The Space-Off In Angela Carter's The Company Of Wolves

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Teresa De Lauretis defines the space-off as “spaces in the margins of hegemonic discourse, social spaces carved in the interstices of institutions and in the chinks and cracks of the power-knowledge apparati. And it is there that the terms of a different construction [...] can be posed (De Lauretis 232). This paper examines Angela Carter’s use of the space-off in “The Company of Wolves”. I begin by showing how Carter employs fairy tale convention in order to establish a fairy tale space, particularly in terms of gender norms and didacticism. I proceed to examine the ways in which she reveals aspects that are marginal to this space. Marginal, meaning that they exist peripherally, without supporting or contributing to the space, thus threatening the space and its place at the center, though they may never dismantle it. I finish by demonstrating how the elements come together in the creation of an alternative narrative. In “The Company of Wolves” Carter employs conventions of gender construction and didacticism, which help establish a fairy tale space (Koske 323). Carter presents a world in which fairy tale notions of gender are upheld. In her paper, “In Olden Times, When Wishing was Having: Classic and Contemporary Fairy Tales”, Joyce Carol Oates explains that the girls and women in fairy tales “are the uncontested property of men”. Carter alludes to this male dominated reality in her tale (99). When the girl, Carter’s Red Riding Hood, insists on venturing into the woods, the narrator says that “[h]er father might forbid her, if he were home, but he is away in the forest, gathering wood, and her mother cannot deny her” (1224). There is perhaps no gendered element to a parent preventing his child from wandering into the wilderness, b... ... middle of paper ... ... create an interaction of intimacy between two equal parties, contradicting the dynamics in the space. It remains in the margins in that it occurs off in the woods and does not completely dismantle the fairy tale space. Nevertheless this alternative construction threatens the assumptions made within the space in terms of gender and good versus evil. In summation, Angela Carter employs fairy tale convention within “The Company of Wolves”, setting up a fairy tale space in order to work with the space-off. She establishes fairy tale gender norms and creates a sense of didacticism which sets up a conflict between good and evil. In the margins of these conventions however, she reveals that which does not participate in the space of the fairy tale. These elements converge at the stories climax and form an alternative dynamic, making for an effective use of the space-off.

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