The Werewolf

The overview of today's lesson was to consider how femininity and sexuality is presented in the wolf stories.

We first began going over our homework about the different kinds of feminism. After discussing this we came to the conclusion that:

• 1st feminism was all about equality in terms of suffrage (voting)

• 2nd feminism addresses the domestic inequalities towards women. Women during the Victorian era ,wanted independence from their husbands in terms of having the right to choose their own fate/destiny-they wanted to have the right to the contraceptive pill, which would enable them greater control over their lives

• 3rd feminism involved everybody, not just women. Ethnic groups started to protest for equality and this kind of feminism tried to make a success of the failed attempts of the 2nd feminism.

The class then came across the term `hegemony` which means that there is an accepted belief which isn't necessarily true. For example: Religion is perhaps the most known one, as people accept that God exists but nobody actually knows if it is true. We then related this to the wolf stories we have read and in general, but mainly towards sexuality and gender. In addition to this task, Sir asked us to write down traditional views of women and the real facts of how women actually are.

Traditional:

• Caretaker within the home- Victorian belief.
• Beautiful
• pure/innocent
• More emotional then intellectual
• Hysterical

Real facts about women:

• They are beautiful
• Intellectual (not just emotional)
• Career women
• They have balanced lives (follow their career's and look after the children)

The class was then brought to the situation of sexuality within all the stories we have read so far. We decided that women are discovering their sexuality, but men already have it and also that objects define sexuality. For example in The Bloody Chamber story: the opal necklace is present during sexual encounters, as are the lilies, the mirrors absolutely show sexuality as they are personified to show all types of girls (even though they show the same young girl in different angles).

A couple of questions were then put on the board, in which we all had to discuss as a class. The first question was:
Why is sex bound up with fear for women traditionally?

Answers: The whole idea of physical pain endured by the girl during her first time, the consequences of their body changing whilst being pregnant, child-birth (another pain factor) and that the girl may also been seen as a "loose women".

The second question was:
Why are the Tiger's (in "The Tiger's Bride") advances rejected by the bride?

Answer: Because the girl wants more to happen. she doesn't want to be seen naked in a dark room, she wants to be seen by everybody and fully. The Bride wants the advances to turn physical (perhaps sexual)

The class read "The Werewolf" and picked out all the sexual and feminist things mentioned above. (Read and do that if you weren't present)

The last part of the lesson will help immensely towards the next lesson. It consisted of finding quotes in "The Company of Wolves" for the following:
1) The Main Character
2)Other Characters
3)Wolf Figure
4)Setting

The Main Character
"The girl burst out laughing, she knew she was nobody's meat"
"But this strong minded child insists she was off through the woods"
"She is an unbroken egg, a sealed vessel, she has insider her a magic space, to which the entrance is closed"

Other Characters
"Her father might forbid her"
"Her mother cannot deny her"
"aged and frail...ready to giving in entirely"
"she wept when her second husband beat her"

Wolf Figure
"tender wolf"
"forest assassins"
" there is so little flesh of them that you could count the starveling ribs through their pelts"
"The long-drawn, wavering howl has, for all its fearful resonance, some inherent sadness in it"

Setting
"It is winter and cold weather"
"It is very cold, poor things, she said"
"It was a white night of moon and snow...grey beats who's pointing their sharp shouts to the moon and howling as if their hearts would break"

H/W:
Read "Wolf-Alice"
Research Stock characters (their function in storytelling)
Write on this blog the answer to why you think Carter wrote female sexuality as a reaction to male sexuality...?

Thanks for reading my awesome, long blog Chris W :)

Comparing Tiger's Bride and Mr Lyon

The starter for the lesson was to think what we'd be if we could be anything. There were many ideas - such as a phoenix and a sketch pad, among others. I said I'd be Bill Gates, as he has all the money in the world and could buy anything. Or I'd be a poisionous berry (or something poisionous) so people wouldn't touch me. We discussed why people change (or go through metamorphosis) and different things this represents.

Then, we moved on to discuss the meaning of the word symbolism. I wrote down that symbolism was ' a metaphor for an image'. However, the real meaning was 'Investing material objects with abstract meanings greater than their own; allowing a complex idea to be represented by a single object.' After this we attempted to find connections and similarities between Angela Carter's 'The Courtship of Mr. Lyon' and her other story that we'd read, 'Tigers Bride'. Similarities I managed to identify were those of the main characters both supposedly being animals (and male animals), the female character stayed with the 'beasts' at the end of the respective stories, and also that both females dictated the animals (thought the be male) in the stories. For instance, the male beast in the Courtship of Mr. Lyon was dependant on the female character.

Our next task was to then "compare the 2 cat stories, commenting on how Carter subverts the traditional (fairy tale) concepts of gender relations." During this task, I commented on the similarities (shown above), but focused on the point of the males bveing dependant on the females. In traditional fairy tales (Little Red Riding Hood, Snow White etc.) the females are dependant on the men. However, Carter goes against this ideology.

