the wolf stories

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  • Created by: abbeyneed
  • Created on: 11-05-15 10:29
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  • the wolf stories
    • the werewolf
      • the one where the grandmother gets stoned to death
      • setting
        • setting is isolated with no indication of time or place.
          • "it is a northern country" to enhance the isolation and to reflect on the isolation of the child
        • folkloric setting
          • "At midnight, especially on Walpurgisnacht, the Devil holds picnic is the graveyard and invites the witches
        • "there houses are built of logs, dark and smoky from within" idea of a past time, medieval. Gothic obsession
        • superstition
          • "wreaths of garlic on the doors keep out the vampires"
            • "wreath" links to death, like the one you put on a grave
        • the forest is metaphysical for approaching adulthood
      • the character of the wolf/ grandmother
        • "it was a huge one, with red eyes and running grizzled chops"
          • red= danger
          • huge implies it will destroy the girl
          • Gothic and terrifying image
        • "lolloping off disconsolately"
          • contrast to first image. to show power of the girl
        • "shrieking like thing possessed" link to the devil
      • the Gothic
        • "bloody stump" blood and gore
          • "and pelted her with stones til she fell dead" death and murder
        • hostile and dangerous
        • constant references to the supernatural. "the devil" "witches"
    • company of wolves
      • the presentation of the wolves
        • "carnivore incarnate" he is a meat eater and nothing else.
        • "pupils of their eyes fatten on darkness and catch the light and flash it back at you- red for danger"
          • danger, eyes doorway to the soul, black souls
        • "terrible sequins" juxtaposotion
        • "aria of fear made audible" collapse of binary
        • "as if the vegetation itself were in plot with the wolves" everything in league with wolves
        • "and then no wolf at all lay in front of the hunter but the bloody trunk of a man, headless, dying, dead"
          • human and wolf, list to draw out pain
        • "there is a vast melancholy in the canticles of the wolves, melancholy as infinite as the forest"
          • wolves are unhappy in their position; not only carnivore
        • "they say there's and ointment the Devil gives you that turns you into a wolf" in league with the devil
        • "you can tell by their eyes.. devastating eyes as red as a wound"
        • "the worst of the wolves are hairy on the inside" inherently evil
      • the girl
        • "but this strong minded child insists she will go to the woods" strong minded, independent
        • "had been indulged by her mother and the grandmother" Favourite
        • "the ominous if brilliant look of blood on snow" danger and passion. advertising he sexuality
        • "she has just started her woman's bleeding" teenager
        • "she stands and moves in the invisible pentacle of her own virginity. she is an unbroken egg"
          • virginity is a form of protection
          • virginity is desirable, sets it up for a coming of age tale
        • "her father might forbid her, if he were home" absence of father figure
        • nieve; "when he offered to carry her basket she gave it to him"
      • the boy
        • "a very handsome one"
        • "the green coat and wide hat of a hunter" green = spring and rebirth. hunter =foreshadowing
        • carries her basket. gentlemanly but he has an ulterior motive
        • he seduces her; " commonplaces of rustic seduction"
        • "there is a faint trace of blood on his chin" the physical presence of a hunter; "carnivore incarnate"
        • "off with his disguise" metamorphosis
        • "he strips off his shirt. His skin is the colour and texture of vellum. A crisp stripe of hair runs down his belly, his ******* as ripe and dark as poison fruit
          • the presentation of the wolves
            • "carnivore incarnate" he is a meat eater and nothing else.
            • "pupils of their eyes fatten on darkness and catch the light and flash it back at you- red for danger"
              • danger, eyes doorway to the soul, black souls
            • "terrible sequins" juxtaposotion
            • "aria of fear made audible" collapse of binary
            • "as if the vegetation itself were in plot with the wolves" everything in league with wolves
            • "and then no wolf at all lay in front of the hunter but the bloody trunk of a man, headless, dying, dead"
              • human and wolf, list to draw out pain
            • "there is a vast melancholy in the canticles of the wolves, melancholy as infinite as the forest"
              • wolves are unhappy in their position; not only carnivore
            • "they say there's and ointment the Devil gives you that turns you into a wolf" in league with the devil
            • "you can tell by their eyes.. devastating eyes as red as a wound"
            • "the worst of the wolves are hairy on the inside" inherently evil
          • beautiful but scary image.
        • "he licked his chops and quickly dressed himself again" lack of emotion- just another old woman
        • " wrapped the bones up in a napkin that he hid under the bed in the wooden chest" respectful
      • " the colour of poppies" suggests death
      • " she bundled up her shawl and threw it on the blaze, which instantly consumed it" rejects virginial naivety for sexual enlightenment
      • "it is Christmas day, the Werewolves birthday" they have links with God
      • pathway to marriage. wood =coming of age and the marriage bed at the end
    • Wolf Alice
      • the charcter of the girl
        • she is dehumanised "nothing about her is human except she is not a wolf"
        • "like all wild beasts she lives without a future"
        • "wolf Alice" eponymous character, hypenated name
        • Eve, she is what humans were like in the Garden of Eden; "to cover her bold nakedness"
        • "she arched her back, pawed the floor, retreated to a far corner of the chapel, crouched trembled, urinated...reverted entirely, it would seem, to her natural state"
          • she is naturally a wolf, unhuman
          • possibly a rejection of religion
        • "her mother had bore her and left her" not doubt she is human
        • "she might prove to be the wise child who leads them"
          • idea that humans should be more animalistic.
        • "we secluded her in animal privacy out of fear of her imperfections because it showed us what we might have been"
          • human fancination with perfection
        • "she learnt to expect these bleedings" learning is a human quality
          • "she discovered the very action of time"
        • "because she now knew how to wear clothes" sign of human subjectivity
      • tale about what makes us human; it is not our physical being but our morality, desire to wear clothes etc
      • the charcter of the Duke
        • "the duke is sere as old paper; his dry skin rustles against the bedsheets" dehumanisation
        • "With old scars where thorns have scored his pelt" pelt is animalistic
        • "Iberian butchers shop" foreshadowing, unsympathetic
        • "his eyes see only appetite. these eyes open to devour the world"
          • fear of consumption
        • "he is white a leprosy, with scabbing finger nails, and nothing deters him" Lexical field of illness
        • "role of the corpse eater" gothic
        • "if the Duke had been a wolf they would have angrily expelled him from the pack"
        • "she encountered the Duke with the leg of a man over his shoulder "
        • "the damned Duke"
        • "cannibal rituals"
        • "poor, wounded thing...locked half and half between such states, and aborted transformation"
      • constant references to the Garden of Eden. "how can a bitten apple flesh out it's scar again?"
      • "then she began to bleed" womanhood
      • "It was not fastidiousness but shame that made her do so"
        • Adam and Eve felt shame in the GOE
      • The mirror
        • Motif of the mirror symbolise humanity
        • distinguises between Human, Beast and Half-being
        • brings to light the Dukes and Alice's liminal existence
        • "a little moisture leaked from the corners of her eyes, yet her relation with the mirror was now far more intimate"
        • "yielded to the reflexive strength of its own material construction"
      • "to drown the Duke if the bullets bounced off" humans more inhumane that the beasts

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