In Thursday's lesson we were looking at 'The Werewolf' and 'The Company of Wolves'. Both stories, hence their titles, have a common theme of wolves and in particular the connection between wolves and man.
'The Werewolf' is a very short story based on the traditional fairytale Little Red Riding Hood. It tells the story of a girl who "does as her mother bids" and visits her sick grandmother who lives in the forest. This seemingly innocent girl meets a wolf on her way through the forest and "seized the her knife and turned on the beast" without hesitation and "slashed off its right forepaw". On discovering her grandmother with a "bloody stump where her right hand should have been" and finding that the wolf's paw was in fact a hand "chopped off at the wrist" she cries out, alerting the neighbours who subsequently "beat her old carcass as far as the edge of the forest, and pelted her with stones until she fell down dead" for being a witch. The connections between man and wolves is shown her by the grandmother's transformation from a human into a wolf and back again.
'The Company of Wolves', which is also based upon Little Red Riding Hood, has a similar theme and connection between men and wolves and more specifically of men transforming into wolves and, in particular, preying on young women. The strong link between men and a dangerous animal such as a wolf could be Carter's way of showing men as being dangerous displayed by the fact that the girl recognises that her life is in danger; "... it was as red as the blood she must spill".
