Wolf-Alice: Notes!

Wolf-Alice

or

The Enigma of Becoming A Woman

Dogs looking in mirrors.
The closest I could find to a wolf-woman staring at a mirror.

'Wolf-Alice' by Angela Carter is the story of a feral child who is discovered by some nuns who try to raise her to become a normal child. Their lack of success force them to abandon the child in a "gloomy castle" inhabited by the Duke: a cannibalistic and vampiric werewolf. The child essentially becomes a servant to the Duke until one day she begins to menstruate: it is at this point that the feral child soon begins to realise things about herself and the passage of time around her (the story emphasises how the feral child, due to her animalistic state, only lives in the presence and has no sense of past or future). 

One day, some townsmen lead by a widowed man (wife murdered by the Duke) go out and hunt the werewolf Duke. Meanwhile, the feral child is currently watching them and wearing a bridal gown she found.
Eventually, the Duke arrives and the feral child goes with him to flee from the townsmen. The Duke is shot and retreats to his bedroom. There, the feral child licks clean his wounds and his face begins to appear in the mirror!

--

EXISTENTIALISM

Similar Bettelheim's analysis of fairy tales, Wolf-Alice has notions of existentialism. Most notably would be the idea of what truly makes us human; the source of our humanity. So we could argue that Wolf-Alice serves a philosophical purpose.

Carter uses the image of Wolf-Alice as both not a wolf AND a wolf (and human AND not human) to achieve this primarily. The idea is that humanity is not so easily labelled through our physical selves: the example of Wolf-Alice shows that, although she is a homo sapiens, her mind is that of a wolf. 

She further advances this argument with the way Wolf-Alice discovers her humanity. When exposed around nature, she shows only bestial characteristics. HOWEVER, once in the presence of culture, in man-made and human items, it is then that we begin to see her humanity develop. The mirror represents her self-awareness*, whereas the dress represents humility and self-appreciation. Although it is during the mirror stages that she begins to realise that it is only a reflection, it is when she picks up the dress that she begins to feel obligated to cleanse herself before wearing it.

Conclusively, Carter appears to be putting forward the idea that it culture is important for humans. It is culture that makes us human, and helps us to understand as humans a lot more. 

*Gordon Gallup Jr has done some work on the "mirror test", an ethological study on self-awareness in animals. This may beg the question as to whether self-awareness is a truly human thing after all (this idea came about in 1970, 9 years before TBC was released). He's also done a study on fellatio as an antidepressant!

CARTER'S USE OF THE GOTHIC FOR FEMINISM

Carter often manipulates the Gothic tradition in order to convey particular themes, especially the use of strong female protagonists in the name of Feminism. Although I do interpret Wolf-Alice as a mainly feminist story, I do believe it has a feminist reading.

The feral child is a girl, but no more than a child and so is practically powerless in comparison to the beast of a man that the Duke is, quite literally. However, upon menstruating (often associated with first steps into womanhood), she becomes a woman. After that, when the Duke is dying on his bed, Wolf-Alice saves the Duke. It is at this point that the dominant power seems to shift to the feral-child. 

A vague idea brought up by this point is that the woman is initially subservient to the Duke, representing a patriarchal control. Her self-awareness is reflective (get it!?) of a woman realising that she is a person too and becoming aware of the horrors of patriarchy. Her saving of the Duke could represent the destruction of patriarchy, if we were to assume that the Duke has been brainwashed into thinking, by society, that patriarchy is the fair way to go about things. Him seeing himself in the mirror shows the vanquishing of male tyranny (and him being unable to see his reflection shows how he is completely unaware that there is unfairness in the assigned gender roles).

Carrie - another example of the
horrors of religion and female
menstruation.

RELIGION

The story is heavily laden with religious imagery. Most of the time the religious imagery and suggestions are often coupled with the idea that they don't work. Nuns are sent to help the feral child, but all their efforts, although they provide some help, are not particularly fruitful. Another example of this could be from the Duke using a cross as a scratching post; it has provided some use, but not as intended.

I believe that this use of religion is partly used to show how godless Wolf-Alice and the Duke are, partly to emphasise a point later on in the Marxist debate.

