Zusammenfassung der Ressource
The Werewolf
- Characters
- The Child
- 'The child was strong and armed with her
father's hunting knife.'
- Idea of this anonymous child as an independent woman-
feminist independence.
- Knife later becomes 'her' knife
- 'The good child.'
- The Grandmother
- 'Witch'
- 'Old woman'
- 'A hand toughened with hard work and freckled with old age.'
- This woman was already conditioned by assuming her role in a
patriarchal society
- Thus, females must be wary of and remove
themselves from even the women who assume
this role
- Carter: 'I'm all for the pouring of new wine
into old bottles especially if the pressure of
the new wine makes the old bottles
explode'
- Living in the grandma's house
yet has completely undermined
the subjugation that that would
usually entail
- Supported by previous, critical references to superstition.
- 'When they discovered a witch... another old woman
whose black cat, oh, sinister! follows her about all the
time.'
- The parallel between criticising old ideas on the
role of a female, likening it to the ridiculousness
of superstition.
- Preceding generation of mothers who expect
the same from their daughters.
- Revenance- how we
cannot let past
thoughts control the
present
- Linking to idea that Wolf-alice
'inhabits only the present tense'
- Anwell: 'We recognise the author's turning
of the tables and simultaneously, the
damage done by the old inscriptions of
femininity as passive.'
- Setting
- 'In a northern country; they have cold
weather, they have cold hearts... Cold;
tempest; wild beasts in the forest.'
- Pathetic fallacy etc
- Consonance &
punctuation- it's
a hard life
- The effects of their old fashioned thoughts.
- Women are damaged by
encouraging other females to fulfil
the male gaze idea.
- Much like countess in The Snow Child
- Fear of wolves more dangerous in winter
when they are hungry.
- Sexual appetite
- Symbolism
- The father's hunting knife
- 'Here's your father's hunting knife, you
know how to use it.'
- Phallic symbolism?
- 'The child wiped the blade of her knife...'
- Goes from being her father's knife to her own one- she
has gained strength through her father's protection
and taken agency?
- BC, father's gun shows the usurping of the masculine role, in this story the
knife highlights taking ownership of her own position?
- Yet it is the neighbours who eventually
stone the wolf, helping the reader retain
sympathy for the protagonist
- The forest
- 'She knew the forest too well to fear it, but
must always keep her guard.'
- Now a perspective that
knowledge can guide you
through the forest.
- Women do not have to be object if they take
agency of their own sexuality
- This brings equality
- Merja Makinen: 'Read the beasts as the projections of
a feminine libido, and they become exactly that
autonomous desire which the female characters need
to recognise and reappropriate as a part of
themselves...'
- Symbolism for the liminal space of puberty.
- Journey from childhood to womanhood.
- Thus wild landscapes= inner turmoil etc
- Thus it is suggested that the outcome
of this transition should be to a
grandmother-type figure, yet Carter
subverts this.
- Form and structure
- Generally a 3rd person narrative perspective
- Typical of fairy tale genre
- Generally colloquial tone with
condescending views towards the
towns people (e.g. see quote about
witches)
- Switches to the mother as narrator
momentarily without speech marks
- 'Go and visit grandmother who
has been sick.'
- The orders/ beliefs from older generations to younger ones
- Thus just as the mother aims her words at the
daughter, this is aimed at the reader so that they
question their own position.
- Eg: 'Their houses'...'There will be'
- Carter distances self from
common townsfolk
- She does not assume
her position from mass
belief.