論安潔拉‧卡特短篇故事裡的狼人與狼女形象 - 政大學術集成

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(1)國立政治大學英國語文學系碩士班碩士論文. 指導教授：羅狼仁先生 Advisor：Professor Brian David Phillips. 政治大. 論安潔拉‧卡特短篇故事裡的狼人與狼女形象. 立. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. Werewolves and Wolf-Girls in Angela Carter‟s Short Stories. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. 研究生：江宗翰撰 Name：Tzong Han Jiang 中華民國九十九年八月 August, 2010.

(2) Werewolves and Wolf-Girls in Angela Carter‟s Short Stories. A Master Thesis Presented to Department of English,. 立. 政治大. ‧ 國. 學. National Chengchi University. ‧. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts. by Tzong-Han Jiang August, 2010.

(3) To my beloved family, teachers and friends. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. iii. i n U. v.

(4) Acknowledgement. I want to dedicate my sincere gratitude to my thesis advisor Professor Brian David Phillips, a talented scholar with amazing ideas and thoughts. It is always a joyful time discussing fantasy and horror genre, Sci-Fi, and hypnosis with him. I am also obliged to committees Professor Sun-Chieh Liang and Professor Tsung-Yi. 政治大 all of the teachers who have inspired me, encouraged me, opened my minds, and 立. Michelle Huang, who give me lots of advices on my thesis. I would also like to thank. ‧ 國. 學. changed my life.. Besides, I want to give my best appreciations to my parents and my brother. It is. ‧. always a challenge to write a thesis with such a subject as werewolf. It is the. sit. y. Nat. encouragement from my beloved family that keeps me stay on the path. Finally, I‟d. n. al. er. io. like to thank my friends and classmates in NTNU and NCCU who support me when. v. I‟m in need for help. Thank you all, with my best regards.. Ch. engchi. iv. i n U.

(5) Table of Contents. Acknowledgements.........................................................................................iv Chinese Abstract………..................................................................................vi English Abstract………...................................................................................viii Chapter One. Introduction: Angela Carter and Her Wolf Tales............ 1. Chapter Two. The „Symbolic Wolf Body‟ and Carter‟s Wolf Stories…12. Chapter Three. On Ecofeminism and Female Werewolf Stories……….. 27. 治政大 The Wolf-girl…………………………………………....43 立. Chapter Four. Conclusion.......................................................................52. 學. ‧ 國. Chapter Five. Works Cited…………………………………………………………………...57. ‧. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. v. i n U. v.

(6) 國立政治大學英國語文學系碩士班碩士論文提要. 論文名稱：論安潔拉‧卡特短篇故事裡的狼人與狼女形象. 指導教授：羅狼仁. 先生. 研究生：江宗翰. 立. 政治大. ‧ 國. 學. 論文提要內容：. ‧. 在一九七零年代，恐怖文本的盛行曾帶動了狼人小說在大眾文學市場的熱潮。. sit. y. Nat. 在這股風潮裡，英國女性主義作家安潔拉‧卡特(Angela Carter)的狼人故事可說是. io. er. 同類型作品中的異數。卡特解構以及改寫童話故事，剖析其中關於道德與社會控制的隱喻，同時將狼人故事的元素與童話故事的意識型態結合，創作了四篇批判. n. al. Ch. i n U. v. 性強烈的短篇小說「狼人」、「與狼為伴」、「狼女愛麗斯」以及「彼得與狼」。. engchi. 當時，隨著女性意識的抬頭，以及「狼」的妖魔化形象漸漸淡化，甚至被生態女性主義者(eco-feminist)與野獸女性主義者(beast-feminist)所推崇的情形下，狼人故事的主題也發生了變化。越來越多作品開始描寫女狼人如何奔向自由的懷抱，或是女狼人利用自身的能力對男性展開反擊。「女狼人」滿足了女性對於自然的渴望，也代表了力量。但是卡特卻反其道而行，她不但拒絕書寫女性狼人的主題，反而聚焦在被狼扶養的「狼孩」這種似人非人的議題上。她甚至在作品中暗示了，對女性來說，成為狼人是危險的一件事。由於過去從未有人同時針對四部作品同時研究，本論文將嘗試以綜觀的角度，剖析為何卡特拒絕女性「成狼」，同時探究卡特筆下的狼人以及狼女的形象，究竟隱含什麼樣的意義。本論文分為五個章節。第一章介紹卡特的作品風格，以及她為何選用「狼人」. vi.

(7) 作為她解構童話故事的其中一個主題。第二章從卡特的作品著手，探討社會在型塑「狼人」時，大自然的意象是如何被扭曲，重組，變成安裝在異己上面的符號。這篇論文將會使用自創的名詞「象徵性狼體」來說明這個概念，同時瞭解卡特如何呈現這種困境。第三章將會轉而討論當代的女狼人小說以及生態女性主義是如何看待「狼」，而「象徵性狼體」又如何在此種文本裡死灰復燃。另外，本論文將會在第四章探討「狼女」的形象，同時借用德勒茲的「變向」(becoming)觀念，說明為何「狼女」是卡特心目中最理想的女性象徵。最後，第五章將會為前述論. 政治大. 點做出總結，指出卡特拒絕女性「成狼」的可能理由。. 立. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. vi. i n U. v.

(8) Abstract The fashion of horror genre in the 1970s has led a corresponding popularity of werewolf stories. During that time, the feminist writer Angela Carter‟s werewolf stories gained attention. Carter‟s werewolf stories rewrite traditional fairy tales and folklore. She deconstructs the fairy tale pattern, and the heroines have different roles, sometimes they are victims of werewolves, and sometimes they defeat werewolves bravely.. 政治大. However, the female werewolf is rare in her stories. Although in the 70s, modern. 立. female werewolf stories, beast-feminism and eco-feminism revalue the werewolf or. ‧ 國. 學. wolf with positive meanings, Carter refuses to use female lycanthropy to represent the connection between women and Nature. The aim of this thesis is to find out the. ‧. possible reasons for Carter‟s rejection of female lycanthropy.. Chapter one introduces Carter‟s writing style, and the reason she chooses. y. Nat. werewolves in her rewriting fairy tales. Chapter two examines the images of werewolf. io. sit. in Carter‟s stories, and argues that the mechanism of „symbolic wolf body‟ categories. n. al. er. and twists nature, and how the society uses it to expel the outsiders. In chapter three, I. i n U. v. would explain why the return of „symbolic wolf body‟ makes modern female. Ch. engchi. werewolf and eco-feminist narratives problematic. Then, by using Deleuze and Guattari‟s ideas of “becoming-animal,” I would argue why the wolf-girl (human girls raised by wolves) in Carter‟s story is the most ideal figure of femininity in the connection with nature. Finally, my thesis concludes that the exploitation of nature, the misuse of “symbolic animal body,” and eco-feminists‟ unjustified perceptions with nature are possible reasons for Carter‟s rejection of female werewolves.. Jiang 1.

(9) Jiang. 9. Chapter One Introduction: Angela Carter and Her Wolf Tales. During the 1970s, a groundswell in the popularity of horror genre swept through the book market and movie theaters. According to Brian .J. Frost, this unexpected horror wave “ had publishers and producers snapping up virtually every property they could lay their hands on in an effort to feed the momentarily insatiable. 政治大. appetite of the reading and viewing public” (187). Of course, werewolves are among. 立. those exploited “properties.” While this fashion brings the corresponding increase in. ‧ 國. 學. the number of werewolf novels and short stories, only a few show creativity and. merely blatant followers of commercial trends.. Nat. y. ‧. originality. The rest of them, which rely on gores and violence for their impact, were. er. io. sit. Despite of the quality, there are still great changes on the subjects of werewolf literature in the 70s. Bearing the definition man-wolf, werewolves mean the people. al. n. v i n who transform into the shape the negative characteristics of C hof wolves and endow engchi U. wolves such as craftiness, swiftness and cruelty. In addition, the resembling with wolves becomes the mark of bestiality while it creates a link between these man-wolves and wolves. In traditional werewolf literature, these kinds of marks have represented the dark sides of nature or humanity. After the publics‟ attentions on animal protection lead to the re-evaluations of wolves‟ images, werewolves turn into the harmonic bridge between human beings and nature. Sometimes, the bodies of wolves are even considered as sources of natural power, and shelters apart from corrupted modern civilizations. Werewolves could be animal lovers in romances, or. vi.