MARXISM

More than anything, I think that this text is mostly Marxist orientated. The mentioning of social hierarchy (a Duke and townsfolk) and wealthy religion (nuns are Catholics, who are well-known to be wealthy) immediately suggests this.

I have my own interpretation of the text from a rather strong Marxist perspective:

The Duke, it could be said, is poisoned by wealth. He is portrayed as being cast in his role rather than becoming this lycanthropic freak out of his own volition, so it could be that he has inherited this wealth. The idea of him being cannibalistic could be used to represent how capitalism is exploiting and damaging the working class for their own greed and personal gain, thinking and acting seemingly recklessly. 

A friendly reminder of just how irate townsfolk
tend to get! (Bride of Frankenstein)

It would seem then that Wolf-Alice represents the problem of inherent wealth: that the children become disillusioned into thinking that this is the only way of life. A further point on them "living in the present" may possibly be stretching into the realms of economics by suggesting a selfishly capitalist stance on a preference to short-term financial gain, rather than long-term.

The townsfolk represent the proletariat, and they desperately try to rid of the Duke that is eating the corpses in the town. This could be shown as a statement of revolution against a dominant, capitalist system.

The Wolf-Alice, upon looking in the mirror, has observed herself from a different point of view. She has perhaps begun to see that she is the same as everyone else, and that there is something wrong in such division among the classes. 

Linking back to the religious point, the idea is that the religious objects do not work on the Duke. This suggests a Marxist view that religion is an idea created by the bourgeoisie to keep the proletariat happy; the reason it doesn't work on the Duke is because he knows that it's a fantasy. 

OTHER USES OF THE GOTHIC

The story in itself covers many Gothic conventions, including the transgressive. One such example of this is the rather intimately described discovery of the feral child's exploration of her body to discover that she has begun menstruation (although she does not believe this, initially). The language used in that paragraph, including use of a profane synonym for female genitalia, shows the story as beginning to transgress from social norms. Other transgressive elements include the idea of sodomy (especially from a religious point-of-view); although it isn't blatantly suggested, there exists the idea of the Duke coming to the feral child at night and biting her between the thighs.

Dracula maintains a shockingly
good appearance for someone
without a reflection

The supernatural features heavily too in this book. One major example is at the end when the Duke begins to see his reflection (and the fact that the Duke doesn't have a reflection to begin with). This clearly shows that there is something inhuman and unnatural about him. Most supernatural elements tend to surround the Duke rather than any other character, which affirms that the Duke is something of a natural anomaly (reminiscent of other traditional Gothic texts like Frankenstein and Dracula). 

INTERTEXTUAL REFERENCES

There are numerous intertextual references in the book. Most notably is the reference to Through The Looking Glass and What Alice Found There by Lewis Carroll. The eccentric book, written by an eccentric man, explores the idea of Wonderland from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland from the perspective of a child. Wolf-Alice, the feral child, gains enrichment and joy from exploring her reflection in the mirror, in much the same way that Alice gains joy from feeding her childish curiosity in the world beyond Wonderland. Curiouser and curiouser...

Surprisingly, Red Riding Hood plays only a small role in the themes and outlines of the story, by blurring the boundaries between Red Riding Hood and the Wolf. Instead, the book seems to ponder more towards Beauty and the Beast (and even The Courtship of Mr Lyon) with its premise of a bestial man becoming dependent on his subservient female woman, who eventually saves him.

Another slight, but quite relevant, intertextual reference is made to Robinson Crusoe; a tale of man-stranded on a desert island. The reference is made to Man Friday:

Her footprints on the damp earth are beautiful and menacing as those Man Friday left.

Robinson Crusoe discovered Man Friday because of his footsteps. The idea perhaps suggests that Wolf-Alice, stepping out onto the "damp earth" outside the castle, has discovered herself, in a sense. That "beautiful and menacing" shows how she has developed an awareness of her own appearance but still maintains a menacing, animalistic mindset. This connotation to Man Friday may also be relevant as Man Friday is saved from being eaten from the band of cannibals he is supposed to be a member of; in a similar way to how Wolf-Alice is a feral child with a wolfish personality (so would have been speculated as being possibly cannibalistic) being held virtually captive by a cannibalistic werewolf Duke.