Showalter, Kristeva, and The Company of Wolves

According to Elaine Showalter from “Towards a Feminist Poetics”, feminine criticism can be divided in two ways, the first as women as the readers and the second as women as the writers. “The first type is concerned with women as the reader- with women as the consumer of male-produced literature…It’s subjects include the images and stereotypes of women in literature, the omissions and misconceptions about women in criticism, and the fissures in male-constructed literary history”. (Showalter). This type of criticism also includes the exploitation and manipulation of women. A feminist literary critic looks for all of these topics in works, both obvious and not-so-obvious interpretations, where women are the readers. The second type of criticism has to do with women as the writers where women produce textual meaning with the history, themes, genres, and structures of literature written by women. The excerpt from the company of wolves can be interpreted through the feminist criticism that Showalter explains. The story begins by describing the girl as a strong-minded child. She shows her independence and strength by going off into the woods despite the dangers that may await her. She even takes a knife in case she needs it, showing her smarts and lack of fear of violence. These are all qualities that a feminist criticism would look for in a story. The story also uses her sexuality as a ploy in the plot. “She stands and moved within the invisible pentacle of her own virginity. She is an unbroken egg; she is a sealed vessel; she has inside her a magic space the entrance to which is shut tight with a plug of membrane; she is a closed system; she does not know how to shiver. She has her knife and is afraid of nothing” (Carter). This part of the story can be taken as her virginity, her womanhood, is helping her out and protecting her. Later in the story, the girl sheds her clothing and the wolf doesn’t eat her. Here, her sexuality helped her out. While these may all be positive interpretations of women, the story can also be looked at in another light. The story shows women’s dependence on men as well as her sexuality in a different way. First, the story describes the girl’s mother being at home while the father is out working and gathering wood to provide for his family. Also, the story says that the father would have been able to forbid the girl from going into the woods while the mother cannot refuse her. This shows the father’s power and authority and the mother’s weakness. The girl herself can become viewed as dependent and reliant on protection by men when she gives her basket to the mystery man in the woods since he said his rifle would protect her. While her sexuality appears to have helped her in the end of the story, it can be said that it also helped categorize her. The beginning of the story the girl seemed to be innocent, pure, and virginal while by the end of the story after she kissed the wolf and openly shed her clothes, becoming now viewed as extremely sexually. It shows the extremes that women can be seen as. Also, even though the story showed the girl as strong and willing to have a knife, in the end she used her sexuality to help her. This can be seen as a woman’s only power being her sexuality, not her strength. This can be tied into Julia Kristeva’s idea of feminism being a part of “the religious crisis of our civilization” (Kristeva) since virginity is held in a certain position in Christianity.