Gender Roles in Angela Carter's The Company of Wolves

However, each presents the reader with a dichotomy that leads to an interesting juxtaposition in presentation. Carter and Perrault both offer interesting insight in their short stories depicting the fairytale of Little Red Riding Hood by the symbolism of the wolf and flip in moral. In “Little Red Riding Hood”, Charles Perrault uses the wolf as both a religious symbol and a symbol for men who prey on those weaker and more naïve than themselves, usually women. The devilish wolf is sneaky and cunning and at every opportunity has “a very great mind to eat her up” in the woods, but instead makes a deal with her. Like the classic devil, he charms her with his manners and suavely offers her his assistance.

A good natured member of society is forced, on a regular basis, to become a sinister beast that eradicates any previous resemblance, in personality and physical appearance, and replaces it with an indiscriminant urge to kill. However, according to Charlotte Otten, editor of The Literary Werewolf an Anthology, not all werewolves can fit i... ... middle of paper ... ...04. National Statistics Online. 08 Jan. 2004. National Statistics of U.K. 08 Mar.

During the interaction between the young girls and the wolf, the young girls had a choice of either being naïve and falling into submission or overcoming the suppressor and showing dominance. This idea of deception and dominance are furthermore shown through the character of the wolf who tries to deceive and dominate the young girls in any way necessary. In all three tales, the wolf is seen as deceitful and conniving because it appeals to the primitive emotions of women in order to make the women naively fall for its trap. In the Grimms' "Little Red Cap", the wolf convinced Little Red Cap that she should look around instead of going straight to her grandmother's house when it said "Little Red Cap, just look at the beautiful flowers that are growing all around you! Why don't you look

After she thoroughly inspects and comments on nearly every aspect of the wolf's "big" body parts, the wolf then "threw himself upon Little Red Riding Hood" to consume ... ... middle of paper ... ...l, she then goes into the woods to encounter the id. There she disobeys her mother's instructions, and becomes "the poor child." In the moral, these "pretty, nicely brought-up young ladies" turn "foolish" upon talking to strangers. As "elegant" as they were once considered, it is a child's own fault if she leans to far to the irrational id. Furthermore, Freud dramatically insinuates that this struggle can only end in death, which is the exact fate of Little Red Riding Hood.

As far back as 500 BC, the Greek fabulist Aesop often used wolves as characters in his short stories that are today known as Aesop’s Fables. Colette Palamar, a researcher at the University of Idaho, indicates that the animal characters in the fables symbolically represent different values and attitudes, and Aesop uses them to deliver some type of ethical advice or moral (1). Unfortunately for the wolf, “In Aesop’s fables, we saw the wolf portrayed as a wild, boundless animal who is a conniving, tricky, sneaky thief and killer” (Palamar 3). Although the intent of his stories was to give people ethical advice, his goal was achieved at the expense of the wolf’s reputation and influenced people to believe that wolves were horrible creatures. The way that the wolf is portrayed in mythology and fairy tales effected people’s impression of the animals.

In Pan’s Labyrinth, Alice in Wonderland, and The Company of Wolves, the protagonists employ anger to produce a fantasy world that mirrors the injustice of the real world and provides them with control, but ultimately their bodies become susceptible to their minds. The heroines invent a fantasy world that reflects the injustice they suffer in the real world. Mercedes, a housekeeper, utilizes Ofelia to cover her treason towards Captain Vidal. By means of affection, the housekeeper wins Ofelia’s trust and therefore prevents her from opening her mouth to the Captain. Ofelia encounters a Faun in the labyrinth and she becomes found of him.

Hunger and ferocity are the attributes of the wolf in winter, as food becomes scarcer and scarcer. The wolf leaves the wilderness and ventures closer to civilization in search of food; preying on the weakest creatures it can find in order to sustain itself. The wolf, more than the exotic leopard or the lion, is the most fearsome animal known to Medieval Italians. Its presence is a real danger to all life. In the duocento, the late 13th century in Italy, wars and plagues devastate the land and devouring, greedy wolves, human or otherwise, are everywhere: These [the wolves] could no longer find their usual prey of lambs and sheep since the farms were burnt down, so they gathered in hungry packs and howled round the city walls.

Everyone knows of the apocryphal evil that is wolves, hunting our children, killing our livestock, taking the best deer. Having a wolf hunting season seems like a no brainer, right? But what if that’s not how wolves are, what if they are innocent, so to say. Should they be hunted? The short answer is no.

The highest-ranking wolf of the pack proclaims their pla... ... middle of paper ... ...e her pups that not even the wolf pack has permission to. With extensive research on both ends, both Leslie and the Dutchers are successful in proving that the human race is to blame for the decline in wolves, as they are exterminating the wolf population by poisoning, trapping, and hunting to protect their livestock. Unfortunately this is a win-lose situation for hunters, livestock owners and nature, as they are protecting their animals while unbalancing their ecosystem slowly, but surely. As inevitable as it seems, if and when wolves become cleared of the misconceptions towards them, it will be too late…and that’s heartbreaking. Works Cited Leslie, Robert Franklin.

She embraces her newfound sexual power and serves as symbol of sexual desire/power and female strength. The first part of the story tells folk tales about the wolf and werewolf. Here, wolves are used as a symbol of fear. It overwhelms the reader with terrifying descriptions of the wolf and shows the reader that the wolf is clearly something that strikes fear into the people in the story. They are described as “forest assassins grey members of a congregation of nightmare” and are known to be worse than “all the teeming perils of the night and the forest, ghosts, hobgoblins, ogres that grill babies upon gridirons, witches”.