Thesis statement: Although Angela Carter’s the company of wolves contains noticeable resemblances with its older variant, Charles Perrault’s little red riding hood, Carter prefers to reveal the relationship dynamics between men and women through subverting the traditional tale of a young naive girl who is tricked by the cunning big bad wolf. Instead, presenting the heroine’s true ambition, in which she wants to governor her own incarceration into damnation. In several instances of metaphors, foreshadowing, and ironic devices, she is revealed to be antagonist rather than the protagonist of Carter’s story, therefore reshaping the classical notion of little red riding hood into a feminist retelling of a girl attempting to gain control of their own narrative.
Main point #1: While Perrault presents a cautionary tale on the predators that target little, innocent naive girls; Carter restructures the identities of the wolf and the girl, through using of metaphors that capture the uncertain nature of man’s beastliness and humanity and women’s virginity and sexuality.
Example:
- Carter repeats this phrase throughout the story, “ the wolf is carnivore incarnate.” a metaphor for the man’s dual nature. On one hand, he is a beastly predator who preys on vulnerability and on the other hand, his humanity shows through, hence presenting a nice, affable man.
- When Carter states, “ she is an unbroken egg; she is a sealed vessel; she has her magic space the entrance to which is shut
Nowadays, freedom is a fundamental right for each man and woman, but it is not a perfect concept. When one’s freedom is endangered, he can do unimaginable things, especially when love is at stake or can react weirdly when he acquires it. It’s exactly what Kate Chopin, a female American author during the 19th century, did when she treated about women’s conditions in the short-story Story of an Hour in 1894, where a woman falsely learns about his husband’s death. Almost 60 years later, Roald Dahl wrote Lamb To The Slaughter, set in Great Britain, where a woman kills her husband and hide the evidences cleverly. These two short stories are not only comparative on the two female protagonists and the imagery used, but also on the main themes
In Seven Monster Theses, Jeffery Cohen develops an idea that “monsters” are essential to society. In fact, they construct what is “normal”, “rational”, and “civilized”. Specifically, “monsters” are foundational to how we view ourselves. “Monsters” contain all the traits deemed unacceptable and odd. It can be concluded that every outlier is a “monster”. In St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, Karen Russell tells the story of a pack of wolf girls who are transitioning into young ladies. Russell delves into society’s need for conformity, gender roles, and change. The story is told from the point of view of the middle wolf girl, Claudette, and follows her on her journey from wolf to woman. In relation to Jeffery Cohen’s idea of monster culture, Claudette’s journey applies to Thesis IV “The Monster Dwells at the Gates of Difference” and part of Thesis I “The Monster’s Body is a Cultural Body”. Claudette is torn between two worlds and she has to learn how to successfully “move between the two cultures”. Through Cohen’s theses, Karen Russell uses character development and dialogue to depict the inner and outer battle of societal femininity and individualized femininity and the consequence of accepting either side. The presence of “monsters” are essential for this acceptance.
The author makes use of the symbolism of the wolves in order to explore conformity within society and how it impedes individual from pursuit of liberation. The first wolf symbolizes the freedom of an individual deviant against societal expectations.However both wolves represents the challenges and the fears of liberty of the bound man faces as he questions his limitations whether “he could amount to without it.”(pg.6). The first wolf proved to be the bound man’s attempt to conform with society, without the ropes “perhaps he would have tried to run away”(pg.5). In the moment he tried conquering his fear of freedom, it seemed completely paradoxical as his limitations allowed him to feel as free. However when his ropes was severed and consequently,
‘The Company of Wolves’ is a twisted and raw reinvention of ‘Little Red Ridding Hood’ while symbolizing female sexuality and embracing it. The wolves in the story have been described by the author as skin and bones, “so little flesh on them that you could count the starveling ribs”. Their food source has been taken away by
Prologues are often an author’s way of introducing important information or topics needed to understand the body of writing on a deeper level or as a way to direct the reader to a certain line of thought or specific interpretation of the writing. Anne Sexton writes a prologue for every single one of her poems in her compilation of fairytale poetry throughout Transformations. She gives the reader so many hints throughout her prologues on what the reader should pay attention to. In “Red Riding Hood”, Sexton draw immense attention to the issues of deception in real life though the importance she places on these issues in her poem. She calls out not only the frequency of deception in life but she calls attention specifically to the deception of a mother’s security.
In “A Jury of Her Peers” by Susan Glaspell and “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner, both authors introduce female protagonists that are confined by men’s authority. By displaying the protagonist's transformation, Glaspell and Faulkner highlight the repercussions of gender roles, to show that when women are trapped, they will go to great lengths to retaliate against their oppressors.
