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0ЛИТЕРАТУРОВЕДЕНИЕ
DOI 10.24412/1829-0450-2024-2-94-105 Поступила: 01.04.2024г.
УДК 81 Сдана на рецензию: 04.04.2024г.
Подписана к печати: 20.05.2024г.
THE POWER OF WOMAN IN ANGELA CARTER’S “THE COMPANY OF WOLVES”
L. Madatyan
The Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography NAS RA madatyanlusine@yandex.ru ORCID: 0000-0001-8824-527X
ABSTRACT
The article is devoted to the analysis of Angela Carter's “The Company of Wolves”. As a reviewed version of “The Red Riding Hood”, it vividly shows the author’s feminist ideology. She intends to illustrate the innate power of women and advocate for gender equality. The retelling is notable for its unique writing style characterized by unconventional punctuation, archaic lexical units, and rich similes. In her reproduction of the fairy tale “The Red Riding Hood”, Angela Carter preserves its distinctive structure and storyline, except for the opening, which serves as a well-written introduction to transformation. This sets the stage for exploring the inner strength of women in the second part of the narrative. Carter demonstrates the power of woman through her conscious attraction, depicting how she can save herself from a cruel death. Moreover, in “The Company of Wolves”, the author directly presents possible symbolic interpretations of “The Red Riding Hood”.
Keywords: equal rights, the power of women, fairy tales, the passive role of a woman, werewolf.
Introduction
In recent decades, there has been much discussion about the passive role of woman in fairy tales. Some researchers argue that in fairy tales female characters are often portrayed as trapped and silenced, waiting for male figures to rescue them [1]. According to D. Haase, fairy tales deliberately weaken female characters, demonize female power, and emphasize specific role models for males [2]. The reason for this phenomenon can be traced back to the 18th century when fairy tales gained popularity, their authors, first editors, and publishers were predominantly men. Therefore, they included in their works stories where women are depicted as weak and defenseless beings, unable to advocate for women's rights [3]. However, in the
1970s, feminists began challenging these stereotypes. K. Rowe argued that fairy tales often contain romantic and dreamlike elements that are incompatible with the image of a modern woman. She asserted that the idealization of male characters in fairy tales no longer aligns with the values of our society and emphasized that purely positive characters do not exist [4]. There are even articles entitled “Five Reasons Why Girls Shouldn't Read Fairy Tales”. The underlying message of such articles is that fairy tales have an impact on girls and encourage passivity [5].
Angela Carter also actively engaged with the emerging feminist movement and supported it through her retellings of classic fairy tales. As a distinguished British writer, she was ranked the tenth best writer in The Times in 2008 [6]. The Guardians praised her ability to interpret the times with unparalleled insight [7].
Carter's retellings hold a unique place in British literature, blending elements of classic fairy tales (such as Bluebeard, Little Red Riding Hood, Beauty and the Beast, etc.) with her feminist ideology. Through the reproduction of fairy tales, she highlights the flawed aspects of fairy tales which are meant to frighten children and indoctrinate teenage girls in obedience.
Carter transformed these fairy tales into distinctive literary works characterized by rich symbolism and a unique literary style. She aimed to challenge the longstanding illusion about women, which portrayed them as weak beings constantly reliant on male care and protection. In her literary works, women fight and overcome difficulties on their own. For example, in the story “The Bloody Chamber”, the protagonist does everything to escape from Bluebeard; furthermore, her mother kills her daughter's vampire husband, thus saving her from becoming another victim [8].
However, referring to a woman's independence and strength, she does not want to be little men, considering them weaker. On the contrary, she advocates for equality between men and women and opposes the stereotype of gender inequality.
“The Company of Wolves” and Carter’s Literary Style
Defining Carter’s writing style is a little hard as it is diverse and incorporates elements of postmodernism, feminism, utopianism, gothic literature, and magical realism. Though short, her retellings of fairytales “are crammed with an extraordinary range of ideas themes and images” [9]. While speaking about her own work, she asserts “I am all for putting new wine in old bottles, especially if the pressure of the new wine makes the old bottles explode” [10]. The author’s distinguished literary style is mostly emphasized in “The Company of Wolves” which is a unique interpretation of “Little Red Riding Hood”. The tale is rich in archaic linguistic units, such as “benighted traveler”, “hark”, “byre”, etc. which are considered obsolete in Cambridge Dictionary published in 2013 [11].
