Bohemian Gothic-Five of Swords

Queen of Disks

Little Red Riding Hood, she is NOT. This woman is certainly turned on by the werewolf. I agree that it's like Karen said about the Two of Cups, this woman is stuck with polite society and a nice guy for a significant other-and it's boring. And the Wolfman is way more interesting. And she's got him right where she wants him!


(I also thought of Angela Carter, in this case the story "The Company of Wolves." )
 

Thirteen

Queen of Disks said:
Little Red Riding Hood, she is NOT.
It is an sort of inverted Red Riding Hood, isn't it? With Red Riding Hood as the predator/trickster. Good call.
 

ncefafn

I don't view her as a predator/trickster, so much as a willing participant in what's to come. As someone who's had her share of fantasies about Remus Lupin, I can well identify with this card.

<feebly> Oh, help! Help! </feebly>
 

Pagan X

In the second edition, the wolf now looks less menacing, which makes it clearer that the woman is, shall we say, more menacing...happily so might I add.

Oh, I just found out today that silver bullets were not invented by Hollywood. Silver bullets appear in a 1901 short story "The Lame Priest" by S. Carleton that appeared in the December issue of the Atlantic Monthly. Quite a good story--though I've ruined the suspense I'm afraid, but you all woud've figured it out well in advance anyway.

"S. Carleton" may be one "Susan Carleton Jones", a pseudonym used by Susan Morrow Jones.

I love discovering obscure literary references. And when I can turn up an obscure female contributor, all the better!

At any rate, Susan certainly is someone who knows her way around Werewolves.

Susan Carleton Jones, the sister of Alice Jones, sketches an interesting variation in her novel A Detached Pirate, although it is very shallow and not well written. In it, Canada becomes a refuge for the heroine, an English woman who has suffered the trauma of an unhappy marriage and divorce in London. In that city she has felt stifled and constrained by the limited freedom of movement and experience for women (see also note 5). Her ocean voyage to Halifax, the social life she finds there, and rustic excursions into the surrounding countryside--where she stays in log cabins and sleeps on spruce boughs--all have a restorative effect. When her past catches up with her, she moves on to New York, where she is reunited with her husband. The change of venue and the wholesome period in Nova Scotia make it easier for the two to talk honestly and openly of their feelings and to realize there have been misunderstandings that led to the separation.

Susan Carleton Jones's A Girl of the North: A Story of London and Canada (London: Greening, 1900) is a better written novel. In it, the archetypal Canadian couple, wholesome and nature-loving, fall in love. However, the woman overhears gossip that he has fathered a child by another woman. Because her ideal of him is shattered and because she thinks that women have to support one other, she leaves him and Canada to rebuild her life in England. There she finds a very sophisticated and cynical society of unfaithful marriage partners, ennui relieved by love affairs, tarnished reputations, and "modern" ideas of marriage, such as living apart. Disappointed in love herself, the heroine accepts this society and also a marriage proposal from a titled aristocrat. Just before the marriage, the man she loves arrives from Canada, and she learns it was not he, but his cousin, who fathered the child. Ashamed of her actions, she breaks her engagement and returns secretly to Canada. Her Canadian lover follows her on snowshoes to her home in the woods, "Solitude," and amid the purifying cold and snow they agree to marry. At the end of the novel, the heroine says to her lover: "I am glad we are 'born Canadian,' aren't you?"



http://www.lib.unb.ca/Texts/SCL/bin/get.cgi?directory=vol11_1/&filename=MacMillan.htm
 

Pagan X

Let me add that in the Second Edition, things have quite changed between the girl and the young man in the Two of Cups...discussion continued there!
 

baba-prague

Pagan X said:
In the second edition, the wolf now looks less menacing, which makes it clearer that the woman is, shall we say, more menacing...happily so might I add.

Yes, the wolf is rather pleased with himself I feel - and the girl even more so. I think she has plans that may surprise the wolf.

One thing I should say at this point is that typically in classical Gothic, the women are very much the victims. We chose to approach this ironically - many of our women appear to be victims, which is not at all the same thing (insert evil but ever so girlie smiley here)
 

Thirteen

baba-prague said:
One thing I should say at this point is that typically in classical Gothic, the women are very much the victims.
Oh, gosh yes! LOL! Which is why so many gothic tales have the feel of a sexual fantasy. The woman as a victim gets to keep her virtue (she never wanted to be bitten by the vampire!), but also gets to have illicit, er, affair. It would not be proper for her to actually want it :rolleyes:

But it gets ridiculous in some of these really classic stories. My favorite was The Mysteries of Udolpho by Mrs. Radcliffe (the "Twilight" writer of her day). OMG! Not only dreadfully written, but the heroine faints ten times in the first 100 pages! The excitement of her life was just too much for her ;)

Of course, the best part of the story comes after she's left, stolen away by her evil uncle to Italy (that dastardly country!). Her good British boyfriend, pining for her, sits in her garden...and gets shot and wounded by the gardener! I'm sure Mrs. Radcliffe's teenaged, 19th century ladies dropped the book at that point in horror. I dropped the book laughing :D
 

Thirteen

Just to add--later gothic tales did get better about their victimized women. Movies like Rebecca and The Uninvited both feature the usual weak and wimpy girl, but in the end, she is the one who saves herself (more or less) rather than relying on intrepid male vampire hunters to keep her from a fate worse than death.

It's odd but I think a lot of modern story tellers think that they have to have a "Tomb-Raider" style tough female with guns and sarcastic dialogue if she's going to save the day rather than be a victim. But there were classic gothic tales where the typical victim-like female learned to take control, face her fears and succeeded on her own terms.
 

WolfyJames

I read The Mysteries of Udolpho once, and I thought that while the settings were interesting, the heroine was a real pain, she was fainting at every shadow, at every sound. I just wanted to slap her each time. That book didn't give me the taste to read similar books or more books from the same author.
 

Thirteen

WolfyJames said:
I read The Mysteries of Udolpho once, and I thought that while the settings were interesting, the heroine was a real pain, she was fainting at every shadow, at every sound. I just wanted to slap her each time. That book didn't give me the taste to read similar books or more books from the same author.
Poor Mrs. Radcliffe. Mocked even in her day by Jane Austen and never respected outside of those teen girls. I would not have read her by choice but I was taking a class in that kind of literature and had to read the good, the bad, and the ridiculous...meaning Mrs. Radcliffe and her fainting heroine :D