(10) Jiang 10. anti-heroes in adventure stories. One of the most rapid changes in the fashion of 70s‟ werewolf literature is the revaluing of the relations between women and wolves. Before the 70s, werewolves were considered masculine predators, and women were portrayed as innocent preys which tamed the beasts, or female warriors who defeated the male werewolves. On the other hand, desires and sexual aggressiveness turned women into beasts. In. 政治大. traditional werewolf narratives, while male werewolves represent the aggressive. 立. masculinities, the female werewolves represent the beastly femme fatales that. ‧ 國. 學. stimulate males‟ bestiality. In order to stay in the border of human world, women were expected to be pure and obedient. If women were unfortunately transformed into. ‧. werewolves, their wilderness might attract and prey their human lovers at the same. y. Nat. io. sit. time. However, in the modern werewolf stories, the wolf-skins of female werewolves. n. al. er. represent the awareness of the women‟s animal instincts, and the shapes of female. i n U. v. werewolves become the animalized desires and libidos. Women don‟t need to slay the. Ch. engchi. predators or tame the predators, because the roles of predators are suitable for them, too. But on the other hand, being a female predator is not parallel with being a dangerous carnivore to male. In the viewpoints of the so-called “beast feminists,” there‟re not distinct identifications between the genders, good and bad, or predator and prey while male and female share the same powers. In addition, women‟s wolf-skins may become their armors in the patriarchal society. Although “beast feminists” transform the images of these female werewolves into the symbols of women‟s power, their portraying of werewolves seems borrowing the masculine descriptions of wolves‟ characteristics. Like males, beast feminists. vi.

(11) Jiang 11. consider wolves as strong, sexually aggressive and fierce creatures. But beast feminists also treat the wolves‟ carnivore qualities as something healthy and appropriate for women. Another feminism branch called eco-feminism has revalued the connection between women and wolves, too. Eco-feminists tend to feminize the wolves because they think women and wolves are victims oppressed by men. Beast feminists claim that women have the rights to enjoy the revelry of nature, and. 政治大. eco-feminists think that the nature is a maternal, harmonic and rational system. Their. 立. differences are like what Margaret Atwood had pointed out that “There have,. ‧ 國. 學. historically, been two main strands of feminist theory--that which maintained that women were fundamentally no different from men, and should therefore be allowed. ‧. to do the same jobs and have the same rights as men; and that which postulated. y. Nat. io. sit. women as essentially other, but better [….] gardeners rather than warriors; lambs. n. al. er. rather than tigers” (137). While eco-feminists seek for the similarities between women. i n U. v. and wolves, they care more about animal/women‟s rights than the female werewolf. Ch. engchi. myths. For eco-feminists, it is unnecessary to tell if women can really become wolves or endow the qualities of wolves. On the other hand, they try to discover what kind of inspirations that women could get from the wolves‟ lives, and there aren‟t any spaces for anthropocentricism or were-animals in eco-feminism narratives. Even though it is difficult to find traits of eco-feminism in female werewolf stories, eco-feminists still provide another way to perceive the connection between women and wolves, or women and nature. Beast feminists believe that women‟s powers come from their identification with wolves, and eco-feminists treat wolves as perfect models for women in search for liberties. Nevertheless, in her werewolf stories collected in the. vi.

(12) Jiang 12. anthology The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories 1979), the British feminist writer Angela Carter seems indicating that there must be a third way depicting the connection between women and wolves. Carter is not a professional female werewolf story writer, and she does not tend to follow the fashion of werewolf literature. As a matter of fact, it would be more appropriate to state that Carter‟s favor of fairy tales as a subject accidentally bumped. 政治大. into the horror trend in the 70s. Carter‟s deconstructions of fairy tales or folklores are. 立. the most significant features in her short stories. From exploring the conventions in. ‧ 國. 學. fairy tales, she revealed how these tales transform their morals into symbolic icons and teach the readers to behave properly. For example, wolves represented strong. ‧. desire and sexualities in these stories, and women were educated to stay away from. y. Nat. io. sit. these wolves or werewolves because women were designed as the preys to predators.. n. al. er. As a result, females‟ becoming of the wolves and uniting with the wolves were. i n U. v. considered forbidden because wolves‟ animalities would make females uncontrollable.. Ch. engchi. Fairy tales instructed people, including women, to recognize the masculine beasts. They not only preserve the females‟ purities but also make the social order fair and reasonable. In the article “Notes from the Front Line,” Carter showed her discontents against traditional myths or folklores when she called them “extraordinary lies designed to make people unfree” (25). However, she admitted that the structures of fairy tales make it possible to discuss the feminism issues in a more objective way. As she said “It turned out to be easier to deal with the shifting structures of reality and sexuality by using sets of shifting structures derived from orally transmitted traditional tales” (25), the fantastic materials in fairy tales might soften the intensified. vi.

(13) Jiang 13. arguments even though people sense that these unrealistic tales usually refer to real status. When Carter began her writing career, it seems that she was deeply influenced by “Marxism and structuralism.” After working on the experimental The Magic Toyshop (1967) and Heroes and Villains (1969), Carter “came to theorize her own literary practice as postmodernist, thereby creating a body of fiction even more. 政治大. attractive to literary critics than before” (Pollock 35). It was noted by Marina Warner. 立. that ever since The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories was published, Carter decided. ‧ 國. 學. to turn to fairy tales for her postmodernist‟s writing material, and focused on editing, translating and rewriting fairy tales. “Angela Carter‟s quest for Eros, her perseverance. ‧. in the attempt to ensnare its nature in her imagery, her language, her stories, drew her. y. Nat. io. sit. to fairy tales as a form” Warner writes. “Her recuperation of the form has had a. n. al. er. widespread influence, palpable in the writings of contemporaries like Salman Rushdie and Margaret Atwood” (193-4).. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. What fascinated Carter in the fairy tale was not the atmosphere of escapism. She does not use fairy tales as a lifeboat escaping from the miserable shipwreck of real life. In fact, she expressed “impatience” with “the adult escapism that lies at the heart of many retellings of fairy tales” (Day 132). On the contrary, she considered fairy tales as the “foundation tales” defined by Jack Zipes. Zipes think fairy tales are social regulating devices because the characters‟ punishments are warnings for readers if they disobey the rules. Classical tales tend to reinforce patriarchal notions of gender and power. In addition, they work as a sort of learning process for men and women, teaching them the proper behaviors that the society approves. For example, if. vi.

(14) Jiang 14. Red Riding Hood stayed in the path, she wouldn‟t be eaten by the wolf. In Carter‟s opinion, stories such as Little Red Riding Hood were actually adolescent girls‟ guidebooks teaching them how to deal with real sexual relationships. None of Carter‟s fairy tales begin with once upon a time, because it is the phrase that leads to “a fictional world set in an unspecified long ago.” However, “each work is given a historical context by her many references to other works of fiction” (Lee 16).. 政治大. In other words, Carter puts emphasis on how fairy tales reflect the images of. 立. reality, like what Aidan Day argues that “Carter‟s fantastic is entirely under conscious,. ‧ 國. 學. rational control and is deployed in order to articulate issues concerning sexuality that occur in the actual, day-to-day world” (7). The twists that Carter made in her stories. ‧. could be considered as the cues for readers to connect her fantastic world with the. y. Nat. io. sit. reality. For example, she turned the speaking wolf in Little Red Riding Hood into the. n. al. er. man-wolf (werewolf), indicating that this classical tale actually tells about girls‟. i n U. v. encounter with mature men. She rewrites the fairy tales for two purposes. One is to. Ch. engchi. reveal how the images of females are constructed and regulated through the fairy tales, and the other one is to provide revolutionary solutions toward this situation. In her life, Carter has written four wolf stories, and three of them, including The Werewolf, The Company of Wolves and Wolf Alice are collected in The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories. The last wolf story, Peter and the Wolf is collected in Black Venus (aka Saints and Strangers), the third collection in 1985. The first two stories The Werewolf and The Company of Wolves, which aim for her first goal, are adapted from Little Red Riding Hood. Furthermore, the other two stories Wolf Alice and Peter and the Wolf seem provide the solution to the problems that occur in the first two stories. Critics. vi.

