Dante's Heart
“between the paws of the tender wolf”:
Angela Carter’s Wolf Fugue
Carter’s concern for and interest in freedom binds her three tales together.
The community must be free to tell and interpret tales of monstrous wolves
and werewolves; it must also be free to condemn or aid individuals, or
disregard them. The young girl must be free to defend herself, to kill the
wolf or become his lover, to remember she was once a wolf herself, and to
determine her own fate. The wolf must be free to harm, to love, to change
into a girl. The reader will be free to infiltrate the crevices of Carter’s
language and excavate them, to become a wolf devouring, a wolf sinking its
teeth, a wolf becoming one with its prey.
“One beast and only one howls in the woods by night.
“The wolf is carnivore incarnate and he’s as cunning as he is ferocious;
once he’s had a taste of flesh then nothing else will do” (“The Company of
Wolves”).
Bon appetite!
Janette MacDonald
Angela Carter’s Wolf Fugue
Carter’s concern for and interest in freedom binds her three tales together.
The community must be free to tell and interpret tales of monstrous wolves
and werewolves; it must also be free to condemn or aid individuals, or
disregard them. The young girl must be free to defend herself, to kill the
wolf or become his lover, to remember she was once a wolf herself, and to
determine her own fate. The wolf must be free to harm, to love, to change
into a girl. The reader will be free to infiltrate the crevices of Carter’s
language and excavate them, to become a wolf devouring, a wolf sinking its
teeth, a wolf becoming one with its prey.
“One beast and only one howls in the woods by night.
“The wolf is carnivore incarnate and he’s as cunning as he is ferocious;
once he’s had a taste of flesh then nothing else will do” (“The Company of
Wolves”).
Bon appetite!
Janette MacDonald
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