Elsewhere in the collection of stories entitled The Bloody Chamber, Carter uses the rose as a symbol of the male objectification of women. Here, roses represent the vulnerability, virginity, and purity of women that can so easily be exploited and abused by men.

Yet roses, of course, also have thorns, and it’s the thorny side of roses that Carter brings out most strongly in “The Lady of the House of Love”. In this particular story, the rose is a symbol of powerful female sexuality and the violence with which it can often be expressed, reversing the traditional gender roles explored elsewhere in The Bloody Chamber.

The Countess inhabits a superstitious, gothic netherworld in which the established conventions of mainstream society have been turned upside-down. For once, it is the woman who is the predator and the man, in this case, a British soldier, who is the prey. In the outside world, roses represent beauty and innocence. In the ramshackle village where the Countess has her chateau, however, they represent a demonic sexuality that can only ever be expressed in acts of murderous violence.

Yet the final act of violence in the story is done by the Countess to herself. By giving the soldier the gift of a rose, she’s effectively giving herself to him in an act of sexual surrender. In that sense, the rose once again symbolizes purity, as it does elsewhere in The Bloody Chamber, albeit the violation of it. The Countess’s power, as symbolized by the rose, was what kept her alive. But now she’s given the rose to the soldier, and has freed herself from her role as a vampire, she has lost that power, and can now die a normal human death.