(15) Jiang 15. never analyze the four stories as a whole. The Werewolf and The Company of Wolves are usually the first choice because of their intimate connections with fairy tales. Peter and the Wolf is the least discussed because it belongs to a different time period of Carter‟s career. It is not until the combination of the four stories that the big picture shows up. Carter‟s wolf stories are adapted from ancient folklores and fairy tales, as. 政治大. Carter explained that she “seeks to extract the latent content from the traditional. 立. stories and to use it as the beginning of new stories” (Haffenden 84). In addition, She. ‧ 國. 學. especially preferred the so-called “beast marriage” stories. Beast marriage stories tell about the relationships between heroines and predatory lovers. Sometimes the. ‧. predators are people transformed by curses, like the prince in Beauty and the Beast.. y. Nat. io. sit. And sometimes they are monstrous shape-shifters like werewolves. On the other hand,. n. al. er. heroines usually tame these predators, or transform them back to human beings.. i n U. v. The Werewolf and The Company of Wolves remind people of the Charles Perrault. Ch. engchi. edition of Little Red Riding Hood. But The Company of Wolves is actually a miniature of werewolf story collections, and The Werewolf contains additional plots about witchcraft lycanthropy. In The Werewolf, the little girl met a wolf on her way to the grandmother‟s house. But this time, the wolf was her grandmother in transformation. Furthermore, the wolf in The Company of Wolves was a handsome hunter and shape-shifter. At the end of story, he “devoured” the grandmother and the girl, but his appetite has more relations with sexuality than hunger. Wolf Alice and Peter and the Wolf are partly werewolf stories while more than half of the plots deal with the subject of wolf-child, the children raised by wolves. In Wolf Alice, the wolf-child was. vi.

(16) Jiang 16. adopted by a werewolf Duke. After the Duke was seriously injured, the wolf-child cured him and brought him salvations. Peter and the Wolf describes how the wolf-child accidentally appeared in her cousin‟s life and struck him with the acknowledgements that beyond his imagination. Even though readers can find the trace of “original stories” in these adaptations, it is undeniable that Carter did more than merely rewriting. She did not follow the original plot, but she borrowed the. 政治大. elements from those stories and merged them into new creations. In sum, it seems that. 立. Carter‟s wolf stories are personal, but on the other hand, they also belong to a group. ‧ 國. 學. of „authors‟ behind the primal werewolf legends. Alison Lee thinks “Historical and literary contexts are important to Carter because her aim is to draw the reader‟s. ‧. attention to the way in which those contexts have determined the way we think” (14).. y. Nat. io. sit. In other words, analyzing the werewolf legends that Carter borrow for her stories. n. al. er. would be one of the ways understanding the ideas in her works, as Betty Moss points. i n U. v. out that “(Carter‟s) wolf stories offer one of the most elemental of grotesque figures:. Ch. engchi. the part-human, part-animal [….] Carter‟s wolf-narratives both deconstruct received assumptions of gender and desire, and offer alternative possibilities for understanding and constructing desire and sexuality” (197). It seems that Carter partly supports the ideas of beast feminism and eco-feminism in her wolf stories. When facing the (were) wolves, the Carter girls‟ reactions are amazingly unpredictable. The girl in The Werewolf chopped off the werewolf‟s paw and found out that it was her grandmother; the werewolf met his match when he was tamed by the heroine‟s sexuality in The Company of Wolves; finally, the wolf-girls in Wolf Alice and Peter and the Wolf confused human beings. vi.

(17) Jiang 17. and werewolves because they are neither human nor animal, just the daughter of Nature. But in some ways, Carter seems disagree with how beast-feminists and eco-feminists perceive the animals such as wolves. One of the peculiar things in her wolf stories is that the heroines are rarely shape-shifters. The only female werewolf appearing in The Werewolf was slain miserably. Although the girl in The Company of Wolves was symbolically transformed, she still appeared in human figure. In addition,. 政治大. it is hard to tell what the wolf-girls really are because they lack self-consciousness. 立. with their real identities. Carter‟s portraying of wolf-child represents that women look. ‧ 國. 學. forward to be closer to nature. But in her wolf stories, or other were-animal stories, women seldom find identities from the images of carnivores. Even if they do so, their. ‧. destinies are like the werewolf grandmother in The Werewolf. Moreover, she treats the. y. Nat. sit. wolf-children and wolves as different individuals, and the wolf-children do not rely. n. al. er. io. on the “wolf natures” to gain liberties. Even though the wolf-children are accepted by. i n U. v. the wolf packs, Carter does not put emphasis on their similarities.. Ch. engchi. Compared with variable and flexible females, the male werewolves are portrayed as conventional oppressors or hungry predators. It seems that Carter devalued them into the products of patriarchal social order. It is predictable that the male predators‟ images are fixed in order to make a contrast with the Carter girls. However, it can be sensed that Carter found the concept of werewolf problematic. The heroines neither fight against the predators by becoming the wolves nor join the wolf pack and become the „alpha females‟. When Margaret Atwood analyzed Carter‟s The Werewolf, she mentioned, “The first wolf story, “The Werewolf”, retells “Red Riding Hood”, only this time the wolf is not disguised as the grandmother, it is the. vi.

(18) Jiang 18. grandmother [….] Moral: women can be werewolves too” (145). However, Atwood does not tell if being a werewolf is a good or bad thing for women, and this is also the question that confuses Carter‟s critics. In this thesis, the focus of the argument would be on how Carter‟s wolf stories reflect the problems of the ideas of were-animals, beast-feminism and eco-feminism. In addition, the thesis would also discover if Carter represents her solutions for the. 政治大. females‟ ambiguities when encountering the nature. Although beast feminists believe. 立. that being a “female wolf” represents the intimacy with nature, the thesis would argue. ‧ 國. 學. about the problems of the ideas of “man-wolves” in the second chapter. Taking the examples from the werewolf stories that Carter adapt and rewrite, it would discover. ‧. how the society exploits the images of wolves in the creation of “werewolves.” In the. y. Nat. io. sit. traditional werewolf stories, human transformations are designed as the representation. n. al. er. of analogy phrases, connecting the fierce animality with the expelled objects. In other. i n U. v. words, the beasts are men for men. What people fear are not the animals crossing. Ch. engchi. borders, but the “animalized human beings.” In the language system of significant, the animals are materialized. Then they are „dissembled‟ into different pieces of “components”, and each component represents an anthropocentric judgment on animals, which would be called “symbolic animal body” in the following discussions. For example, if people‟s essential impressions with wolves are fierce and cunning, then the representations of “someone becomes a wolf” may contain the meaning as “the fierce and cunning sides of wolves are parts of someone‟s characteristics”. Moreover, phrases such as “fierce” are anthropocentric descriptions of wolves, and wolves are materialized as adjectives instead of being treated like real animals.. vi.

