The “Company of the wolves” by Angela Carter is similar to the fairytale story known as the “Little Red Riding Hood” but is retold in a different way which is often known as feminist perspective. Angela Carter has changed the conventional heroine of the fairytale into someone who is brave and courageous. The story by Angela Carter is the retelling of the fairytale story but have deeper meanings in terms of the symbols used, the feminist perspective, the gender role and generation gap.
The story by Angela Carter has many symbols used in to show that it is not a fairy tale. A cloak is used for protecting the person from cold but in this story it has multiple meaning. The red cloak wore by the girls symbolizes her virginity, sexuality and passion because of its blood colour. This shawl is the barrier for the girl to fully transform into womanhood and when she burns her cloak in the fire, it shows she is offering her body to the beast. The wolves can also symbolize man who becomes dominative and acts like a beast ones they are married. Like Achilles have weakness on his heel similarly the beast shows that every human have weaknesses so the girl subdues the werewolf with his weak point. Forest symbolizes something that is wild and scary where Angela Carter says the forest is a place where it helps the wolves to trap people. So forest can also symbolize a patriarchal society created by man that helps the beast to have feast with the
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The story of the little red riding hood who is portrayed as a girl with the power or the one with the mind of her own and one who dares to break out of the male dominating society. She dares to go to the forbidden place which is the forest without her father’s permission as “her father might forbid her” (Carter, 1995, pg.33), which shows patrician society and here the girl, is going against the rule made by the male dominated society by going into the