Company of Wolves-Little Red Riding Hood
Little Red Riding Hood
“The Company of Wolves” by Angela Carter is very similar to “Little Red Riding Hood”, the little girl heading out with a basket full of liquor and goodies for her grandmother. The wolf stopping her on her way to the grandmother’s house; the wolf races to the house, eats the grandma, pretends to be the grandma and makes “Little Red Riding Hood” believe that he is her grandma. He pounces on her and tries to eat her but a hunter comes and kills the wolf and saves the grandma. The story reveals an extensive imagination by elaborating on different ideas and points of view of gender roles. Carter’s characters portray these roles very similar to the way we view gender roles today. Carter uses the wolves as a metaphor for men who would try to take a girl’s virginity. It just so happens that this young man crosses this girl’s path on her way to her grandmother’s house and finagles his way into her trusting him by giving him her basket of goodies, which houses her knife which could mean that this young woman was safeguarding her ‘virginity’-the basket, and she hands it over to this young man whom she knows very little about; letting him know that she is ready to ‘grow up’. She is playing this little mind game with him by using “rustic seduction”, she wagers a kiss but maybe more? Unlike the story of “Little Red Riding Hood” Carter twists it a bit, this little girl seems to becoming aware of her “invisible pentacle of her own virginity. She is an unbroken egg; she is a sealed vessel. She has inside her a magic space the entrance to which is shut tight with a plug of membrane; she is a closed system; she does not know how to shiver” (114). At the beginning of the story it first shows the girl as being naïve and innocent, towards the middle on her way to the grandmother’s house, she becomes more confident because she is aware of herself and how she is changing, and at the end she has more power over the wolf and gives in because “she
“The Company of Wolves” by Angela Carter is very similar to “Little Red Riding Hood”, the little girl heading out with a basket full of liquor and goodies for her grandmother. The wolf stopping her on her way to the grandmother’s house; the wolf races to the house, eats the grandma, pretends to be the grandma and makes “Little Red Riding Hood” believe that he is her grandma. He pounces on her and tries to eat her but a hunter comes and kills the wolf and saves the grandma. The story reveals an extensive imagination by elaborating on different ideas and points of view of gender roles. Carter’s characters portray these roles very similar to the way we view gender roles today. Carter uses the wolves as a metaphor for men who would try to take a girl’s virginity. It just so happens that this young man crosses this girl’s path on her way to her grandmother’s house and finagles his way into her trusting him by giving him her basket of goodies, which houses her knife which could mean that this young woman was safeguarding her ‘virginity’-the basket, and she hands it over to this young man whom she knows very little about; letting him know that she is ready to ‘grow up’. She is playing this little mind game with him by using “rustic seduction”, she wagers a kiss but maybe more? Unlike the story of “Little Red Riding Hood” Carter twists it a bit, this little girl seems to becoming aware of her “invisible pentacle of her own virginity. She is an unbroken egg; she is a sealed vessel. She has inside her a magic space the entrance to which is shut tight with a plug of membrane; she is a closed system; she does not know how to shiver” (114). At the beginning of the story it first shows the girl as being naïve and innocent, towards the middle on her way to the grandmother’s house, she becomes more confident because she is aware of herself and how she is changing, and at the end she has more power over the wolf and gives in because “she
Bibliography: Carter, Angela, The Company of Wolves