(19) Jiang 19. For beast feminists, women endow the predatory sexualities and powers as men do. In some ways, they share the “wolf natures” which are considered specified for masculine. However, the “wolf natures” they yearn could be an illusion. On the other hand, even though eco-feminists insist that their parallels with wolves are different from anthropocentrism, they still face the same problems as beast-feminists. When eco-feminists seek for the inspirations from animals, and put the mark of femininity. 政治大. on the nature, their theories are still influenced by the ideas of symbolic animal bodies.. 立. Carter‟s wolf-girl stories might be feedbacks to eco-feminists‟ ideas as she points out. ‧ 國. 學. that the closeness between female and nature is a link beyond language and humanely perceptions.. ‧. The following chapter would give details on the mechanism of “symbolic. y. Nat. io. sit. animal body” in traditional werewolf folklores and explore how Carter represents this. n. al. er. concept in The Werewolf, The Company of Wolves and Wolf Alice. In Chapter 3, the. i n U. v. argument would focus on the connection between beast-feminists and eco-feminists‟. Ch. engchi. wolf discourse and the “symbolic animal body,” revealing that even though the female werewolf body give females imaginary powers, they can not escape the restraint of significant system constituted with codes, which was used in the same way with ancient female werewolf narratives. In Chapter 4, the thesis would argue that the wolf-girls in Wolf Alice and Peter and the Wolf represent Carter‟s ideal femininity by deconstructing the predator and prey binary opposition. Finally, the conclusion would give a brief examination with the arguments in the thesis.. vi.

(20) Jiang 20. Chapter Two The ‘Symbolic Wolf Body’ and Carter’s Werewolf Stories Animal shape-shifters or were-animals are common in Carter‟s fairy tales. They include perfect postmodern features, especially the metamorphosis of bodies and the unstable identities. Depicted in a tone of dark humor, bodies in Carter‟s stories often “flee from their original dimension and go through magical transformations.” For. 政治大. example, Julia Simon indicates that “Carter‟s novels oscillate between a materialist. 立. analysis of gender and a poststructuralist questioning of bodily boundaries [….] she. ‧ 國. 學. focuses on the production of femininity and the disciplining of the female body” (23). Continually, she explains “A deconstruction of bodily boundaries does not eliminate. ‧. the border…. It rather shifts the border, plays with it and makes it permeable,. y. Nat. sit. allowing for an exchange between abject and normative subjects. In this sense, the. n. al. er. io. monstrous body with unstable boundaries represents the ideal of deconstruction” (30).. i n U. v. Werewolves take great parts in Carter‟s were-animal stories. Perhaps one of the. Ch. engchi. reasons is that wolves have multiple appearances which leave a vast range for interpretation. According to Beryl Rowland, they were considered as the heretics, evil outsiders, or the embodiment of malevolent violence, appetite, and aggressive masculinity (161-7). They also represent the call of nature, sexual desire, power and unstoppable wilderness. Every culture has its were-animals. In the opening of The Werewolf, Carter provides the model of a proper birthplace for shape-shifter myths. “It is a northern country; they have cold weather, they have cold hearts. Cold; tempest; wild beasts in the forest. It is a hard time […] To these upland woodsman, the Devil is as real as you. vi.

(21) Jiang 21. or I” (“Burning” 210). The Devil is real because it represents someone untrustworthy around the villagers. Like fairy tales, the were-animal stories are functional as a warning of transgression to the public. Many critics, like Marie Helene-Huet, think there are two major functions of the monsters. On one hand, the monsters challenge the taboos and the boundary between human and other animals (86). On the other hand, they are also used as the devices that protect the social order. In some ways,. 政治大. shape-shifter stories teach men beware of the others, and warn women to behave well.. 立. Moreover, readers of shape-shifter stories are told to keep watching their “inner. ‧ 國. 學. beasts” and “the beasts‟ encaged in others‟ bodies for that as Steve Baker mentions “In everyday speech, the term animal is associated with uncivilized behavior and. ‧. socially disapproved behavior. Criminals, hoodlums and punks are described as. y. Nat. io. sit. animals that deserve to be punished if justice is to prevail. In these usages, animal. n. al. er. behavior is contemptible behavior and is used to express the view that important social norms have been violated” (89).. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. The unreasonable tensions among people, and the fear of the unknown, create the archetype of were-animal stories. In these stories, when people need sense of safety, they turn to the “marks of animals” that help them identify the ones disguised as beasts, or the outsiders who are “like beasts.” Kathryn Perry remarked “In fiction, the half-human or imperfectly human and the metamorphosis between the animal and the human can be a focus for testing ideas about how human civilization originates and how it can be maintained” (24). Such a kind of beastly mark appears as an unnatural altering of the body. Sometimes it is the animal body parts that replace the human body, and sometimes it is the animal body part carried by shape-shifters.. vi.

(22) Jiang 22. Therefore, the beastly mark becomes a kind of “symbolic animal body”. It is “symbolic” because once the animal‟s body part leaves its body; the body part is ripped off its original meaning, and becomes a symbolically functional object as if it were a “component” of a machine. Coincidentally, some ancient storytellers also believed that were-animals are “imperfect animals”, “artificial animals” or “wolves without tails” (Summers 89). In Carter‟s Wolf Alice, the frustrated werewolf Duke is. 政治大. rejected by a pack of wolves. Although he is in the wolf shape, they still howl at him. 立. angrily, “as if they know his transformation is their parody” (“Burning” 223).. ‧ 國. 學. In the article “1914: One of Several Wolves?” Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari mentions “A body without organs is not an empty body stripped of organs,. ‧. but a body upon which that which serves as organs (wolves, wolf eyes, wolf jaws?) is. y. Nat. sit. distributed according to crowd phenomena” (30). In other words, Deleuze and. n. al. er. io. Guattari tend to view the body as a complete organic form. “A body without organs”. i n U. v. means that the idealistic body is not „composed with organs.‟ Take the wolf body for. Ch. engchi. example. Everyone knows that the wolf‟s jaws and claws are used for hunting, limbs for running, and eyes for seeing. But, if we assemble jaws, claws, limbs and eyes altogether, the product is only the phrase wolf recorded in encyclopedia, not the wolf in the wilderness. It is just as Paul Wells claims that the animals are essentially “re-presented,” and “their realism enhanced by the act of conscious presentation as a vision of nature, informed by an authored idea about nature” (16). For Deleuze and Guattari, only the body “without organs” can return the “body” to its primary form as the creation of nature. Showing their disagreements with the Freudian analysis, they claim “For Freud, when the thing splinters and loses its identity, the word is still there. vi.

(23) Jiang 23. to restore that identity or invent a new one” (28). In other words, they think while the Freudian analysis reconstructs anything (like animals) into symbols that represent psychological ideas, the reconstructed object has already lost its original identity. Finally, the object is replaced by the language. The similar thing occurs to the „symbolic animal body‟ in fairy tales and shape-shifter stories, too. A new symbolic meaning replaces the animal‟s original. 政治大. form and works as a functional device. For example, when the girl in Little Red. 立. Riding Hood asks “Grandmother, what big teeth you have.” (Carter, “The Fairy. ‧ 國. 學. Tales” 3), she not only refers to the wolf‟s teeth but also refers to the predatory appetite of the wolf. In addition, the predatory appetite shown in the exhibition of. ‧. teeth may link to the sexual appetite of human beings, especially the male. Thus, the. y. Nat. io. sit. wolf‟s teeth are not an organ anymore but symbolic objects which represent the. n. al. er. prejudices with wolves, or the implications of sexuality. As the symbolic meanings of. i n U. v. teeth connect to predatory, and then to man‟s flattering smile out of hunger, thing. Ch. engchi. goes like what Jack Zipes points out “such stories do not warn against the dangers of predators in the forests, but warns girls against their own natural desires which they must tame” (29). In sum, the organ becomes a text with values. It can be rewritten, altered, transformed and assembled. In order to make clear of the idea of “symbolic animal body”, Elizabeth Grosz‟s argument on the materialization of human body can be served as a resource. Grosz thinks that the development of medical technology makes it available to remove or add “components” to human body. As a result, it “demonstrates a body pliable to power, a mechanic structure in which „components‟. vi.

