Feminism in Angela Carters The Company Of Wolves - Essay Example

Feminism in Angela Carter’s “The Company Of Wolves” Fisanick defines feminist criticism as one that involves the manner in which writing (and othercultural fabrications) strengthen or destabilize the political, economic, psychological, and social cruelty of women. This discipline looks at the inherently patriarchal aspects of our culture. This critic tries to decipher open and hidden misogyny in male this critique strives to expose the explicit and implicit literature about women. This critic is far reaching since it even exists e.g. in the field of medicine where testing on drugs for both sexes is done on the male sex. Fisanick, Christina. Feminism. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2008.78-9. The areas that are given most concentration include oppression through patriarchy politically, socially, economically, and psychiatry, in a patriarchal leadership setup the woman ids neglected and defined by her difference from male values and norms. The Westerns founded on a patriarchal civilization evident from the immemorial view of the Biblical as the beginning of transgression and death. Gender distinguishes males from females through the terms masculine and feminine respectively. All activity related to women comprising literary criticism and feminist hypothesis aim at making a revolution that would promote gender equality. Gender issues are irrevocably part of every life aspect of human lives. Fisanick, Christina. Feminism. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2008.81-3 Feminism is a journey that started as early almost three centuries ago. It started in late 1700s and till now, feminist critics have been pressing on unfailing. This quest has majorly been driven by women and very few men if any. A lot has been vocalized by elite women and those in authority. The plea for equality has gone through three phases; First Wave Feminism from late 1700s to early 1900s which led to the formation of the National Universal suffrage around year 1920. Next there was the Second Wave Feminism from 1960s to 1970s there was improvement in employment was disparity reduced. Third is the current Third Wave Feminism which started in 1900s to present. This wave is fighting for gender equality together with other matters affecting humans e.g. racism and discrimination. In literature, the discipline is concerned with marginalization of female writers from the common literary canon: unless the aspect being viewed is feminist, women writers are usually under-represented. To air their grievances, most women write their literatures based on the heroic achievements they can make if provided with a favorable platform. As a female writer, Angela Carter manifests her feminism in her different narratives. Bomarito, Jessica, and Jeffrey W. Hunter. Feminism in literature: a Gale critical companion. Detroit: Thomson Gale, 2005. As per Cornelia, Carter starts with some framework after the wolves, providing a stunning narrative of their appearance and a narration of villagers/wolf conflict. The heartbreaking and thus most entertaining anecdote is that of a lady whose first spouse leaves at night to help himself and never comes back other than after several years as a wolf-man. A new husband exterminates the returning old husband and on top beats up his wife for grieving her loss. Cornelia Koprivnik. The Notion of Gender in Angela Carters Short Story "The Company of Wolves" GRIN Verlag, 2011: 3-7 Carter depends on many dark and perilous descriptions for everything that threatens the wellbeing of the village. In one of her lines, she narrates “the woods closed ahead of her like the jaws of a wolf.” This clearly shows the imminent danger awaiting Red as soon as she leaves her mom’s house. Carter describes the wolves as perpetually ferocious and satanic creatures regardless of previously being men. Their eyes are generally a central point: “At night, the eyes of wolves glow like flaming candles, reddish, yellowish, the reason is that their pupils enlarge at night and trap the light from your lamp to blaze it back in a sign of danger-red; if the beast’s eyes echo only moonlight, in that case they glimmer a cold” Red is able to defeat the wolf alone through her seduction and has doomed him to a lifestyle of wolf-hood by blazing his clothes- a curse to last for at least seven year. She ends up marrying the wolfish boy and acts weirdly by picking and eating his lice. The disagreement from her grandmother does not hinder her from consummating their marriage. Carter’s work is a pro-woman narrative with Red getting married to a wolf in order to subdue him and put him under her rule. Carter puts Red as the only girl who has taken an extraordinary step outwitting the wolfish male. Cornelia Koprivnik. The Notion of Gender in Angela Carters Short Story "The Company of Wolves" GRIN Verlag, 2011: 8. In Wang’s analysis of The Company with wolves, Carter describes Red as an autonomous woman. Unlike her granny and other persons in the narrative, she does not put herself in servitude, neither to her family nor to God. When the wolf-boy comes in, granny “tosses her overall and then her religious book at the wolf, wails at Jesus and Mary for safety but the symbols of deity are insufficient to keep the wolf away” Red is self-dependent. Through her servitude and living humbly, the grandmother believes that it only God who can salvage her from the wolf: "We avoid invasion of wolves in our houses through living sound lives” First, she is determined and “insists she will go off through the wood” well knowing the menace of wolves. Not her mother or father can stop her from her determination. She not only chases after love but also utilizes her sexuality to salvage herself, despite fear or care of social custom. Red learns that only pure flesh gratify the boy-wolf and determines her fate by presenting her virgin body. Wang, Hong. “Metaphor, Morals and the Adaptation of Fairy Tales – An Analysis of Angela Carter’s The Company of Wolves.” Journal of Sichuan International Studies University 16 (2000): 25-7. Intuitionally, she dresses down and craftily undresses him. The overhearing granny makes some sound in fear and opposition, but Red is not derailed from her mission. She shows independence in her defiance to the passive order to stop what she is doing. 　　