cass ford & "the company of wolves"

"She stands and moves within the invisible pentacle of her own virginity. She is an unbroken egg; she is a sealed vessel; she has inside her a magic space the entrance to which is shut tight with a plug of membrane; she is a closed system; she does not know how to shiver." -- "The Company of Wolves," page 147

The protagonist in "The Company of Wolves" is clearly a Red Riding Hood, but rather than being consumed by the wolf at the end of the story, she embraces his animalistic nature and decides to join him. Her virginity is what keeps her safe, but at the same time, it keeps her naive. She does not know how to shiver because she has been so coddled that she does not know fear. This purity is what helps her understand the werewolf; had she been taught to fear him, she would have alienated herself from him. Additionally, if she had been taught to fear werewolves (a symbol for lustful men), she would not have become as sexually liberated through choosing him as a mate. While Riding Hoods have traditionally been consumed (read: dominated and oppressed) by the werewolves, she survives because she asserted herself as an individual, and not, as the story says, somebody's meat. Carter's provocative language and word choice, especially in this quote, help to make sexual readings of the stories obvious. Although the stories are fairytales, the exploration of bestial desire in Carter's work is often very human.