Commonly, “The Company of Wolves” is also notable for its specific and abundant use of punctuation marks which in some cases defers from contemporary
English norms. We believe that their extensive usage is aimed at conveying numerous emotional overtones as far as in the English language they primarily convey semantic, emotional, and functional nuances [12]. Let us consider the following stretch below:
They will be like shadows, they will be like wraiths, grey members of a congregation of nightmare; hark! his long, wavering howl. . . an aria offear made audible [13].
In the quoted example, the author prefers to use a semicolon instead of a full stop. She supposedly wants to emphasize the semantic connection between the two sentences. The exclamation mark and the succeeding sentence with a lowercase letter are also noteworthy. Here, the exclamation mark does not have any syntactic function. It is used to make the episode more expressive and emotional. With the usage of the triple dot, the author relies on the reader's imagination of the wolf howling.
It is also worth analyzing the following passage, where the question mark seems to replace a complete sentence.
The bed was made with new sheets and the bride lay down in it; the groom said, he was going out to relieve himself, insisted on it, for the sake of decency, and she drew the coverlet up to her chin and she lay there. And she waited and she waited and then she waited again - surely he’s been gone a long time? Until she jumps up in bed and shrieks to hear a howling, coming on the wind from the forest [14].
In the episode above the bride is left alone on the first night of her marriage. The triple repetition of the verb “to wait” already implies a long period, anyhow, to make the waiting more emphatic, the author continues the sentence with her comment, which she introduces with a dash and the adverb “surely”. This is possibly done to assure the reader that the husband has gone for a long time and has not returned yet (he's been gone a long time). It is also important to mention that the sentence is not syntactically interrogative, and the question mark used at the end does not indicate a question. It can be considered another semantic addition by the author. It seems that with this question mark, Carter wants to add that she cannot say exactly how much time has passed since her husband left.
Here is another passage of the tale where the punctuation marks are also of great interest:
She gave him a pair of bonny babies and all went right as a trivet until, one freezing night; the night of the solstice, the hinge of the year when things do not fit together as well as they should, the longest night, her first good man came home again [15].
In the provided passage, the comma after the conjunction “until” appears to be an artificial pause intended to emphasize the freezing night. Folkloristic researches suggest that people tend to transform into wolves at night [16]. Curiously, in the tale, Carter specifies winter nights as a period of transformation and indicates their association with terrifying werewolf attacks. The semicolon following the phrase “one freezing night” has an emphatic function, possibly emphasizing other attributes of the night.
Besides vocabulary and punctuation features, “The Company of Wolves” is rich in similes, the main function of which is to convey to the reader the brute and cruel nature of the men transformed into wolves. Thus, the author compares a werewolf with a shadow, a ghost ("They will be like shadows, they will be like wraiths", [17]). In another episode, they are described as gray and evil, like famine and plague (“...if you stray from the path for one instant, the wolves will eat you. They are gray as famine, as unkind as plague". [18]). Enriching the narrative with similes can be considered not only Carter's literary style but also her attempt to stay faithful to the stylistic characteristics of the fairy tale. According to some stylistic studies of the fairy tale, figurative comparison is the dominant stylistic technique of this genre [19].
It is also worth noting that in “The Company of Wolves”, Carter maintains the following phrases typical of the fairy tale “Red Riding Hood” by Charles Perrault and the Brothers Grimm:
What big arms you have.
All the better to hug you with.
What big eyes you have.
All the better to see you with [20].
The most important and memorable parts of the fairy tale “Little Red Riding Hood” are the sentences quoted above. Including the aforementioned lines into the tale, Carter is likely to retain the structural layer of the traditional fairy tale.
A Feminist Perspective and a Semiotic Analysis of “The Company of the
Wolves”
The tale is notable not just for its unique literary style but also for its rich symbolism. Unlike Bruno Bettelheim, who considers the fairy tale a safe place for representation [21], Carter argues that it is a potentially dangerous space where perverse thoughts can be concealed beneath symbols [22].
In “The Company of the Wolves” the storyline of the fairy tale “Little Red Riding Hood” is preserved, except the beginning which is a well-written introduction to transformation. Through it, Carter emphasizes “the animal part within us all” [23]. In the tale, the author combines the potential wild nature of wolf and the inherited evil nature
of man, often represented by carnal desire. It is important to mention that according to the first definitive book on were wolfery, the werewolf is any human being: man, woman, or child [24], whereas, in Armenian mythology, were wolf is mainly woman [25]. Carter's decision to depict the werewolf as a man reflects her feminist ideology. It is noteworthy that the author portrays man as dangerous only when he transforms into a wolf, allowing her to skillfully avoid making direct accusations.