(24) Jiang 24. can be altered, adjusted, removed, or replaced” (35). And the body becomes “increasingly regarded as functional, composed of parts capable of mechanical/ cybernetic duplication” (35). She also notes that clothing binds the bodies to “systems of significance in which they become signs to be read (by others and themselves)” (35). In the systems of significance, the body becomes a social code. Although the “symbolic animal body” tells about animals, it becomes another kind of. 政治大. “components” that added to human beings in language. In shape-shifter stories, the. 立. components of animals are organs attached to human bodies. In the subtexts, or. ‧ 國. 學. metaphors of shape-shifter stories, the components of animals are the animal‟s characteristics attached to humanity.. ‧. Summers remarked “The man borrowed the animal, with whose force he was. y. Nat. io. sit. invigorated, with whose fleetness he was endowed. He follows the instincts of the. n. al. er. beast whose body he has made his own, but his own intelligence is neither clouded. i n U. v. nor snuffed” (242). The werewolf stories collected in Carter‟s The Werewolf, The. Ch. engchi. Company of Wolves and Wolf Alice all include the elements of “symbolic wolf bodies.” In The Company of the Wolves, Carter stripped off the wolf mask from the handsome young werewolf, and revealed the subtext of Little Red Riding Hood in which Charles Perrault noted “Now, there are real wolves, with hairy pelts and enormous teeth; but also wolves who seem perfectly charming, sweet-natured and obliging, who pursue young girls in the street and pay them the most flattering attentions. Unfortunately, these smooth-tongued, smooth-pelted wolves are the most dangerous beasts of all.” (Carter, “The Fairy Tale” 3) Whether Perrault‟s impression of “real wolves” is “real” or not, Carter implied that the males are animalized in the. vi.

(25) Jiang 25. story to warn females not to pursue sexualities. Moreover, the werewolf‟s compass indicates that he is closer to humans than wolves. Patricia Dunker indicated “The man is the beast formula is also rendered more complex in (Carter‟s) novels which see man as trapped within conventional attitudes and ideologies” (8). For Carter, the mechanism of symbolic animal body is problematic. The society simplifies the idea of masculinity into the images of. 政治大. carnivores like wolves, and this is how the symbolic animal bodies are created.. 立. Derrida thinks “The wolf is all the stronger. The meaning of its power is all the more. ‧ 國. 學. terrorizing, armed, threatening, virtually predatory for the fact that in these appellations, these turns of phrase, these sayings, the wolf does not yet appear in. ‧. person but only in the theatrical persona or a mask, a simulacrum or a piece of. y. Nat. sit. language, a fable or a fantasy.” (5-6). Calling a person “wolf” may be the reaction out. n. al. er. io. of fear, but this behavior also shows the approval for the “animalized” person‟s. i n U. v. masculine power. The ambiguous thing is, even though “wolf” contains negative. Ch. engchi. meanings, people are in favor of this name because it gives them rights to endow the power and pursue the “preys.” However, if people bear the names of “wolf,” such a kind of calling becomes a social code. Nevertheless, in the system of significance, these “werewolves” are given “symbolic wolf bodies,” or the marks of wolves. The “symbolic animal bodies” are sources of power, but they also become the codes that make them be regulated by the society. Through her werewolf stories, Carter shows readers the manipulation and regulation of “symbolic animal body.” It might be the first clue explaining her rejection with female lycanthropy, or the “beast feminism.” As Judith Halberstam pointed out “the Gothic monster represents many answers. vi.

(26) Jiang 26. to the question of who must be removed from the community at large” (3), the narrators‟ tones in Carter‟s werewolf tales are tones of warning, as if they are the guides which teach its reader how to recognize the “wolves” around us. At the beginning of The Company of Wolves, Carter tells the readers that “the wolf is carnivore incarnate and he‟s as cunning as he is ferocious, once he had a taste of flesh then nothing else will do” (“Burning” 212). Later on, she describes some of the. 政治大. superstitions about werewolves in the village, and these minor stories show how the. 立. shape-shifters are given their replacements of wolf organs. For example, “They say. ‧ 國. 學. there‟s an ointment the Devil gives you that turns you into a wolf the minute you rub it on” (214). In traditional legends, shape-shifters were also accused of wearing. ‧. wolf-skin girdles for disguise. In his study of the notorious werewolf Stubbe Peeter,. y. Nat. io. sit. S.J. Wiseman made an interesting analysis that “we are not required to believe Stubbe. n. al. er. Peeter became a wolf, only that he took on the likeness of a wolf, for in the various. i n U. v. incidents of the text, the putting on of the girdle remains an act of will. Stubbe Peeter. Ch. engchi. has the likeness of a wolf, but becoming a werewolf does not involve the magical dissolution of the border between man and animal in the story. Rather, it suggests the coexistence of the wolf‟s likeness of the soul and reason of the man” (55). In other words, Wiseman believes that such a kind of “werewolves” like Peeter are not supernatural monsters. Peeter had the “likeness” of the wolf, but he still preserved a human mind. It was not the mask of wolf (wolf girdle) that drove him preying on his victims but “an act of will.” On the other hand, it was his crimes that made him wear the symbolic wolf body. In the society, the animalized humans are treated like animals. The prejudice. vi.

(27) Jiang 27. makes it difficult for them to be restored to „real‟ human beings. As Carter described “Seven years is a werewolf‟s natural span but if you burn his human clothes you condemn him to wolfishness for the rest of his life” (“Burning” 214), if the shape-shifter‟s connection with human disappears, the symbolic wolf body would become his curse. Sometimes the “werewolves” are allowed to take off their wolf skins and change back to human clothes. However, even though they are in human. 政治大. forms, readers are told their urges of “becoming animal” are invincible. “Yet by the. 立. eyes, those phosphorescent eyes, you know him in all his shapes; the eyes alone. ‧ 國. 學. unchanged by metamorphosis” (Carter “Burning” 214). It seems that even in the human forms, they are still considered untrustworthy while they still keep their. ‧. beastly marks. Moreover, sometimes the cost of the removal of symbolic animal body. y. Nat. io. sit. can result in death. For instance, in Carter‟s werewolf husband tale, “when the wolf. n. al. er. lay bleeding and gasping its last, the pelt peeled off again and he was just as he had been” (“Burning” 214).. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. Although the marks of symbolic wolf body are taken from wildlife images, they merely represent the violence or dark side of nature in human‟s perceptions and prejudices. In The Company of Wolves, there is another story about a werewolf groom who disappears in his wedding night and comes back after his ex-wife remarries. The plot reminds readers of the German werewolf husband narratives that “deals with how a man abandons his wife, comes back as a werewolf, bites into her skirt, petticoat, or apron, or some other piece of clothing, then goes off again, and comes back in human form, and is later revealed as the werewolf by the remnants of her clothing evident between his teeth” (Blecourt 28-9). Different from the original ending, Carter‟s. vi.

(28) Jiang 28. werewolf groom actively transforms in the face of his ex-wife. He even roars “I wish I were a wolf again, to teach this whore a lesson!” after he learns about her second marriage (“Burning” 214). Carter‟s werewolf husband story turns the werewolf into a brute male who treats his wife as a property, and the fantastic story becomes a metaphor of domestic violence. However, the conflict must be ended with the werewolf‟s death to restore the order. Since Carter described that “the sensible girl. 政治大. dried her eyes and found herself another husband not too shy to piss into a pot who. 立. spent the nights indoors” (“Burning” 214), her sarcastic tone implies that the woman. ‧ 國. 學. is running into the embrace of another “werewolf.” Finally, “she wept and her second husband beat her” (“Burning” 214). Charlotte Crofts remarked, “The werewolf. ‧. metamorphosis is, significantly, precipitated by anxiety over the wife‟s adultery and. y. Nat. sit. reproductive function [….] The second husband‟s abuse, like the werewolf. n. al. er. io. transformation, is also prompted by fears over female sexuality. The wife‟s attraction. i n U. v. for her first husband threatening the masculinity of the second” (111). In some. Ch. engchi. folklore, wolf is symbolized as adultery because it snatches the “flocks,” which symbolizes the spouses. Ironically, in order to protect their “properties,” males would become the wolves, too. The wilderness of “symbolic wolf body” is not natural, it turns the multiplicity of wildlife into an array of codes, each representing human‟s prejudices of wolves. Since human beings cannot really become animals, they can only turn into animals in daily languages. Deleuze mentioned “Society and the State need animal characteristics to use for classifying people; natural history and science need characteristics in order to classify the animals themselves [….] the wolf is not fundamentally a characteristic or. vi.

