The Company Of Wolves, By Angela Carter

The Company of Wolves is a short story written by Angela Carter in 1979 and was published in her book The Bloody Chamber. The story takes the classic fairytale Little Red Riding Hood and uses it show how monster or werewolves are manifestations of our fears. They are fears that if handled correctly can be defeated and tamed. Carter does this using incredible imagery throughout the story to provide a more graphic and memorable story, the use of the werewolf as symbolism for dangers of the unknown and with an amazing character arc using Little Red Riding Hood to show the transition from innocence. The Company of Wolves uses descriptive words throughout to give you a vivid and memorable idea of wolves and their place in our world. Angela Carter

This may seem like it would go along with the moral of the story, but it’s not the moral of this version. Little Red Riding as having just come into puberty with, “Her breast just begun to swell” (687), and “…she has just started her woman’s bleeding…” (687). She also describes her as “…the invisible pentacle of her own virginity” (687), basically saying she is the image of purity and the embodiment of innocent. Carter says she is so innocent, “…she does not know how to shiver” (687), she doesn’t know that there is anything to fear in the world because she has been keep as a child for so long. As the classic fairytale goes she goes off into the woods to take her elderly grandmother some groceries on a cold winters day. This is where the story takes a turn. While Little Red Riding Hood is walking, she meets, “… a fully clothed one [man], a very handsome young one, in the green coat and wideawake hat of a hunter, laden with carcasses of game birds” (688), this in great contrast to the wolf or the naked man she was told to be wary of, therefore she trusts him. This goes back to the

The way Angela Carter uses words to describe key factors of the story and relay a sense of what’s important and give a clear image of the dangers of monsters. Her use of symbolism to show the reader that the monster isn’t always what he seems and to be forever wary of him. She then concludes with Little Red Riding Hood and shows that just because a monster can be dangerous one should fear him for any monster can be