Comparison of Two Novels About Love

Love, as one of the most important feelings of all living creatures in the world, plays a simple but sophisticated role in modern society. No matter human beings or animals, they are socially connected with their love. The author of The Bloody Chamber, Angela Carter, merging different love conditions, and just like the mysterious chemical reactions. In her stories love is capable to make earthshaking reformations between characters. This essay will mainly talk about two stories from The Bloody Chamber——The Company of Wolves and The Lady Of The House Of Love which my arguments will be covered about how love can make changes for different characters: the transformation of female personalities, transformation of fate, and transformation of virginity.

The Company of Wolves

In both of the stories in this book, love makes incredible transformations of heroines’ personalities which also exist in some of the fairy tales——in Beauty and Beast Belle changes from an innocent girl to a brave young lady to protect the beast.

In this world, Carter wants to declare that not only the love between the lovers can create magical changes in their life but also the love from families can also bring out the same effect. In The Company Of Wolves, most of the children are precocious, they need to “work hard”, and “grow wise”. In their country, Childhood means nothing, they jump into adulthood without any experience because their parents need them to get to work and protect their family which Cater wants to reflect the real-life in those days that children needed to be hardworking and painstaking.

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Those normal kids are a bit self-abased, firm and persistent. However, for this girl, the heroine of this story, she was “indulged by her mum and grandma”, as she is the youngest and prettiest child in her family, she receives most amount of love from her family which shapes her different personalities from other kids in her country——false confident, brave and easy to trust others. No like other kids have the alertness who afraid of those forest monsters and to protect themselves, they carry “craving knives”. But for the little red redwing hood, she is fearless, and brave because the love makes “she afraid of nothing.” Although her family warns her repeatedly she still insists that nothing will harm her this night. The love from her family just like a protection cover gives her the courage and motivation to persist in visiting her grandma, which for the rest of the kids in the village, they will not take their life as a risk to get into the forest in a dangerous, uptight night. In contrast, the life of the heroine of The Lady Of The House Of Love is uneasy, tragic, and bleak. When she was a kid, she was only “like a fox”. Usually, foxes are cunning but gentle, and especially in western culture, foxes are the symbol of transformations which implies that there will have a change of the heroine’s life. She was taken good care of her mum before but unlike the fortunate girl who enjoys all of the love from her family, the young vampire lost her mother when she was young. As she grows up in such a plight that lack of love from her families, she becomes fierce, insatiable and mature. When she was young, she needed to drink the blood from rabbits to survive. However, nowadays, she changes her attitude of the desire of animals’ blood, “she is a woman, she must to have a man.” She is now lack of love, she not only needs men’s blood for her appetite, but also for seeking some love. In contemporary, life is not only made of the love between prince and princess but also from the family members who are much more important than the spouses. Probably, this is what Carter wants to present to the audience that in different family situations, love can shape different characteristics. However, Carter as a strong supporter of feminism may encourage that girls should be brave enough to protect themselves and it is important to keep being confident and stay strong even in adversity.

The transformation of fates is also showing clear in Carter’s stories. The girl in The Company of Wolves has a “Savage marriage” with the wolf at the end of the story. Commonly, human beings should get married to other human beings just like other women in her countries, but the girl gets married to the wolf because she wants to be the survivor instead of dying from the wolf’s paws. In the story, love saves the little girl from death to survival. The wolf is “Carnivore incarnate, only immaculate flesh appeases him.” This means that in his eyes the little girl is just his food, just a piece of meat. Nevertheless, when the little girl met the wolf who dresses up as a young hunter, she fell in love with him immediately. “Laughing and joking like old friends”, and also a kiss as the bet, the girl even slowed down her pace to surrender submissively. Although, the wolf tells his real purpose to the little girl “All the better to eat you with”, the love makes the girl brave so she doesn’t believe that the wolf will engulf her. She reforms the wolf’s cold heart by using her love, even she “puts lice into her mouth” which normal people will not do to express love and loyalty but she does. Her actions and her innocent girlish love do change the wolf’s mind, for the finale they sleep sweet together. The little girl’s love for the werewolf saves her from the edge of death, and fight against the conventional wedding.

The Lady Of The House Of Love

For the other story, the young vampire changes her fate as well——from a vampire to a human being. The queen of vampires is lonely and dreams to be a human. When the solder comes into her life, she finally finds out what love is, even her Tarot cards show the card of “lovers” for the first time. The vampire even doesn’t drink the man’s blood, her flurry even lets her break the glasses, and what the soldier does pacify her (“put his mouth to the wound.) The hostess bears the pain to become a human just because she falls in love with this young soldier totally, and his young man saves her life. When she was the vampire, “her beauty is a symptom of her disorder, of her sullenness.” To become a human, she gives up her immaculate beauty, to become someone is “far older, less beautiful”. Perhaps, Carter wants to reflect that love can change hopelessness into reborn, and the same in modern society that love can change people’s thoughts and even fates.

Finally, there is a key transformation in both of the stories——changes of virginity. For both of the stories, both of the girls lose their virginity and they achieve the transformation from a girl to a woman which in most of the fairy tales will not be presented because usually, kids will not experience sex at such a young age. However, for the girl in The company of wolves she has her first night when she is only a child, even her period just comes, then she experiences this suffering but sweetness. “an unbroken egg”, “closed system”, “sealed vessel”, Carter uses so many phrases to describe the little girl’s purity which may to compare with her finale. At the end of the story, the little girl chooses to donate her virginity to the one she loves at the first sight, and this also shows her submissiveness to the wolf. “ripped off his clothes”, “fire with the blouse” “throw the shawl into the fire” shows the girl who wants to have sexual intercourse even with the dangerous werewolf. She does all these with her voluntary which shows how much she loves the wolf and how eager she wants to be a young woman. Same as the young hostess, those roses grow up in her garden mock the fact the vampire’s fact without sex. The vampire hostess even describes herself “I leave you as a souvenir the dark, fanged rose I plucked from between my thighs, like a flower laid on the grave.” Carter describes the thorns of roses as the dentata of female’ a vagina just like what the vampire-like——she can use her sharp teeth to kill human beings, but she cannot receive the sex. When her Mr. Right comes, the vampire she wants to give her first night unreservedly. “How I am ready for you” “in my wedding dress” illustrates that the vampire detects her real love, and she gets ready for her wedding anytime. Love makes the cruel Ogre into a young lady who wants to dedicate herself to the man’s warm harbor. Carter may want to present them that the love can make girls give themselves to the one they insane. Even, in reality, girls will give their treasure like first sex to the one they care about.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the transformative power of love always exists in those two stories which can cause magic effects on personalities, fate, and virginity. In The Company Of Wolves, the girl experienced how to use love to save herself, and in The Lady Of The House Of Love, the hostess experienced how to use love to redeem herself. Overall, Carter wants to deliver the thought that whenever girls can find their love and encourage girls that love can make beautiful changes in their lives.