Homework:
Research - 1st, 2nd and 3rd wave feminism. Also research Little Red Riding Hood.
Read - "Company of the Wolves".
Write - Comment on this and write your view on "Company of the Wolves".

Daniel.

The Tiger's Bride (Late Edition)

First off, a few notes. Sorry that the blog is like, quite late, but I've been busy and ill so it cant really be helped. Also, in case you haven't been told hypertext is now intertext, but there both the same thing- hypertext sounds cooler though...

Okay, so this quote "I'm all for putting new wine in old bottles, especially if the new wine makes the old bottles explode" was mentioned with emphasis before we began reading- it was judged to me adding new conventions to an old conceptions, such as the changing of the story of The Beauty and the Beast into The Courtship of Mr.Lyon by adding gothic elements. It could also mean the changing of the gothic genre itself, but ultimately the judgement of its meaning rests with the person reading it.

We then looked at an extract from the Mr.Lyon book, which I have since then unfortunately misplaced, and we analysed some of its key features.

• It was first pointed out that the landscape reflected the woman, the purity of the snow a direct relation to her. The "white and unmarked" snow "possessed a light of its own", an unquestionable relation to purity- which is then tied to the woman "so you would've thought she, too, was made of all snow"
• It was then pointed out that the narrative switched between 1st person ("Outside her kitchen window") to 3rd person ("Father said he would be home before nightfall"). We were told to consider what effect this had, and to look out for any similar occurrences in other stories.
• Another thing that was highlighted was the evidence that the woman was domesticated, following the conventions of the era that the story was written- "chores", being in the "mean kitchen", and having been there "all day" in the name of her "Father". Later reading revealed that this was not evident in every story in "The Bloody Chamber", namely in the Tiger's Bride.

Still looking at The Courtship of Mr.Lyon we examined the meanings of animal, or beast, references. The sheepskin coat that the girls father was a contrast to the lion's head of the beast, the divide between the failure and success. More interestingly perhaps, is the relevance of the furs given to the young maiden as a gift. Her acceptance of them is apparently representative of her developing as a sexual being, as she wears a garment that makes her more similar to the beast itself- her returning at the end of the tale shows the acceptance she has of her new self, as when she kisses the beast he becomes a man- there is no longer any difference between them, and he changes from a predator to her lover. Helpful people may explain that better in their comments...

Now, its PICTURE TIME, in which I post a picture related to the Tiger's Bride, although I'm not sure if its entirely appropriate. It appeared at the top of the page...

I actually have surprisingly little notes for when we read Tiger's Bride, for which I must apologise for- I was just sooo engrossed in the story itself. One interesting note that I did make however states "The woman can look to the beast and judge him for his appearance, but cannot truly see whats within him", which means that she passes constant judgements upon him without truly seeing what is behind his mask, emphasising that they are perhaps just hollow words. This is reaffirmed when the mask is removed, and the young maiden gets a drastic change of opinion.

Now, intertextual references are things that make recurrent appearances in The Bloody Chamber and perhaps other gothic-style books, and have a singular meaning throughout. Some that we found in class include:

1. Russian Dolls
2. Chinese Boxes
3. Roses

There are almost definitely more of these, so remember to look out for them. I'm sure we'll go over them in more detail in class at some point, but until then feel free to come up with your own opinions and share them in your comments.

~Well that concludes my blog, if you feel anything was missing I cant stress enough that you should mention it in your comments for the benefit of all.

HOMEWORK
1) Research and compare the Cat Tales, perhaps look up "Tyger Tyger" and "The Lamb" for a better insight.

2) Comment on the blog~

Gothics and Fairtytales

In the start of the lesson we had to read a Gothic story on the board.

New Stories
Take- An old castle, half of it ruinous,
A long gallery, with great mnay doors some secret ones.
Three murdered bodies quite fresh.
As many skeletons. in chests and presses
Mix them together, in the form of three volumes, to be taken at any of the water places before going to bed.

From reading this we had to create our own Gothic Recipe.This is an example of Chris.C Gothic Recipe.
take a nightmare and shroud it in mystery
Form it in the most horrosome setting dark, cold, sinister.
Take a victim pushed into this.
Press on with the terror

Which is the odd one out/why?
As a class we decided which fairytale was the odd one out and why, here are the following fairytales.

• Cinderella


• Little Red Riding Hood


• Snow White


• Sleeping Beauty


• Beauty (from the beast)

I thought that Cinderella is the odd one out because with her story her is more naturalistic, it hasnt got any evil magical characters although theres the step mother and two ugly sisters. But they are humans. However fellow classmates thought differently Red riding Hood was the odd one out because Red Riding Hood is the youngest, she isnt from a high status and she gets rescued by an ordinary person.