To confirm the view narrated above, let us observe an episode where the author tries to convey the enduring fear of werewolves that has existed for centuries.
Then her second husband came in with woodfor the fire and when the first one saw she’d slept with another man and, worse, clapped his red eyes on her little children who’d crept into the kitchen to see what all the din was about, he shouted: “I wish I were a wolf again, to teach this whore a lesson!”[26].
Here the husband, who left the woman on the first day of their marriage, returns and sees her married to another man and undergoes a voluntary transformation to take revenge on him for it. Carter also depicts the ferocious side of the werewolf in the following episode.
There is no winter’s night the cottager does not fear to see a lean, grey, famished snout questing under the door, and there was a woman once bitten in her own kitchen as she was straining the macaroni [27].
The woman has been physically abused by a werewolf while cooking pasta in the kitchen. Here, on the one hand, we witness the deliberate emphasis on the woman's responsibility for domestic chores and on the other hand gender-based violence by men. This is how Carter draws attention to the woman's vulnerable, victim status and advocates for gender equality.
We consider the introduction as a basis for developing the second part of the narrative, where the woman is described as neither miserable nor fearful. In Carter's retelling of “The Company of Wolves”, the protagonist is older than the one in “Little Red Riding Hood” written by both Brothers Grimm and Charles Perrault. She presents her as a mature, fearless girl, prepared to overcome the obstacles encountered in the forest.
In the fairy tale “Little Red Riding Hood”, the main character wears a red hat, whereas Carter's protagonist prefers a red shawl; generally, shawls are associated with women rather than children, and the choice of red is probably to ensure that she stands out in the snowy forest.
...the child wraps herself up in her thick shawl and draws it over her head. ...the red shawl that, today, has the ominous if brilliant look of blood on snow [28];
When the protagonist covers her head, she intends to emphasize that she is ready to transfer from girlhood to womanhood.
The fact that Carter presents the protagonist as more established and stronger can be observed in the following passage through such objects as the bottle of liquor and the knife she takes with her.
She is quite sure the wild beasts cannot harm her although, well-warned, she lays a carving knife in the basket her mother has packed with cheeses. There is a bottle of harsh liquor distilled from bramble [29];
As an old woman, the grandmother could hardly drink harsh liquor. If the wine could revive the grandmother in "Little Red Riding Hood”, liquor serves a different purpose here. We assume the heroine took it for herself. Moreover, carrying a knife with her demonstrates her courage and ability to defend herself.
In “The Company of Wolves”, Carter also advocates for the validation of the sexual desires experienced by adolescents during the years of their puberty, regarding it as neither less significant nor shameful. Such a view arises from the interpretation of some passages in the story. According to some researchers, the bottle of wine in “Little Red Riding Hood”, symbolizes the restraint of emotions [30], similarly, the bottle of Carter's heroine can be considered a reservoir of emotions ready to burst out.
In addition to the symbols, Carter included several episodes in the story that demonstrate the protagonist's interest in the man. Let us consider the indicated passage:
She had her hand on her knife at the first rustle of twigs but he laughed with a flash of white teeth when he saw her and made her a comic yet flattering little bow; she’d never seen such a fine fellow before, not among the rustic clowns of her native village [31].
Even though the girl's hand is on the knife handle, she refrains from making any defensive movement. It can be explained by the fact that she is reluctant to harm the young man; as a teenager, she might have wanted to flirt with a young stranger.
To confirm the view narrated above let us consider another episode where a young man makes a bet according to which if he reaches her grandmother's house first, he will get the girl's kiss as a prize. The protagonist does not object to the condition set for the wager. She deliberately strolls to give the young man a chance to arrive before her.
He went through the undergrowth and took her basket with him but she forgot to be afraid of the beasts, although now the moon was rising, for she wanted to dawdle on her way to make sure the handsome gentleman would win his wager [32].
Apart from the mentioned passage, the protagonist's lack of objection to the young man's presence is further evident when she becomes slightly disappointed seeing only her grandmother sitting next to the fire upon entering her grandmother's house. Perhaps she has hoped to find the young man there as well.
So she came in, bringing with her a flurry of snow that melted in tears on the tiles, and perhaps she was a little disappointed to see only her grandmother sitting beside the fire [33].
To emphasize the brutality of the werewolf who cares about carnal desire, Carter considers the grandmother “the inedible hair and the bones” after satisfying her sexual desire and killing her.
The last thing the old lady saw in all this world was a young man, eyes like cinders, naked as stone, approaching her bed. He burned the inedible hair in the fireplace and wrapped the bones up in a napkin that he hid away under the bed in the wooden chest in which he found a clean pair of sheets [34].