(29) Jiang 29. a certain number of characteristics; it is a wolfing” (“A Thousand” 239). In addition, he argued that “If we interpret the word “like” as a metaphor, or propose a structural analogy of relations (man-iron=dog-bone), we understand nothing of becoming. The word “like” is one of those words that change drastically in meaning and function when they are used in connection with haecceities, when they are made into expressions of becomings instead of signified states of signifying relations” (“A. 政治大. Thousand” 274). The cases of werewolves shown in Carter‟s stories represent the. 立. ignorance of Deleuze and Guattari‟s “wolfing” and the overflowing of “like.” As soon. ‧ 國. 學. as the relationships between nature and human beings are categorized into series of codes connected with “like” (men are “like” wolves,) nature becomes the text that can. ‧. be exploited, duplicated and regulated. The more people use analogies and “symbolic. y. Nat. io. sit. animal bodies,” the less they understand about the real nature. For Deluze and. n. al. er. Guattari, werewolves and vampires really exist, but not in the dimensions of. i n U. v. resemblance and analogy to animals. Shape-shifters are depicted as characters having. Ch. engchi. predatory powers. But once the society gets hold of their symbolic animal bodies, shape-shifters are restrained in their additional bodies. At that time, the symbolic body becomes a sign: the outcast. On the one hand, as what mentioned in the beginning of this paragraph, the symbolic animal body gives a metaphorical clue of how to recognize the outsider. In folklores, especially the foundation tales, people are taught to stay away from suspicious people for they might be the were-people. In other words, it is the suspicious individuals who carry the „animality‟ that is harmful for the society. In The Werewolf, Carter described “When they discover a witch-some old woman whose. vi.

(30) Jiang 30. cheeses ripen when her neighbors do not, another old woman whose black cat, oh, sinister! Follows her about all the time, they strip the crone, search her for marks, for the supernumary nipple her familiar sucks. They soon find it. Then they stone her to death” (“Burning” 210). This passage shows not only the cruel patriarchal violence toward females but also the mechanism of social control. With the “mark,” people can pick out the sinners they believe to be. For example, the readers of The Company of. 政治大. Wolves are warned “Before he can become a wolf, the lycanthrope strips stark naked.. 立. If you spy a naked man among the pines, you must run as if the Devil were for you”. ‧ 國. 學. (“Burning” 214). In the castle of Wolf Alice, the demonized Duke is portrayed as “sere as old paper” and “white as leprosy, with scrabbling fingernails” (“Burning” 222-3).. ‧. In the ancient texts, there are also detailed descriptions about the mark of. y. Nat. io. sit. shape-shifter: “When the werewolf is returned to human form at daylight he still bears. n. al. er. many lupine stigmata. His eyebrows meet on the bridge of his nose, he has an. i n U. v. extra-long third finger, he has bristles under his tongue, and he has lots of hair”. Ch. engchi. (Twitchell 209). And a “lycanthrope” peasant was remarked that “his bare legs, unwashen and filthy, were scarred with bites of dogs and old ulcerated sores, His body was gaunt, his limbs squalid and foul with neglect, his face ghastly pale, the eyes deep-sunken, dry and blazing”(Summers 45). On the other hand, the symbolic wolf body implies incomplete and imperfect. The bearers of symbolic wolf body rely on them to endow powers, but they are not complete human beings or complete wolves. In Carter‟s werewolf narrations, the trace of the „component‟ from symbolic wolf body leads people to identify the shape-shifters. Taking The Werewolf for instance, the girl slashes the werewolf‟s paw. vi.

(31) Jiang 31. and then arrives at her grandmother‟s house, where she finds the paw which becomes the old woman‟s hand. The girl soon makes a connection between the two, and the villagers “drove the old woman, in her shift as she was, out into the snow with sticks, beating her old carcass as far as the edge of the forest, and pelted her with stones until she fell down dead” (“Burning” 211). As Summers explain the archetype of this kind of „the lost limb‟ story, he pointed out “the human body was maimed or wounded in. 政治大. that numerical place where the beast had been hurt. By this were his bedevilments not. 立. unseldom betrayed, he was recognized and brought to justice” (123). “Justice” is a. ‧ 國. 學. cold-blooded phrase for the minorities. The tragic death of the only female lycanthrope in Carter‟s story represents how fragile the symbolic wolf body is, and. ‧. io. sit. Nat. wolf body, but they are consequently marked as Others.. y. the troublesome situation in which women have masculine powers through symbolic. n. al. er. Critics tend to interpret Carter‟s werewolf as a symbol of desire, violence,. i n U. v. masculinity, or the brute lover. However, the exhibition of Carter‟s werewolf stories. Ch. engchi. probably shows that werewolf is the mostly exploited idea because it is artificial, controllable and easy to interpret. While people are misguided by the allegorical or symbolic meanings „attached‟ to werewolf, werewolf becomes a weapon of oppressors against the minorities, like the grandmother in The Werewolf. In her select essays, Carter considered the notions, such as “race, class, and gender, animal nature” are constructed by human beings. In other words, “the „natural‟ is an invention of culture” (“Shaking” 125). Furthermore, she points out that “We have cast carnivorous animals as id [….] The wolf represents ravening lust; the dog, a more complicated case, inspires an ambivalent mixture of love and fear of madness” (“Shaking” 307-8). In. vi.

(32) Jiang 32. her words, it can be found that she senses the phenomenon that human beings create the “symbolic animal bodies” as the identifications of others. In the language, the animal allegories become what Simon points out as a “one-to-one correlation between a surface and a deep structure of meaning” (4). Perhaps her anxieties with the misuse of allegory make sense, because in the dimension of language, the symbolic wolf body has been transformed from the materialized animal body into the social code.. 政治大. Compared to the beast mark in folklores, this new kind of symbolic wolf body. 立. penetrates into the daily life more easily. As Derrida remarked, the “wolf” in common. ‧ 國. 學. language was “only a word, a spoken word, a fable, a fable wolf, a fabulous animal, or even a fantasy” (5-6).. ‧. Actually, the idea that language creates the animal identities for people, or the. y. Nat. io. sit. idea that the society controls the symbolic animal bodies has been parts of the. n. al. er. lycanthropy legends. It was told that the shape of werewolf will be removed if he is. i n U. v. “thrice addressed by his Christian name” (Summers 116). In other words, only the. Ch. engchi. heretics would carry the mark of wolves. Estes also mentioned that “naming a force, creature, person, or thing has several connotations. In cultures where names are chosen carefully for their magical or auspicious meanings, to know a person‟s true name means to know the life path and the soul attributes of that person. And the reason the true name is often kept secret is to protect the owner of the name so that he or she might grow into the power of the name, to shelter it so that no one will either denigrate it or distract from it, and so that one‟s spiritual authority can develop to its full proportions” (128). If the human body is a noun, the adjective is probably like the symbolic wolf body that attached to it. Sometimes people do not make efforts to find. vi.

(33) Jiang 33. the „real‟ werewolf among people, they call the expelled members werewolf. Still, its beastly metaphor is the same as in fairy tales. However, the monsters in nightmare become the reality. For example, the connection between the wolf and outlawry has been existed for a long time. An early Norman Law prescribes the punishment of certain crimes as wargus esto, which is to say “Become a wolf” (Summers 187). In the nineteenth century, the description of marginalized groups, like the underclass is. 政治大. often related to monstrosity. However, the aristocrats, like the Duke in Wolf Alice, are. 立. also called werewolf by middle-class citizens (Coudray 44-5). In The Beast and the. ‧ 國. 學. Sovereign, Derrida tells that he noticed the English version of Rousseau‟s Confessions translates the word loup-garou into outlaw in the sentence “my humor became. ‧. taciturn, savage; my head was beginning to spoil, and I lived like a real werewolf.” He. y. Nat. sit. concludes “so the werewolf, the “true” werewolf, is indeed the one who, like the beast. n. al. er. io. or the sovereign, places himself or finds himself placed “outside the law,” above or at. i n U. v. a distance from the normal regime of law and right” (63-4).. Ch. engchi. In this chapter, the argument focuses on the drawbacks of the so-called “symbolic animal bodies” in society and language. Originally, people create symbolic animal bodies out of their prejudices with some specific animals like the wolves. It is like what Joan Dunayer indicated that “Every negative image of another species help keep that species oppressed. Most such images are gross distortions. Nonhuman animals rarely possess the character traits that pejoratives assign to them. In reality the imputed traits are negative human traits. Wolves do not philander like the human “wolf.” Most are steadfastly monogamous” (17). They materialize these animals into metaphors and allegories. Then, they identify others with beastly marks when they. vi.