What are Fairy Tales?- we wrote about what comes to mind about fairy tales

• Magic


• Love


• Quest


• Prince/ Princess


• Damsel in distress-the women is helpless.inncoent,perfect,naive


• Morals-teaching kids whats good and evil


• Villians


• "happily ever after"`

As a class we evaluated that fairy tales could be outdated, it stereotypes boys always being strong and masculine and girls being soft, weak, helpless. As a class we had to read "There Was Once" and answer the following questions. article can be found in sirs blog "the Snow child"

1. What is implied about the characters that traditionally feature in fairty tales?

Pricne, princess, beautiful character, always white, wealthy, woman are oppressed, jealous characters, villians

2. What expectations does an audience bring to this base on their previous experience of fairy tales

expecting quests, marraige, "happily ever after"

3. What new features has the author brought to the story and how do they help to entertain and make a point

making it more urban, ethnic, questioning the status of person,

Carter:

My intention was not to do 'versions' or as the American edition of the book said, horribly "adult" fairy tales but to extract the latent content from the traditional stories and to use it as the beginnings of new stories

The snow child

• she changes the meaning of death


• changes character


• no stepmother


• more bleque, dark, more of a sexual nature


• Bold, gothic colours


• graphic descriptions


• disturbing images


• detailed description

HOMEWORK:

Read Sadgroves post "The Snow Child" comment/ answer questions

Read "The Bloody Chamber" (page 1 - 43)

comment on this blog

Rosie,

The Courtship of Mr Lyon

The first story we read of Angela Carter's "The Bloody Chamber", was a re-imagining of "Beauty and the Beast".

We started the lesson building on the general introduction to the Gothic with Mr Sadgrove began the previous class.

Looking at various images, we began to discuss not only conventional gothic themes but the functionality of them. The main themes that we touched on were: oppositions, corruption of innocence, supernatural and gender relations.

Reading through "The Courtship of Mr Lyon" we stopped periodically to discuss the relevance of certain motifs. This built on the earlier discussion we'd had about gothic themes.

After completing the story, we looked at oppositions within it:

Beauty Beast

Male Female

City Country

Caring Spoilt

Healthy Ill

Reality Magical

Punter called this blurring of oppositions the "borderland that fear resides". We went onto discuss what oppositions meant specifically for the male Beast and female Beauty (or the other way round offered Aleks).

Homework was to comment on the subtext of gender roles in this tale.

Gothic Literature

Welcome to the first blog post of A2 English.

Our A2 unit will be done on Gothic Literature; To increase our understanding of the genre of Gothic and it's literature we began the lesson by writing down words or phrases that we thought described the gothic genre. All the phrases had a sense of negativity and darkness to them showing that when people thought of the gothic genre they thought of "Darkness", "gloomy settings" and "feelings of a depressing nature"

After we had a vague idea of the genre Sir showed us a picture of what appeared to be small man sitting on a woman dressed in white that seemed to be dead. There was also a black horse head in the picture; these combined elements gave the picture a very bizarre feel.We were asked to note down what we first noticed about the picture, the feeling we felt looking at it and any questions we had about the picture.
After this out discussion led us into identifying horror and terror as themes within the Gothicgenre; we went on to deferientiate the diffrence between the two. We decided that:

Horror - This is the physical fear we feel, possibly when we are threatened or attacked. This is said to be more masculine.
Terror - This is the psychological fear that we feel; this could be from a stimulant that only we find scary or prehaps the inner thoughts that we may have such as in our dreams. This is said to be more feminine

The mention of terror and psychological fear lead us to the idea of the woman dreaming and as such could reinforce the way in which women or the societies during the Victorian Era were oppressed and lived out their strange desires and fetishes through novels that were written in the Gothic genre.

We were given a sheet which contained quotes from critics and other sources and were asked to pick one or two that first related to the picture itself and then that related to the genre as a whole.

Finally, we were give an extract from what is considered the first Gothic writing the Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole. We read the extract and discussed the points within it that made it part of the Gothic genre. We finished the lesson by carrying on the extract and writing a couple of paragraphs in a Gothic style and another couple in a style that would not be found in the Gothic genre.

Homework:
- Comment on this blog post.
- Comment on Mr Sadgrove's blog post.

Roman A.

The Snow Child

Angela Carter uses material from fairy tales and myth as inspiration for her modern gothic short stories. Read a synopsis of the Snow White fairy tale - a simple one can be found here. Then re-read Carter's 'The Snow Child' and complete these questions in note form. In your answers, consider the views Atwood puts forward in her dialogue 'There Was Once' about the conventions of the fairy tale genre. Also consider how Carter has re-interpreted the original story to create something new.

Due next lesson. DB

Introduction to the Gothic

Your exam unit for the A2 course will cover 3 or 4 texts from the Gothic genre. Before studying Angela Carter's 'The Bloody Chamber', it is important you have some understanding of what we mean when we talk about 'the Gothic'. Read David Punter's emagazine article on the subject here.