Carter reveals thought of women’s liberation as the book closes where Red stays with the then wolf but now husband. She lives in peace with the wolf. It is Carter’s belief that women can live at peace with men, with neither sex not necessarily conquering the other, so there is no wolf (male) or girl (female). In fact, they mutually discern themselves in their experience with the other sex. Carter also demonstrates the possibility of harmonizing the two sexes. Peace finally prevails: “the aggressive storm slowly comes to an end, the moonlight lights on the quiet snow, and the ticking of the watch implies the serenity of the planet”. Wang, Hong. “Metaphor, Morals and the Adaptation of Fairy Tales – An Analysis of Angela Carter’s The Company of Wolves.” Journal of Sichuan International Studies University 16 (2000): 29-32. 　 To sum it up, Carter expose and sings honor to a girl of oddness, which signifies her model of contemporary liberated woman. Unlike her similarity in Grimm’s fairy story for kids and Perrault’s ethical teaching for women, dissimilar to her older generations, this girl in Carter’s rewriting is independent and intelligent. Their peaceful union demonstrates Red’s modernity. Jack’s work on The Company of Wolves happens in a setup where women are regarded as antagonists by their male counterparts. The child and her grandmother both wish the best for each other. When a child is about to get married to the wolf, the grandmother tries to caution her by clattering her bones. Through the fear she has for the werewolves and the knowledge of their cunning behavior, she considers herself already consumed by the werewolves but cannot understand that by the child claiming her own desires, she becomes invulnerable to harm. Jack Zipes, "Crossing Boundaries with Wise Girls: Angela Carters Fairy Tales for Children" in Angela Carter and the Fairy Tale, ed. Danielle M. Roemer and Christina Bacchilega (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1998), p 157-62. The change into a werewolf is taken as a “condemnation.” Their yowl has "a little inherent misery in it, as the beasts would like be less aggressive were it that they knew how none ever stop to grief their own condition." this suggests that men who choose to turn into werewolves may lament it inasmuch the wretchedness it causes. The child is compassionate for the werewolf and his brethren and this deeply moves her to sign up with them. In Danielle & Christina work this young girl wears a cape representing “blood on snow” as an advert of readiness for sex. This color of sacrifices depicts women as an inferior sex and give in to men for marriage and sex. The girl is special since she does not hold anti-werewolf tales as her mates do. The heroine seems to be sacrificing to the werewolf when she strips naked. The heroine just when the werewolf tells her that he will eat him since she knows well that she has offered herself for sex and not as ones flesh. This superwoman uses her human pity and her vast sexual power to change the action of devouring to a sexual one. Angela Carter and the Fairy Tale, ed. Danielle M. Roemer and Christina Bacchilega (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1998). Carters "The Company of Wolves" is a gothic and feminist retelling of the typical fairy tale "Little Red Riding-Hood". The story engage the werewolf as a sexual marauder, a sign for both desire and danger, above which young female triumphs, utilizing her newly found sexual supremacy and assenting to the symbol of bodily desire. In this narrative, the granny dies but the girl uses her discovered sexual power to salvage herself. This tale recites the praises to female sexuality and deliverance, and means that not anything else, not deity nor good living nor fear will save the prey of the wolf, and the lone way to live on in the human race in which danger, temptation, and desire hunts you everywhere, is to battle fire with fire. Carter, Angela. "Company of Wolves". Short Fiction an Introductory Anthology. Ed. Gerald Lynch and David Rampton. Toronto: Nelson, 2005. 644-651 Carters short narrative "The Company of Wolves" emerges to be depicting that sexuality, conversely to popular viewpoints and stigmas, is not a thing to be feared, loathed or run away from. Those who live by hoping to get help from parents, children or God end up succumbing to situations. The heroine who used the power in her hands regardless of fear or shame was the single one who safely survived the encounter with the wolf. Dalgleish expresses Carter as a feminist who has brought forth her allure in the dynamics of female aspiration. In her ‘The Company of Wolves’ narrative, Carter puts forth the role of innocence and women’s role to independently fight for themselves. A housewife who was at one time married to a wolf is evocative. A woman discovers that the hunter is a wolf, and thus can only depend on her own help. The woman is brave and cares less no matter the tales associated with wolves. The heroine inveigles the wolf, her granny’s devourer. The encounter is tough but finally she subdues the fiercely feared wolf:"See! Charming and healthy she lodges in grannys bed, sandwiched between the feet of the gentle wolf." This is probably what she went to search for when she asserted to go into the wolf-infested forest. Her search brought success of stripping of the lost husband’s werewolf’s character. Dalgleish, David. The Company of Wolves. 1998. Available at: http://subjective.freeservers.Com/wolves.html. Accessed on: apr. 22, 2014. Through the woman’s intelligence demonstrated in Danielle & Christina work, she was able to save herself and men who had turned to be werewolves.With her newly discovered power of sexuality and daring nature she uses it to transform and tame the fierce wolfish husband. Angela Carter and the Fairy Tale, ed. Danielle M. Roemer and Christina Bacchilega (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1998). Read More