Wolfsong: Music, Magic and Meaning in Angela Carter’s “The Company of Wolves” S T E V E B U C C E L L AT O
. . . as I listened I heard as if from down
that challenges the reader repeatedly to
below in the valley the howling of many
associate the sound not with terror, but with
wolves. The Count’s eyes gleamed, and he
music. Carter uses words to describe the
said: “Listen to them—the children of the
wolfsong such as serenade, canticle, carols,
night. What music they make!”
threnody, prothalamion, liebestod, and the
—BRAM STOKER, DRACULA
aforementioned aria. More than simply an array of synonyms, these words evoke very
THE CRY OF howling wolves is ever present in
specific imagery connecting with the larger
Angela Carter’s reimagining of Little Red Riding
themes of the story: life, love, innocence,
Hood; a forewarning of impending danger to
sexual maturation, metamorphosis, death, and
any unfortunate souls close enough to hear
rebirth—though not necessarily in that order,
the creatures’ “aria of fear made audible”
as we will see. These word choices are designed
(141). Indeed, the story’s very first line places
to subtly inform and manipulate readers
importance on the howling of wolves: “One
emotionally, much in the way that films do with
beast and only one howls in the woods by night”
their musical scores, resulting in a provocative
(141). That emphasis persists throughout the
experience that casual readers may not fully
text, and the author utilizes curious language
understand, but nonetheless feel.
ST E V E B U C C E L L ATO (’21) originally wrote this essay on Angela Carter’s short story “The Company of Wolves” for Dr. Alex Neel’s Genres: Fiction course. The examination of classic and modern fairytales with Dr. Neel has since inspired
32
Steve to delve more deeply into the scholarly study of folklore and fairytales, and even to write a few modern reimaginations of his own.
»
