The Brothers Grimm version of the tale introduces the mother’s warning to her daughter to “not to stray from the path” (Grimm 151) when the girl heads out into the woods to visit her grandmother. In the end, the girl and her grandmother survive only because of the heroic actions of the huntsman. The girl learns her lesson and says that she will “never leave the path, or speak to strangers,” and that she will “do as Mother tells [her], like a good girl” (Grimm 155). The Brothers Grimm is perhaps the most well known version of Little Red Riding Hood today.
The Company of Wolves begins by introducing a modern, middle-class family living in a large country house. The youngest daughter, Rosaleen, is asleep in her room because she has a “tummy-ache”, suggesting that she has started her menses. While Rosaleen’s body is undergoing a physical maturation, her mind goes through a psychological maturation within the dream. Within her dream, Rosaleen searches for “the integrity of her psyche, identity, independence, and sexual fulfillment” (Zucker 67). In many ways, The Company of Wolves is a deconstruction of the traditional Little Red Riding Hood fairytale that admonishes girls who do not conform to traditional gender roles and explores the alternatives and the possibilities that are suppressed within society through the use of dreams. In particular, it examines the coming of age of a girl who strays from the path and fully embraces her budding sexuality within a dream space that is free from the societal repression of the waking world.
Even from the outset of the dream, it is clear that Rosaleen is strong and independent. She is a far cry from Grimm’s passive Little Red Riding Hood who relies on a woodsman to save her from the wolf. At Alice’s funeral, Rosaleen challenges Granny’s traditional notions of gender:
GRANNY: Your poor sister - all alone in the wood, and nobody there to save
her! Poor little lamb!
ROSALEEN: Why couldn't she save herself?
GRANNY: You don't know these things, you're only a child!
Granny, however, dismisses Rosaleen’s question because she is “only a child”. Granny is superstitious, and believes that sexuality is dangerous and evil. When they walk in the woods, Granny constantly warns Rosaleen to never “stray from the path”, a symbol of safety and obedience, while the woods symbolize the dangers of the sexual desire. She warns Rosaleen against “wolves who are hairy on the inside” because they “drag [her] right to hell” and tells her a story about a newly wedded husband who leaves his wife to join the wolves. Granny’s message is clear: men are “nice as pie until they’ve had their way with you. But once the bloom is gone, oh, the beast comes out.” Granny has a cynical view on sexuality, and sees the worst in men. Rosaleen does not react with horror to the husband’s beastliness. Instead, she is more concerned with the victimization of women and insists that she’d “never let a man strike [her]”.
While Granny is a social outcast who lives in the woods, her views on sexuality are not exactly unconventional. While the villagers do not share Granny’s superstition, they too, fear wolves and everything that they represent. The priest, a respected authority figure within the village, gives a sermon that exemplifies this view:
PRIEST: Isaiah, chapter eleven, verses six to eight. "The wolf also shall
dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the
calf and the young lion and fatling together, and the little child shall
lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed their young ones together.
And the lion shall eat straw with the ox, and the suckling child shall play
on the whole of the ass, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the
cockatrice's den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain,
for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters
cover the sea.
Civilized society marginalizes the wolf out of fear and distances itself from nature because it cannot accept that death and destruction as an inherent part of the natural cycle. Predators have an integral, albeit unpleasant role to play in the natural world. It is unrealistic to expect the lion to eat straw like the ox because it goes against its nature. The ridiculous sermon can also be read as a critique on institutionalized religion’s fear of human sexuality. Predators like the wolf, leopard, and lion symbolize sexual libido and the animalistic nature of sex. Natural sexual urges are repressed in civilized society through religious mores, gender roles, and the institution of marriage. It is significant that Rosaleen’s “date” with the boy into the woods takes place right after Church, as it represents a part of the ritual of courtship and marriage. As a young girl, Rosaleen is expected to eventually marry, have children, and assume the domestic duties of a conventional woman. While she is being courted by the boy in the woods, Rosaleen strays off the path, symbolizing her rejection of traditional expectations. She encounters an enormous tree with a snake coiled on a branch, an allusion to the tree of knowledge and a symbol for the loss of innocence. The red lipstick and the eggs within the womb-like nest that she finds on top of the tree represent menstruation and sexual maturity.
Rosaleen’s mother represents an alternative view of sexuality. According to Zucker, her mother is “associated with natural phenomena and cycles of nature, as opposed to the superstitions and fears of Granny” (Zucker 68). When Rosaleen observes her mother and father having sex, she tries to fit them into the victimizer/victim paradigm found in Granny’s tale. She asks her mother if she was hurt by father, and she answers “No, no, not at all. If there is a beast in men, it meets its match in women too.” In opposition to Granny’s views of women as helpless victims, Rosaleen’s mother sees heterosexual relationships as more mutual and rejects Granny’s superstitions. In a way, Rosaleen’s mother represents a woman who has found her own path. There is validity in her views because she has a healthy relationship with her husband. In contrast, Granny clings on to old superstitions, and lives a fearful and lonely life in the woods as a result. Moreover, Granny is killed by the Huntsman in the end.
