The Company Of Wolves And Marie De France's The Company Of The Werewolf

Power is an entity that is not given to a person, but is inalienable in all people. One must realize that it is not a matter of finding and achieving power, but instead, not letting it get taken away. Angela Carter’s The Company of Wolves and Marie de France’s The Lay of the Werewolf ventures into this idea of power, but specifically, into the role of control in a male-dominated society. Carter prologues her main story with several short stories about the nature of werewolves and relationships between mutating men and the women whom are expected to submit to them. Moreover, in both Carter and Marie De France’s stories, the werewolf acts as a shocking catalyst to urge the reader to consider why the beast of the tale is no longer just animal, but also part human. Above all, the werewolf serves as a symbol of the quintessential alpha male, and what contributes to his dominance and possible success or downfall. In the first few short accounts of The Company of Wolves, Carter does not hesitate to reveal the level of

First, the werewolf’s earliest appearance in human form as “a dashing huntsmen,” extends the symbolism to warn the reader that baseness is not always synonymous with being covered in lice, but can be clothed in a disguise similar to what France suggests of the wife in The Lay of the Werewolf (Carter 217). Yet, it seems that even when the boy in Carter’s story does transform, he is still, in essence, as much human as he is beast. Also, the description of him as a naked werewolf reveals, quite obviously, the sexual undertone, of asserting dominance over women, much like those that caused fear in the wife in The Lay of the Werewolf. This lecherous monster overcomes the grandmother easily, due to not only her age, but because of her inability to think quickly, making her yet another naïve female fallen prey to the sexually charged, powerful