Himeros et Pothos

The Company of Wolves by Angela Carter

“There is no place I know that compares to pure imagination” – Willy Wonka

The short story starts out in a grave tone, with descriptions of the violent nature and tendencies of men, wolves, and werewolves. Mid-story the author takes pains in trying to lighten the mood with a description of the setting in an almost Disney-like manner: “It is midwinter and the robin, friend of man, sits on the handle of the gardener's spade and sings.“ It is something of a trap for the readers to get them into this mood, making them expect something light and happy after such a dark introduction.

There are a lot of symbols used to represent the young girl's innocence and virginity. The shawl represented her barrier of womanhood, when she cast it off, it was a show of acceptance of her fate, her submission into womanhood. She knew what she had to do, and she knew that to cast off that shawl that protected her, a gift made by her grandmother, it meant that she had to cast away her parent's protection and step up to the world's inevitable call of corruption. The second paragraph does not fail to forewarn the reader of the coming events. “Children do not stay young for long in this savage country.” The story is sort of a coming-of-age story because it shows the development of the young girl and the final climactic ending of her implied conjugal with the wolf. “See! Sweet and sound she sleeps in granny's bed, between the paws of the tender wolf.”

This story is close to my heart because I am very fond of stories that twist the fairy tales we were used to hearing as children. I remember reading the original unabridged version of the Grimm's fairytale, Cinderella, when I was about 9 or 10. It shattered every Disney dream I ever had. This story is quite similar to Neil Gaiman's version of Snow White, Snow, Glass and Apples. Angela Carter twisted the traditional Little Red Riding Hood story to something a bit more sexual and risque. Before it was mentioned that a student already did a paper on this story, I made my mind up that I would do mine on this too. I use my advantage as a woman to sweetly and sometimes flirtatiously acquire things I may want at the moment, basketball tickets, car rides, lunches... Isn't it but natural for women to use what we possess for our own benefit? This is a use-it-or-lose-it world. Men have used (and abused) their physical “advantage” over us ever since time immemorial. I believe it only natural for young red (the young girl in the story) to have used her sexuality to tame the wolf. It is not only that she had to tame him but then it was also mentioned that she found him far more attractive than most of the men in her village; she was killing two birds with one stone. If men can pursue their phallic objectives then, shouldn't females be able to do the same?

Fairy tales aren’t as pretty as you think. The seduction of the whole idea behind traditional fairy tales lies in the development of the main characters, but alternative stories seduce their readers by showing how the main characters, initially believed innocent, are corrupted by the ways of the world. This shows how cruel we are all inherently. Well, I, for one, believe we all have a little cruel side. We may not admit it but is there. It is the little voice in us that compels us to watch a burning building, some people brawling, public beatings and stone-throwings (not the literal kind). I am sure almost everybody has had the urge to burn an ant with a magnifying glass, pull off a fly’s wings and even have thoughts of your least favorite person choking on her lite-n-chicken salad during a class discussion. We see the embodiment of our cruelty in stories like this.

We are the machines of our own destruction and so, since society’s norms prevent us from realizing these things we subconsciously fantasize about, we see them embodied or put into pictures when we read stories like this. We cause our own deaths. We caused global warming and we helped spread AIDS. I don't mean we directly caused our own deaths, I mean humanity in general. We are all, in the broadest sense, twisted in a way because we enjoy reading about the sacrificing of a young girl’s virginity to a hairy and very well-endowed wolf. Similar to Snow, Glass and Apples but less grotesque and sexually a little more subtle, Company of Wolves is a trap that baits and hooks the reader effectively capturing his or her trust in the beauty that is made to look waiting in the end, and tramples that trust with a subtle transition such that what is happening won’t dawn on the reader until the final betrayal has happened, in this case, the corruption of Little Red Riding Hood.

We see, in movies we watch, stories we read, the realization of our suppressed fears and fantasies. In the early 1930’s there was even a man that put forth a theory that addressed what I just mentioned earlier for a theatre aptly named, The Theatre of Cruelty. The whole purpose of this theatre was to shock audiences in an effort to wake their anxieties that have been buried in the darkest corners if their mind by minimizing the text and exaggerating the available violence and perverseness.¹

I do believe that we are all inherently good but I also believe in the duality of the human nature. Good and bad traits can very truly co-exist in one and the same person. This is why I believe that a complete innocent can go about her day doing good deeds and come home to kick the cat out of the way, so to speak. This is how child molesters live. They put up fronts and have totally respectable jobs: jobs that can earn the trust of their victims. After which, they develop a friendship with their intended and then BAM! You've got a raped baby. I digress. Anyway, the duality of humanity is wonderful. Women, I believe, can handle this the best. As seen in the story, The Company of Wolves, the woman-child handles the situation of violence with tenderness. She knew that in order to help herself she had to integrate 2 singular sides of herself: she had to use her body as both an object and a weapon. Many feminists will not agree with her blatant exploitation of her body. But, she used her body as bait for the beast and as a key to empowering herself. To answer the question posed during one beauty contest a year or two ago, this is the essence of being a woman – maximizing and integrating the feuding dualities and contradictions of her personality.

Tying everything in, in conclusion, therefore, ergo, at the end of the day, in simplest terms, creaming the cake, topping off the coffee with a bit of rum, loosening the noose, in layman’s terms: humans subconsciously have tendencies of cruelty and grace.