The Company of Wolves

If there’s a beast in men, it meets its match in women, too.

– Angela Carter

They will be like shadows, they will be like wraiths, grey members of a congregation of nightmare; ‘hark! his long, wavering howl …’

When they discover a witch – … another old woman whose black cat, oh, sinister! follows her about all the time, they strip the crone, search for the supernumerary nipple that her familiar sucks. They soon find it. Then they stone her to death.

How does the narrative style compare and differ between the two stories?

1. If the wolf symbolises fear, in ‘Werewolf’, how does this affect your interpretation of the story?

2. How is the theme of fear treated differently in ‘The Company of Wolves’?

Narrative structure?

1. What is the effect of the ‘narrative within a narrative’ at the opening of ‘The Company of Wolves’?

2. How are the wolves characterised?

Choose two or three quotations you consider effective (and memorable).

3. How does this affect your interpretation/understanding/ response to the ending?

1. Fear and flee the wolf; for, worst of all, the wolf might be more than he seems.

2. Seven years is a werewolf’s natural span but if you burn his clothing you condemn him to wolfishness for the rest of his life, so old wives here about think it some protection to throw a hat or an apron at the werewolf, as if clothes made the man.

3. … as if the wolves would love to be less beastly if only they knew how and never cease to mourn their own condition. There is a vast melancholy in the canticles of wolves … that ghastly sadness, that mourning for their own, irremediable appetites, can never move the heart for not one phrase in it hints at the possibility of redemption.

4. She has her bible out, she is a pious old woman ... We keep the wolves outside by living well.

5. You can hurl your Bible at him, and your apron, granny, you thought that was a sure prophylactic against these infernal vermin ... Now call on Christ and his mother and all the angels in heaven to protect you but it won’t do you any good.

7. She ripped off his shirt for him and flung it in the fire, in the fiery wake of her own discarded clothing.

How is little red riding hood characterised? (p.137)

Patterns in the story

‘The malign door of the solstice still swings upon its hinges but she been too much loved ever to feel scared’

p.139 (penultimate paragraph): the door of the solstice stands wide open;’

How does ‘The Company of Wolves’ comment on the following themes?

• Old and new order/ change in values• Femininity• Sexuality• Fear

The Company of WolvesCarving out a new path for women ?

OR

Reinforcing misogynistic stereotypes and female victimisation ?

Interpretations1. By accepting her own desires – i.e. The wolf/ sexuality – the girl becomes immune

to the danger of the wolf (sexuality)

2. Conflict between grandmother and child here, is the conflict between accepting and disregarding social norms/ conventions/ rules

3. The narrator presents – and believes – [were]wolves to be evil

4. In terms of the idea of rebirth, Carter goes so far as to compare a werewolf's transformation to the birth of Christ; she tells us, "Christmas Day [is] the werewolves' birthday." Although the townspeople are convinced that werewolves make a pact with the Devil, Carter suggests that they are really connected to God. She echoes the Romantic notion of locating the divine in nature, even the parts of nature that are not traditionally beautiful. In a way, Carter tells us through this story that we are all part "beast," and are only authentically ourselves or close to Christ-Christianity's ideal being-when we claim our "bestial" desires.

It is Carter’s contention that a certain amount of tigerishness may be necessary if women are to achieve an independent as opposed to a dependent existence; if they are to avoid – at the extreme end of passivity – becoming meat ... But their change from lamb to tiger need not be a divesting of all ‘feminine’ qualities ... Although society may slant things so that women appear to be better candidates for meat-eating, the nature of men is not fixed by Carter as inevitably predatory, with females as their ‘natural prey’. Lambhood and tigerishness may be found in either gender, and in the same individual at different times ...

Margaret Atwood, ‘Running with the Tigers,’ in Lorna Sage, ed., Flesh and the Mirror:Essays on the Art of Angela Carter (Virago, 1994).