“the Company of Wolves” the Retelling of a Classic Story

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Widely praised in Britain as an original novelist, Angela Carter’s writing technique and adaptive use of literary elements in the story, “The Company of Wolves”, makes this short story her greatest and most engaging piece of fictional literature throughout her writing career. The detailed development of the characters and setting, the conflict, symbolism and the surprising resolution give this story a new version to a timeless fairy tale story. Carter’s complex mix of symbolism with Gothic fiction and fantasy make this an incomparable short story. Angela Carter was an outspoken feminist and a well-known English writer who was notorious for retelling famous fairy tales. She wrote many stories about pornography, corrupt human sexuality (Schanoes, 30), and cannibalism which are themes in many of the short stories in the “Bloody Chamber”. Most believe that the stories contained in The Bloody Chambers are credited as her best enduring work. Carter received literary awards for The Bloody Chambers (Rushdie, xi). Carter was described by friends as a fierce feminist writer preoccupied with outrageous, exotic and demotic themes. (Rushdie ix) The story “The Company of Wolves” is set in the winter in the mountains and forests of some cold place. The narrator describes the danger in the forest due to the wolves that hunt there. Carter describes the wolves as being “lean and famished” (62) since there is not much to eat during this time of year and the wolves are always on the prowl. From the vivid description of the setting, the reader begins to picture the forest as a dark, frightening and endangering place. This makes the reader begin to feel anxious, apprehensive and uncertain about how the story will unfold. From the beginning, the title implies some uncertainty. Such as, does the word company mean a certain group of wolves or does it mean a

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