The girl

Outer characterization

The girl is the main character in the short story “The Company of Wolves” by Angela Carter. She is described as “pretty and the youngest of her family” (p. 3, l. 10). Her description suggests that she is probably a teenager: 

… her breasts have just begun to swell; her hair is like liny, so fair it hardly makes a shadow on her pale forehead; her cheeks are an emblematic scarlet and white and she has just started her woman’s bleeding, the clock inside her that will strike, henceforward, once a month. (p. 3, ll. 12-15)

The girl is no longer a child but not yet a woman, and she is a virgin (p. 3, l. 16). When she goes through the forest, she wears wooden shoes (p. 3, l. 6) and a thick shawl knitted by her grandmother (p. 3, ll. 11-12). She carries a basket with food for her grandmother, and she is armed with a carving knife (p....