-25
Quotes
A tampon suddenly struck her in the chest and fell with a plop at her feet. A red flower stained the absorbent cotton and spread.
Then the laughter, disgusted, contemptuous, horrified, seemed to rise and bloom into something jagged and ugly, and the girls were bombarding her with tampons and sanitary napkins, some from purses, some from the broken dispenser on the wall. They flew like snow and the chant became: “Plug it up, plug it up, plug it up, plug it—”
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Part 2: Pages 171-196
Quotes
The only way to kill sin, true black sin, was to drown it in the blood of
(she must be sacrificed)
a repentant heart. Surely God understood that, and had laid His finger upon her. Had not God Himself commanded Abraham to take his son Isaac up upon the mountain?
She shuffled out into the kitchen in her old and splayed slippers, and opened the kitchen utensil drawer. The knife they used for carving was long and sharp and arched in the middle from constant honing. She sat down on the high stool by the counter, found the sliver of whetstone in its small aluminum dish, and began to scrub it along the gleaming edge of the blade with the apathetic, fixated attention of the damned.
The Black Forest cuckoo clock ticked and ticked and finally the bird jumped out to call once and announce eight-thirty.
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He shrugged. “Let’s vote for ourselves. To the devil with false modesty.”
She laughed out loud, then clapped a hand over her mouth. The sound was almost entirely foreign to her. Before she could think, she circled their names, third from the top. The tiny pencil broke in her hand, and she gasped. A splinter had scratched the pad of one finger, and a small bead of blood welled.
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Get the entire Carrie LitChart as a printable PDF.
Blood Symbol Timeline in Carrie
The timeline below shows where the symbol Blood appears in Carrie. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Part 1: Pages 1-25
...class will end soon, so Carrie turns off the water, which reveals that she has blood running down her leg. The scene ends with an excerpt from a scholarly article called...
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...Carrie to clean herself up and tells her that she’s bleeding. When Carrie notices the blood, she screams. The girls respond by throwing tampons and pads at Carrie, chanting “plug it...
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...but Carrie screams that she’s bleeding to death and grabs at Miss Desjardin, leaving a bloody handprint on her white shorts. Miss Desjardin furiously makes Carrie stand up and retrieve a...
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Part 1: Pages 117-137
...a boy named Lou slits its throat. Billy places a bucket underneath to catch the blood. They then do the same to the other sow. The boys then place the buckets...
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Part 2: Pages 141-170
...up two pulleys right over the throne locations. He then goes to retrieve the pigs’ blood, now frozen, and climbs back up onto the beams. He attaches the buckets to the...
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Part 2: Pages 171-196
...themselves, and Carrie does so, but her pencil breaks and gives her a splinter, drawing blood. Once the votes are counted, Vic announces that there’s a tie, with Carrie and Tommy...
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...anyway. At the White house, Margaret drops the knife and cuts herself; she lets the blood drip on the blade and keeps sharpening. She thinks of the scripture: “If thine right...
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Part 2: Pages 196-215
...onto the two of them, with Carrie getting it the worst. Norma realizes that it’s blood and says so, causing Tina to scream. Two buckets swing dripping above the stage; one...
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Part 2: Pages 215-238
Earlier that night, the blood buckets fall. Carrie is doused in blood, and she telepathically feels Tommy’s pain as he’s...
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Part 2: Pages 238-277
...offers her a “present”: the darkness of death. She telekinetically slows, then stops, Margaret’s heart. Bleeding profusely, Carrie pulls herself to her feet. The fire from outside has spread to the...
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...to town, but both immediately realize Carrie is in front of their car, covered in blood and shambling towards them. Billy floors it towards her, with Carrie’s presence growing in his...
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...the White residence, which has been engulfed in flames, and spots a trail of Carrie’s blood. She thinks of following Carrie but is worried Carrie will kill her. For a while,...
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...her way to Carrie and sees that she’s lying in a pool of her own blood, too weak to turn over. Sue helps turn her over, and the two have a...
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