The Purpose of this Blog

Your task on this blog is to write a brief summary of what we learned in class today. Include enough detail so that someone who was ill or missed the lesson can catch up with what they missed. Over the course of the term, these 'class scribe' posts will grow to be a guide book for the course, written by students for students.

With each post ask yourself the following questions:
1) Is this good enough for our guide book?
2) Will your post enable someone who wasn't here to catch up?
3) Would a graphic/video/link help to illustrate what we have learned?


Tuesday 10 July 2012

'The Company of Wolves'

How does Carter write about sexual intercourse and why does she do this?
Write a paragraph covering all AOs with six pieces of evidence.


Link to 'Vampire Weakened' article from the Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2008/dec/06/twilight-stephenie-meyer-vampires?mobile-redirect=false
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2 comments:

  1. Students11 July 2012 at 12:27

    As well as showing patriarchal power, for example like in 'The Snow Child' through the way the male figure is both the girl's creator and destroyer, Carter's feminist view also emerges. This can be seen through the way in which both genders are given qualities of lambhood and tigerishness, and example of this being "the tender wolf". With this in mind, the suggestive reaction of the innocent girl as she asks "What shall I do with my shawl?", and "What shall I do with my blouse?" is further evidence for some critics view that Carter promotes "sexual licence for all the genders". Furthermore, the colour symbolism of red from the girl's "scarlet shawl" creates continuity in terms of being the "colour of sacrifices", which is an expected Gothic trope for a female character, as well as Carter describing it to be the "colour of her menses", once again referring back to the idea of how she is still a virgin, as well as shocking the reader about the sexual desire of young women. Despite this though, we are once again caught by surprise as the girl "still ceased to be afraid", offering to lay the wolf's "fearful head" in her lap, acting as an authoritative figure. This use of adjective can be seen to flip the traditional gender expectations, to paint the typically dominant character as weak, resulting in a break away from the concept of "throwing off 'the other'".
    Jess.

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  2. Students13 July 2012 at 03:15

    In these short stories, Carter goes into depth with explicit details about sexual ideas. This can be seen in The Company of Wolves when Carter repeats the same image when the girl has just started her puberty. Through the use of visual imagery, Carter describes the girl's virginity to be "an unbroken egg... with a plug of membrane". These vivid use of metaphor alarms the reader by grabbing their attention to the idea of how a girl who has just started her menstruation is given the idea of having sexual desire. This relates to the idea of Carter acting as a 'moral pornographer' by giving sexual licence to all genders.
    Lisa(:

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