As the film progresses, Rosaleen begins to find her own voice and assumes the role of storyteller. While Granny tells stories where women are helpless victims, Rosaleen tells stories where women find empowerment. She tells a story to her mother about a pregnant witch who was wronged by a wealthy man. She crashes his wedding party and transforms all of the guests into wolves. “After that,” Rosaleen concludes, “the woman made the wolves come sing to her and the baby at night. Made them come and serenade her.” Her mother is taken aback, and asks, “what pleasure can there be, in listening to the howls of wolves?” Rosaleen replies that “the pleasure would come in knowing the power that she had.” Rosaleen claims that she heard the story from Granny, yet it is distinct Granny’s stories of female victimhood. Rosaleen’s first story is indicative of an independent imagination and a budding sense of self.
The last part of the film resembles the Little Red Riding Hood fairytale. Rosaleen meets a huntsman in the woods on her way to Granny’s house. Despite Granny’s warning about men whose “eyebrows meet in the middle”, Rosaleen allows herself to be seduced by the huntsman. They flirt and make a wager about who will reach Granny’s house first. True to the traditional fairytale, the huntsman wins the race and reaches Granny’s house first. Granny tells the huntsman to “get back to Hell from which [he] came from,” to which the huntsman replies that he “doesn’t come from hell. [He] came from the forest.” This exchange underscores Granny’s misconception of the wolf as an evil, demonic entity, while he is merely a feared and misunderstood part of nature. When Rosaleen encounters the wolf, she refuses to assume the role passive victim. She strips off her red cloak and throws it into the fire, a gesture that symbolizes her rejection of the roles and identity that society has assigned to her, and her willingness to act on her desires. The transformation sequence is extremely graphic and interesting. The body does not simply morph. Rather, the wolf inside rips through the human skin to reveal itself. Moreover, the heaving, sweating, and swelling give it a sexual connotation. The transformation symbolizes the revelation of the beast inside the man and the painful transition into adulthood. Rosaleen is undergoing the physical and psychological transition from being a girl to being a woman. The werewolf’s connection to the lunar cycle and the agonizing underscores the relationship between wolfishness and womanhood. Like the werewolf, Rosaline will undergo a painful transformation that involves the sloughing off the skin. Rosaline does not react with horror to the huntsman’s transformation. Instead, she shows compassion and tells the wolf that she “did not know that wolves could cry.”
Rosaleen’s final tale reflects her increasing identification with otherness. According to Catherine Lappas:
Both Rosaleen and the she-wolf are trapped in a hostile and unfamiliar land, encased in unfamiliar skins, ill-fitted for traditional gender roles, and shunned because of their differences. Indeed, throughout the film Carter makes obvious that the wolf’s very otherness is what intrigues Rosaleen. Her sympathy and inclination toward other than what society has dictated, signals her own difference and surfaces explicitly in the natural affection for the wolf and for other reviled beasts of the forest. (Lappas 121)
Unlike Perrault and Grimm’s version of the fairy tale, Rosaleen is not punished for straying from the path or acting on her desires. Instead of being a passive victim who is devoured by the wolf or rescued by a huntsman, Rosaleen is an autonomous young woman who embraces her otherness and becomes a wolf herself. In the end, it is Rosaleen’s mother, the person who understands her the most, who recognizes Rosaleen as a wolf and stops the her from shooting. Rosaleen and her new companions run through the forest. The dreaming and waking worlds collapse together when the wolves crash through into the bedroom where Rosaleen is sleeping, knocking over her toys in the process. This represents the destruction of childhood as Rosaleen grows up, and she wakes up to the horrors of puberty.
Rosaleen dreams of a self that is autonomous and in control. Within her dream, she strays from the path, and as a result, becomes empowered and establishes her own identity as a woman. Yet, the film does not end on a happy note. Perhaps Rosaleen’s scream represents what she will have to sacrifice in order to become an adult, and the fear of the uncertainty of growing up. The wolves destroy her toys, but whether the wolves will harm Rosaleen is withheld from the ending. Rosaleen successfully negotiates her transition into womanhood within the safe confines of her dream. But whether she will get through her adolescence unscathed within the waking world is uncertain.
WORKS CITED
Bacchilega, Cristina. Postmodern fairytales: gender and narrative strategies.
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997.
Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm. Grimm’s fairy tales. Translated by Peter Carter.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982.
Lappas, Catherine. “Seeing is Believing, but Touching is the Truth: Female Spectatorship
and Sexuality' in The Company of Wolves.” Women’s Studies 25/2 (January 1996): 115-135.
Jordan, Neil, dir. The Company of Wolves. Incorporated Television Company, 1984.
Perrault, Charles. Little Red Riding Hood and ten other classic stories. Translated by Neil
Philip and Nicoletta Simborowski. London: Pavilion, 1993.
Zipes, Jack. The Trials and Tribulations of Little Red Riding Hood. New York:
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Zucker, Carol. “Sweetest Tongue has Sharpest Tooth: The Dangers of Dreaming in Neil
Jordan’s The Company of Wolves.” Literature Film Quarterly 28/1 (2000): 66-71.
