The Company of Wolves

“The Company of Wolves” by Angela Carter follows the story line of the classic children’s fairytale “Little Red Riding Hood” which is known universally in the western world. Despite the relationship between the two stories, “The Company of Wolves” has cunningly been written with an eerie atmosphere and plot twists to engage the reader. Reinvented into a gothic fantasy, the story highlights Red Riding Hood’s innocence and uses the Wolf as a metaphor for men to position the reader to react differently than the classic fairytale.
It becomes obvious to the reader that the story is based upon the well known fairy tale ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ but Carter has twisted the innocent children’s story into a extravagant gothic fantasy which positions the reader to grasp a greater understanding of the events leading up to the climax and the background in general. The stylist choices of magic realism differ from the classic denotation of fantasy because realistic frameworks of the real world are twisted with the supernatural resulting in murderous, sadistic or brutal situations; in this instance Red Riding Hood engaging in sexual acts with the Wolf. From the beginning the reader is fully aware of the stylistic choice of gothic fantasy, “One beast and only one beast howls in the woods by night” is typical of gothic tales as woods are usually portrayed as a dangerous and a forbidding setting, but also provides emphasis through repetition of ‘one beast’ and ‘only one’ to draw the reader’s attention onto the fact that the Wolf is important and plays a significant role in the story. A common aspect of gothic tales is winter which is the setting of the story, as shown through distribution of the words ‘snow’, ‘Christmas’, ‘Robin’, ‘blizzard’ and ‘cold’ throughout the story which are classic connotations relative to the season. The stylistic choice made by Carter in relation to the classic fairy style creates an eerie atmosphere and positions the reader to question if they really