Carrie

Blood is the most prominent and multifaceted symbol in Carrie. It takes on several different meanings through the work, yet in each use it evokes the fundamentals of life. In a purely materialist sense, blood is what carries the genetic markers that transfer telekinesis to newer generations and is therefore responsible for the continual cycle of destruction alluded to at the end of the novel.

Yet blood has deeper symbolic meanings to several of the characters. For Carrie, blood is primarily a marker of Otherness. She envisions a “red-plague circle” drawn around her from the first day she attended school (27), separating her from the other children. After her menstruation in the locker room, this idea combines explicitly with blood: “[T}he red-plague circle was like blood itself—you could scrub and scrub and scrub and still it would be there, not erased, not clean” (28). Carrie views blood as dirty, unalterably tainted by sin, and shameful to display, all of which she learned from her mother. When her mother slaps her after learning about Tommy’s invitation, Carrie’s cheek turns blood red, which Margaret declares is “the mark” of her sinful wrongness (119). Since Carrie cannot escape the truth in her blood, this “mark” is eternal.