Brittany Perry, Daequan Starkes, Jack Erhard
SUMMARY: Wolf-Alice is a child that was raised by wolves. Although she is physically a woman, there is nothing about her that is human. She is taken in by nuns in a convent where they attempt to teach her how to cooperate and how to behave like a civilized human being. This attempt to break Wolf-Alice of her wolf habits fails and she is sent to live with a Duke. The Duke is a werewolf who cannot see his own reflection and devours humans on a full moon. Wolf-Alice is sent to work as his maid of sorts, although she can't really do much besides make the Duke's bed. She is confused by her own reflection (believing it is another wolf) and her first menstruation (until she learns to anticipate it and clean up after herself). After realizing her reflection is a "shadow" of herself, she finds a wedding dress and cleans herself up to put it on. She walks into town with it, where the townspeople believe that she is a risen bride that was killed by The Duke. The Duke is injured from a silver bullet fired by a townsperson, and Wolf-Alice jumps onto his bed and begins to lick the blood and
dirt off his face. Little by little, the Duke's face begins to appear in its glass until it is reflected there fully.
Discussion questions:
1.) "She grew up with wild beasts. If you could
transport her, in her filth, rags and feral disorder, to the Eden of our
first beginnings where Eve and grunting Adam squat on a daisy bank,
picking the lice from one another's pelts, then she might prove to be
the wise child who leads them all and her silence and her howling a
language as authentic as any language of nature. In a world of talking
beasts and flowers, she would be the bud of flesh in the kind lion's
mouth: but how can the bitten apple flesh out its scar again" (pg 121)
How does religion play a role in this story? (Regarding the treatment of Wolf-Alice and how others view her).
2.) "The wolves had tended her because they knew she was
an imperfect wolf; we secluded her in animal privacy out of fear of her
imperfection because it showed us what we might have been, and so time
passed, although she scarcely knew it."
What is Carter saying about human nature and culture in this quote? What distinguishes us from animals? What connections
can be made from this example of social acceptance to and human
interaction?
3.) "She pawed and tumbled the dress The Duke had tucked away behind the mirror for awhile. The dust was soon shaken off of it; she experimentally inserted her front legs in the sleeves."
How does Wolf Alice leaving the wolves and going with the nuns play a role in her transition? What happens to her as she's living with human's for the first time?
4.) "She leapt upon his bed to lick, without
hesitation, without disgust, with a quick, tender gravity, the blood and
dirt from his cheeks and forehead. The lucidity of the moonlight lit the mirror propped against the
red wall; the rational glass, the master of the visible, impartially
recorded the crooning girl. As she continued her ministrations, this glass, with infinite
slowness, yielded to the reflexive strength of its own material
construction. Little by little, there appeared within it, like the image
on photographic paper that emerges, first, a formless web of tracery,
the prey caught in its own fishing net, then in firmer yet still
shadowed outline until at last as vivid as real life itself, as if
brought into being by her soft, moist, gentle tongue, finally, the face
of the Duke" (pg 126)
The Duke is finally able to see his reflection in the end because of Wolf-Alice's tenderness and care. What is the author saying about what it means to be human? What defines humanity?
Contextual Material:
Role of religion and prejudice: Wolf-Alice and real-life situations
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/national/wp/2015/01/13/colorado-church-refuses-to-hold-funeral-for-lesbian-woman-after-dispute-over-affectionate-photos/
What does it mean to be human?
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/philosophy-dispatches/201205/what-does-it-mean-be-human
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