The purpose of this essay is to correlate the theme of three different stories that had been read. I decided to choose the stories “Good Country People”, “Hills Like White Elephants”, and “The Storm.” I believe that the theme across these stories is to beware of the wolf in sheep clothing. In these stories, there was an antagonist that posed as a protagonist who even though their intentions may have looked well skin deep, the underlying intentions against the main character were not of good intent. I will describe certain situations in each of the three stories that show the theme I have noted.
In order to properly view a story from a feminist perspective, it is important that the reader fully understands what the feminist perspective entails. “There are many feminist perspectives, and each perspective uses different approaches to analyze and interpret texts. One is that gender is “socially constructed” and another is that power is distributed unequally on the basis of sex, race, and ethnicity, religion, national origin, age, ability, sexuality, and economic class status” (South University Online, 2011, para. 1). The story “Girl” is an outline of the things young girls
We could assume that every wolf was once a man. At the beginning Carter explains how wolves are “carnivore incarnate and he’s cunning and ferocious”, but yet she also explains how “melancholy” a wolf can be because “the beasts would love to be less beastly if only they knew how” (110, 112).
There are many versions of the classic story of Little Red Riding Hood and they all come with different names, details and ideas. A detail in the stories that one can see is that intelligence can end up being the saving factor in a bad situation. These stories such as, “Little Red Riding Hood” by Charles Perrault, and “Little Red Cap” by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm are all different in their own ways yet very much similar to one another in the ideas and thoughts that they produce from us as the readers. One main ideal that one might believe the authors of these stories try to convey to us might be the importance of intelligence in these stories when it comes to listening to our parents, talking to strangers, and
The Gothic genre is an increasingly popular area for feminist studies, showing contrasts in society at the time and the expectations of women within it. In pre industrial times, women were expected to play a subservient role to men, they were expected to marry young and bare children, they would simply care for their husbands and support the family, they were denied the right to vote or own property and were expected to be the innocently silent, supportive backbone behind patriarchal society. It is noted that female characters in Gothic novels and plays often fall into one of two categories: innocent victims, subservient to the strong and powerful
Upon first reading “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves,” it might seem like an imaginative fantasy and nothing else. The story focuses on the daughters of a pack of werewolves, and it takes place in a world where the werewolves and their daughters are nothing out of the ordinary. But upon closer examination, this is a story rooted in reality. This inventive tale parallels several real world phenomena. Karen Russell uses allegory in “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves” to objectify western society’s views of people outside of that society and of outsiders in general, and compare them to the views that people have of wild animals.
In “Monster Culture”, Jeffery Cohen develops an idea that “monsters” are essential to society. In fact, they construct what is “normal”, “rational”, and “civilized”. Specifically, “monsters” are foundational to how we view ourselves. “Monsters” contain all the traits deemed unacceptable and odd. It can be concluded that every outlier is a “monster”. In St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, Karen Russell tells the story of a pack of wolf girls who are transitioning into young ladies. Russell delves into society’s need for conformity, gender roles, and change. The story is told from the point of view of the middle wolf girl, Claudette, and follows her on her journey from wolf to woman. In relation to Jeffery Cohen’s idea of monster culture, Claudette’s journey applies to Thesis IV “The Monster Dwells at the Gates of Difference” and part of Thesis I “The Monster’s Body is a Cultural Body”. Claudette is torn between two worlds and she has to learn how to successfully “move between the two cultures”. Through Cohen’s theses, Karen Russell uses character development and dialogue to depict the inner and outer battle of societal femininity and individualized femininity and the decision of accepting either side. The presence of “monsters” are essential for this acceptance.
This is no lapse in consistency by Carter; the carnivorous wolf may be a man that has even worse intentions for the flesh. The narrator warns, "If you spy a naked man among the pines, you must run as if the Devil were after you" (2234). Since the man is naked, his true nature, which is more frightening than a wolf, is revealed. Carter metaphorically emphasizes the danger of women being deceived by the false appearance men present in action and personality. Red Riding Hood is deceived by the friendly, handsome hunter: letting her guard down, she allows him to accompany her through the woods while "laughing and joking like old friends" (2235).
In the story of The Bloody Chamber, Angela Carter attacks the conventional gender roles of women. The conventional Gothic plot revolves around pursuit. A young heroine’s virtuous virginity, purity and innocence is sexually threatened. Thus, what Carter does in “The Bloody Chamber” is redefine female desire and sexuality which are rendered passive and repressed through traditional Gothic texts. Where the mother exemplifies the heroic woman, the “girl” is the traditional damsel in distress. Maria Makinen’s assessment of Carters feminine characters is both truthful and incorrect. Carter uses traditional female stereotypes as well as her unique women to make a contrast between these perceptions of women.