In the following passage, Carter depicts the woman's unbreakable will, absolute self-defense, and faith in her strength.
She closed the window on the wolves ’ threnody and took off her scarlet shawl, the colour ofpoppies, the colour of sacrifices, the colour of her menses, and, since her fear did her no good, she ceased to be afraid.
‘What shall I do with my shawl?’ [35].
The heroine peers out of the window and spots a pack of wolves gathered outside. So, the created situation signals danger both indoors and outdoors. Acknowledging the seriousness of the moment, she relinquishes her fear and uses feminine charm as a means of self-defense. She seduces the brutal killer, saving herself from a gruesome death. In this scene, Carter describes the protagonist not as an obedient but as a proactive, conscious woman who takes control of the situation into her own hands.
It is also interesting to note that while Carter initially describes the shawl as red, in the passage below, it becomes scarlet. According to psychoanalysis, red is mostly associated with hatred, anger, and aggression, while scarlet is a color of passion and courage [36]. Through this color change, the author emphasizes the change in the protagonist's attitude in the created situation. She also maintains the idea that even when seemingly defenseless, a woman can still use her seductive power to escape danger.
...the grandmother who’d knitted her the red shawl that, today, has the ominous if brilliant look of blood and snow.
She closed the window on the wolves’ threnody and took off her scarlet shawl... [37].
The tale ends with the scene where the heroine is calmly lying in bed with the werewolf, realizing that her grandmother's body is under the bed.
See! sweet and sound she sleeps in granny’s bed, between the paws of the tender wolf [38].
The interpretation of the passage provides us with an assumption that the protagonist is able to ignore her dead granny as she prioritizes her survival over sentimentality. Moreover, the expression “granny’s bed” symbolizes the ideology of generation change, highlighting the cyclical nature of life.
Thus, A. Carter's “The Company of Wolves”, a retelling of the fairy tale “Little Red Riding Hood”, is distinguished by its unique literary style and emphasizes the unyielding will and inner strength of a woman.
Conclusion
Feminism and criticism of classic fairy tales served as a significant source of inspiration for Angela Carter to reproduce some of these tales (Bluebeard, The Bloody, Beauty and the Beast, Little Red Riding Hood, etc.) and present them to readers from another perspective. The reviewed versions of fairy tales aim to show the inner strength of woman and advocate for gender equality.
“The Company of Wolves”, a retelling of “Little Red Riding Hood”, can be regarded as a vivid reflection of Angela Carter's feminist ideology. The tale is notable for its unique writing style. It is characterized by unconventional punctuation marks meant to enhance expressiveness. The writing is rich in archaic vocabulary and similes mainly used to describe wolves and their scary and threatening nature. In her retelling of the mentioned fairy tale, the author maintains the unique structure and plot of the original tale. The beginning serves as a well-written introduction to transformation and the fear of people towards werewolves, setting the stage for the description of the second part of the work. Angela Carter illustrates a woman’s power through intentional seduction, which the protagonist employs to save herself from a cruel death. Moreover, in “The Company of Wolves” the author openly comments on the symbolic characteristics of “Little Red Riding Hood”.
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38. Там же.
СИЛА ЖЕНЩИНЫ В ПРОИЗВЕДЕНИИ АНДЖЕЛЫ КАРТЕР «В КОМПАНИИ ВОЛКОВ»
Л.Г. Мадатян
Институт археологии и этнографии НАН РА АННОТАЦИЯ
Данная статья посвящена анализу произведении Анджелы Картер «В компания волков». Являясь переработанной версией «Красной шапочки», она ярко демонстрирует феминистскую идеологию автора.
Ее намерение - проиллюстрировать врожденную силу женщины и выступить за гендерное равенство. Пересказ отличается уникальным
стилем письма, характеризующимся нетрадиционной пунктуацией, архаичной лексикой и богатыми сравнениями. Пересказывая сказку «Красная шапочка», Картер сохраняет ее характерную структуру и сюжетную линию, за исключением начала, которое является хорошим вступлением к трансформации. Это служит основой для исследования внутренней силы женщины во второй части повествования. Картер демонстрирует силу женщины через ее сознательное влечение, показывая, как она может спастись от жестокой смерти. Более того, в произведении «В компании волков» автор напрямую представляет возможные символические интерпретации «Красной шапочки».
Ключевые слова: равноправие, власть женщины, сказки, пассивная роль женщины, оборотень.
