When the wolf arrives at the grandmother’s house he puts down the basket (vaginal symbol) “Oh, my God, what have you done with her?”. The narrative shifts between a fairy-tale style and real-life description: the vocabulary and lexis acts as a device to illustrate this visual quality. The grandma appears helpless and futile and attempts to repress the beast by throwing her apron and bible at him “you though that was a sure prophylactic against these infernal vermin”. A prophylactic is not only acting to defend against or prevent something but also a contraceptive device, especially a condom, which might indicate she knew the wolves next move.
“Off with his disguise . . . matted hair . . . lice . . . night and the forest”, here we see men as sex objects through the eyes of woman. “He strips off his shirt” the traditional image of the wolf and grandmother is sexualised. “She can see how hairy his legs are. His genitals, huge. Ah! huge.” The image of the grandmother as an oppressive victim is subverted. The usage of the words “strip” and “stripe”, add a poetic stylistic quality. It is almost an utterance and is not grammatically correct. The narrative style is internalised and is like a porosis of thought. The last thing the old lady saw in all this world was a young man “approaching her bed” there is an ambiguity in the way this extract has been written, and the reader is left to decide how to interpret this powerful macabre account.
Throughout the play much emphasis is placed on the colour red and indeed what it represents: blood. The eyes of the wolves are described as “reddish”. A Synecdoche is used “red for danger”: blood as a symbol of sexual emancipation. Little Red riding Hood’s shawl is red and has “the ominous if brilliant look of blood on snow”. We are informed she “has just started her woman’s bleeding”. The wolf is described as having “a faint trace of blood on his chin”. When Little Red riding Hood arrives at the house her scarlet shawl is as red as the “blood she is about to spill”, the reader is led to believe she is about to kill the ‘beast’. The colour red is important on many levels; it represents sexual passion and desire, danger and destruction and purity and vitality. “She saw how his jaw began to slaver and the room was full of the clamour of the forest's Liebestod,” ‘Liebestod’ is the German concept of the unity of love and death, throughout the story love (passion) is put adjacent to death (danger), this is none better demonstrated by when Little Red’s sexual encounter with the wolf, she will lay his fearful head on her lap, a phallic symbol, and she will pick out the lice from his pelt and perhaps she will put “the lice into her own mouth and eat them, as he will bid her,”, this represents women’s worship of men in society. Despite her grandmother’s morbid death at the hands of the wolf Little Red still seems happy to continue with the wolf.
Religion is another recurring theme throughout 'The Company of Wolves'. Carter has subtly used language and lexis as a medium by which she expresses the restrictions of religion, and how marriage can be an oppressive rather than constructive burden on women.
The eyes of the wolves “shine like candle flames” this description is ominous. Later on the wolves are described as a “congregation of nightmare”, the definition of a congregation is a group of people gathered for religious worship, and the religious undertones are reinforced when the wolves howls are described as “canticles” canticles usually being a psalm, hymn, or passage from the Bible, arranged for chanting in church service. “The possibility of redemption” is mentioned in conjunction with their “irremediable appetites”. The wolves of the world are described as howling “a prothalamion outside the window as she freely gave the kiss she owed him.” a prothalamion is a song in celebration of a wedding. In the last paragraph, Little Red is described as putting the lice in her mouth and eating them “as she would do in a savage marriage ceremony”, the kiss represents marriage within society.
Carter demonstrates an obsession with sadistic power and masochistic sacrifice
The question of gender within the story is recurrent. The werewolf is seen as virility and male sexuality. Although Carter swings her metaphors widely the wolf is seen as a symbol for selfish human nature emerging through guilt and hypocrisy. Towards the end there is reconciliation between male and female sexuality “The blizzard will die down” once again Carter highlights and parodies the stereotype of women civilizing and soothing men with their uncontrollable desires.
The first line emphasises the ongoing question of man "One beast and only one howls in the woods by night.” The reader is left to decide whether it is a wolf or is it man or is both. There is much ambiguity between men and wolves: the wolves are referred to as “beasts” and are described as loving to be “less beastly if only they knew how”.
Men are painted as beasts within the narrative. This is typified in the folktales at the beginning, “There was woman once bitten in her own kitchen as she was straining the macaroni”, interestingly domestic scenes are used to further blur the lines between surreal fairytale and everyday life and to add shock momentum when this idyllic scene is disturbed. The masculine spirit is evoked when violence and destruction erupts when her husband returns years after his mysterious disappearance on their wedding night, he comes in with food for the fire This is a critique of men when the woman’s first husband returns the first thing he says is “Get me my bowl of cabbage and be quick about it” which shows the little respect he bears for women. When he sees she has slept with another man and, worse, “clapped his red eyes on her little children he shouts: “I wish I were a wolf again, to teach this whore a lesson!”, Carter sends up the absurdity of the first husband coming to reclaim his “meat”. Moreover, Carter is satirising the idealisation of women, and makes a point of how some men categorise women as either ‘virgins’ or ‘whores’, this absolutist tagging is ironic considering the woman he refers to as a “whore”, was in the-not-so-distant past was a ‘worthy’ wife. The stringency of male pride and honour is mocked “But when the wolf lay bleeding and gaspiting its last, the pelt peeled off again and he was just as he had been, years ago, when he ran away from his marriage bed, so that she wept and her second husband beat her” the brutality and animalistic nature of men is draw attention to, the line between the man and the beast is further blurred: both equally wild and sadistic. Women are represented as victims of passive male aggression.
'The Company of Wolves’ uses many narrative techniques to allow the reader to assess the portrayal of woman within everyday society, Cater questions gender roles and subverts stereotypes of femininity, this is demonstrated when the girl bursts out laughing, when the wolf tells her that his big teeth or all the better for eating her with, “she knew she was nobody’s meat”. Little Red Riding Hood represents nascent female sexuality. The red hood appears as a symbol of menstruation and Little Red Riding Hood’s path through the forest is seen as an allegoric path of virtue into womanhood. Stress is placed on her burgeoning sexuality, she is described as wanting to dawdle on her way to make sure the handsome gentleman would win his wager, this subverts the traditional image of Little Red Riding Hood.”. Carter has created an amazing swim of metaphors where lycanthropy is made to stand in for everything from budding sexual desire juxtaposed with a dwindling fear of men, “since her fear did her no good, she ceased to be afraid”.