(34) Jiang 34. think others have the same “qualities” as animals. In fairy tales, symbolic animal bodies are used in the archetypes of shape-shifter stories. Shape-shifters such as werewolves represent the demonized or animalized people. On the other hand, they also represent the masculine power of carnivores. While the beast-feminists try to endow this power, the eco-feminists make efforts to get rid of this power. However, both of them care that the images of animals are twisted in language to humiliate the. 政治大. females. Unfortunately, their efforts of liberating the women still cannot escape the. 立. influences symbolic wolf body. In the following chapter, the thesis would show the. ‧ 國. 學. connection between eco-feminism, the beast feminism, and the return of symbolic. ‧. io. sit. y. Nat. n. al. er. wolf body.. Ch. engchi. vi. i n U. v.

(35) Jiang 35. Chapter Three Eco-feminism, Beast Feminism and Female Werewolf Stories In 1984, director Neil Jordan adapted The Company of Wolves into the film, and the audiences were startled by its surrealistic atmosphere. The movie ends with piles of wolves thrusting over the window and awakening the girl on the bed. As the screenwriter of the adaptation, when Carter was asked about the meanings of the. 政治大. wolves, she only replied they were flows of libido. Still, we do not know exactly what. 立. Carter‟s opinion is about the werewolves in her stories. Julia Simon believes that “In. ‧ 國. 學. Carter, the tigers and wolves are externalizations of a female libido that has not found expression in her fiction preceding the eighties” (179). Some critics support Simon‟s. ‧. opinion and some others consider that the werewolves represent the males.. y. Nat. sit. Both suggestions could make sense. In Carter‟s The Company of Wolves, the. n. al. er. io. heroine‟s sexual drive overpowers the energies in the werewolf‟s „symbolic wolf. i n U. v. body.‟ She purposely chooses to stay on the path so that the werewolf could win the. Ch. engchi. bet, even though she understands the award is her flesh. She knows “she was nobody‟s meat” and “she will lay his fearful head on her lap and she will pick out the lice into her mouth and eat them, as he will bid her, as she would do in a savage marriage ceremony” (“Burning” 219). At the end of the story, she behaves more aggressively than the were-predator. But she does not transform, nor put the „symbolic wolf body‟ on her flesh. Although Carter mentions “It‟s Christmas day, the werewolves‟ birthday, the door of the solstice stands wide open; let them all sink through” (“Burning” 220), she refuses to tell if the girl becomes a werewolf because of her lust, or she reaches a status which is closer to the „real‟ wolf than werewolf,. vi.

(36) Jiang 36. like Simon argues that in The Company of Wolves, “woman and man share an equal sexual energy which turns them both into beasts [….] the stories trace the emergence of a reciprocal desire that is based on equality and exchange” (“Burning”185). On the other hand, it cannot be denied that Carter tries to create a link between wolf and woman. In Wolf Alice, the Duke howls like “a wolf with his foot in trap or a woman in labor” (“Burning” 227). Carter also tells that “could this ragged girl with brindled. 政治大. lugs have spoken like we do she would have called herself a wolf, but she cannot. 立. speak” (“Burning” 221). The wolf-girl‟s silence represents that Carter tends not to. ‧ 國. 學. assimilate her with the wolf. Therefore, the wolf-girl unites with the wolf, but stands in the status that beyond significant and codes. Like eco-feminists and beast. ‧. feminists, Carter is in favor of the idea of “woman who runs with the wolf.” But she. y. Nat. sit. needs an alternative way to describe women‟s closeness with animality and nature. n. al. er. io. without using “the order word,” or the codes that constructs the system of significant.. i n U. v. According to Moria Gaten, “the order-word does not only refer to explicit commands.. Ch. engchi. It refers to any statement insofar as it functions to organize acts, affects, desires, states of affairs” (180). Language creates the order as it creates the symbolic animal body. The objects are codified as signs, and each sign refers to another one. Thus, a limitless link is created by numerous of signs. The „symbolic wolf body‟ belongs to this link as one of the signs, and cannot escape the dictating of human value. In the previous chapter, the thesis describes the effect of symbolic animal body, and shows how the nature and animals are materialized and turned into symbolic animal body in language. Carter‟s werewolf stories probably show the problem of symbolic wolf body. But since the symbolic wolf body is used for demonizing the. vi.

(37) Jiang 37. other, it seems that it would not appear in modern female werewolf stories because they revalue the werewolf as women‟s ideal personas, like what the beast-feminists seek for. In addition, the eco-feminism, as Bruce Martin identified as “frequently details the lives of women and their relationship to nonhuman nature to reveal how both are systematically dominated and repressed” (166), leaves small places for the symbolic wolf body. In sum, the beast feminism in the modern female werewolf. 政治大. stories and eco-feminism narrative seem more appropriate for Carter‟s needs. But in. 立. this chapter, the thesis would argue that the „symbolic wolf body‟ still exists in beast. ‧ 國. 學. feminism and eco-feminism narratives, but it has different faces. For a long time, the power and desire of wolves are considered taboos for. ‧. females in people‟s imaginations. For example, Summers found the Latin term lupa,. y. Nat. io. sit. literally a she-wolf, means a “bulker”, and even becomes “whore” with the Latin. n. al. er. suffix.”From lupa we have the cognate words lupana, a whore; lupatria, a strumpet;. i n U. v. lupari, to fornicate or wimble; lupanar, a brothel house; lupanarius, a cock-bawd;. Ch. engchi. and the adjective lupanaris, lascivious, lewd” (Summers 67-9). The story about shape-shifting girdles also includes women. A German old folktale tells about a poor farmer whose wife brings fresh meat to the home every day, even though they cannot afford it. Out of suspicious, the farmer follows his wife and finds her wearing a “wolf belt” on the waist and transforming into a wolf (Steiger 337-8). The lycanthropy wife‟s tale does not tell the readers where she gets the meats. In some ways, the storyteller seems to turn the woman‟s talent (like hunting) into a demonic gift. As Jack Zipes argued in his book Don’t Bet on the Prince, what is praiseworthy in males is rejected in females, and women who are powerful and good are never. vi.

(38) Jiang 38. human (187). In 1604, a French peasant encountering a fierce wolf on a lonely road struck off the animal‟s front leg. After that, a woman with bleeding arm was found and “brought to justice and burned” (Summers 235). This terrifying story echoes with Carter‟s female werewolf in The Werewolf. As critics praise the granddaughter‟s bravery when she meets her monstrous grandmother, they seem to ignore that Carter‟s story is the refined witch hunt story, as Zipes mentioned “the. 政治大. witch and werewolf crazes were aimed at regulating the sexual practices and sex. 立. roles for the male-dominated social orders, which were demanding more and more. ‧ 國. 學. rationalization in the production and reproduction spheres” (“The Trials” 71). In addition, Diane Antonio pointed out that “literature and folklore also provide. ‧. supportive examples of the link between the wolf and female, which is to say, sinful. y. Nat. io. sit. sexuality. Dante called his damned seducers „wolves,‟ and in the medieval villages. n. al. er. of the Caucasus mountain, it was believed that adulteresses were punished by becoming werewolves for seven years” (222).. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. The situation seems to get worse in the nineteenth century. The most important turning point at that period is the connection between werewolves and femme fatale. Like Julia Simon mentioned: The popularity of femme fatale dates back to the end of the nineteenth century when she emerged as a prominent motif in Decadence, Symbolism and Art Nouveau. The ubiquity of the motif is an indication of male anxieties about changes in the understanding of sexual difference and the emergence of the emancipated New Woman in the late nineteenth century. It articulates the fear of losing control, of the fading of subjectivity and the. vi.

(39) Jiang 39. submission to uncontrollable drives….Posing a threat to male control and identity, it also represents a scapegoat figure in Girard‟s sense: her punishment reinstates the rules of gender hierarchy that have been violated by her transgression (128). Moreover, Simons‟s description could be compared with Coudray‟s remarks about how the people treat female werewolves in the nineteenth century. The two. 政治大. citations contain some similar messages. First, the images of female werewolf and. 立. femme fatale are influenced by the New Woman movement. Second, they are given. ‧ 國. 學. the symbolic wolf body which represents the aggressive and ferocious „characteristic‟ of the wolf. Third, they are marked with recognizable signs. And fourth, they must be. ‧. destroyed to restore the social order:. y. Nat. io. sit. Predictably enough, representations of the werewolf as a threat to the. n. al. er. social body were also frequently characterized by a focus on the. i n U. v. susceptibility of women to the affliction. Especially in the latter part of. Ch. engchi. nineteenth century, the emergence of the New Woman, the „androgyny‟ and the women‟s suffrage movement incited considerable alarm about sexuality, gender differences and reproduction. Representations of pathologized or demonic femininity proliferated in response to such developments, and the female werewolves of nineteenth-century fiction were no exception. Demonic women were usually young, beautiful, foreign and dangerous, intent upon the deception and destruction of husbands, lovers and other unsuspecting men. In the literature of female lycanthropy, such representations were recapitulated so frequently that it is. vi.

(40) Jiang 40. possible to identify a cliché developing, in the penchant of lycanthropic Femmes fatales for vestments of white fur. Invariably, such women would emerge mysteriously from the forest or wilderness to enchant an unlucky man (Coudray 46-7). The fashion of monstrous female continues until the early twentieth century. The beast feminists who dedicate to the reassessing of the “universal subjectivity of. 政治大. the Enlightenment” influence greatly on the female werewolf stories (Coudray 129).. 立. The negative qualities of female werewolves are revalued and given a new. ‧ 國. 學. interpretation. The female werewolf was associated with the nature because of the uncivilized and beastly desires, now its „nature‟ has a more positive meaning: the. ‧. freedom. Beast-feminists like Clarissa Pinkola Estes indicated “the word wild is not. y. Nat. io. sit. used in its modern pejorative sense, meaning out of control, but in its original sense,. n. al. er. which means to live a natural life, one in which the criatura, creature, has innate. i n U. v. integrity and healthy boundaries. These words, wild and woman, cause women to. Ch. engchi. remember who they are and what they are about. They create a metaphor to describe the force which funds all females, They personify a force that women cannot live without” (7). Women are told that lycanthropy is more „natural‟ in females than males. Since being a werewolf is not a punishment for females, they don‟t need anyone to rescue them from their status. In the corresponding fever of female werewolf stories appeared with the trend of werewolf texts. Wolves no longer belong to monstrosities but become the symbol of female power. According to Coudray, “the feminist contexts celebrate the werewolf‟s bloodlust have also been inflected by the logic of revenge” (132). For example, Pam Keesey‟s anthology Women who Run with the. vi.

(41) Jiang 41. Werewolves: Tales of Blood, Lust and Metamorphosis contains many stories that “privilege the more „abhuman‟ aspects of lycanthropy, rather than idealizing the female connection to nature [….] None of the female werewolves succumbs to the tragic death of the Wolf Man; rather lycanthropy is an opportunity for revenge and survival” (Coudray 132). Moreover, the pattern of female werewolf stories splits into two different forms.. 政治大. One is the story about the wolf women living in the pack, and the other one tells how. 立. urban females overpower males in their wolf skins. On the contrary, the male. ‧ 國. 學. werewolves are portrayed as the residents in limbo. They must struggle with their symbolic wolf bodies and suffer. In Carter‟ stories, male werewolves cannot find their. ‧. salvations easily, either. A werewolf falls into the pit and gets his paws cut off. He. y. Nat. sit. becomes a “bloody trunk of a man, headless, footless, dying, dead” (“Burning” 213).. n. al. er. io. The Duke is hit by the silver bullet while transforming, and he turns into “poor,. i n U. v. wounded thing….locked half and half between such strange states, an aborted. Ch. engchi. transformation” (“Burning”227). In this way, Carter‟s stories seem following the directions of beast-feminists at first glance. On the other hand, during the time the female werewolf is reevaluated, the eco-feminism opens the curtain and steps onto the stage. Eco-feminists urge to discover the similarities between women and wolves, but they seek for similarities in femininity, not masculinity. For example, in Made from this Earth, the eco-feminists Vera Norwood describes: During the 1930s and 1940s, women established themselves in both popular and scientific circles as contributors to the emerging fields of. vi.

(42) Jiang 42. animal ecology and ethology. As they published their accounts of extended animal observation, they not only helped change cultural prejudices against species like wolf, they also suggested that women could find a space for themselves in the wilderness among wildlife-a space built from their domestic roles as wives and mothers but encouraging expansion of those roles as the meanings of both wilderness and wildlife altered. If. 政治大. ecology suggested that threatening predators such as the wolf were. 立. actually preserving habitats and ethology raised the status of the wolf to. ‧ 國. 學. social animal [….] then there was little reason for women to be protected from such animals” (240).. ‧. The idea is simple: in order to reduce female‟s fear with masculine predators. y. Nat. io. sit. such as wolves, females must become wolves by feminizing these animals. These. n. al. er. female wolves, which are like female shape-shifters or women wearing wolf pelts,. i n U. v. represent the new identity inspired by the nature. Somehow, feminists even relate. Ch. engchi. menstruation with the cycle of lycanthropy, as mentioned below “The parallel between lycanthropy and menstruation has been an obvious theme for stories about female lycanthropy, especially in the wake of the feminist movement, which challenged the taboos on talking and writing about such subjects [….] Correspondingly, some parallels between lycanthropy and menstruation have pursued this logic, showing the lives of female werewolves to be deeply influenced by their awareness of their own bodily cycles. In such narratives, lycanthropy is presented as a cause for celebration or at least as the source of a richer experience of embodiment” (Coudray 122-3).. vi.

(43) Jiang 43. The beast-feminism and eco-feminism narratives share several ideas. First of all, women and animals have similarities in the positive way. Second, the wilderness is women‟s shelter in which they can liberate the repressed animality. Third, women are closer to the nature than men do. Finally, they are apt to alter the stereotypes of wolves, trying to liberate “the wolf nature” from the quality which is specific in masculine language. While the girl in Little Red Riding Hood is warned to beware of. 政治大. the wolf, eco-feminists argue that the best way to tame the wolves is to feminize them,. 立. dragging the wolves into the women‟s groups. There are two major opinions about. ‧ 國. 學. wolf in eco-feminism narratives. One is that wolves and women are both considered as the victims of males. In order to represent the oppressions falling on the two. ‧. species, they have to place themselves in the status of the oppressed. The other is that. y. Nat. sit. wolves include several positive qualities which might inspire women to create a new. n. al. er. io. identity as „women who are like wolves.‟ Coudray explained that:. i n U. v. The sympathetic characterization of the wolf took its cue from the work of. Ch. engchi. environmentalists and particularly wolf biologists, who have countered negative imagery of the wolf in order to gain public support for the protection of a species that has been hunted to the point of endangerment. Rather than focusing on the wolf‟s alleged cunning and cruelty, or on its threat to livestock, environmentalists have claimed that wolves are in fact loyal, family-oriented, monogamous and affectionate, that they kill only what they need to eat, that they usually select sick or wounded prey….Indeed, in recent decades the wolf has come to rival the dolphin as a symbol of a New Age ecologically aware sensibility [….] Such. vi.