Speaker
The speaker narrates her own story as an adult, looking back on the experiences of her teenaged self and the aftermath of those experiences. When the story begins the speaker is lost and alienated, having recently left the safety of childhood. She is also seeking creative fulfillment and longs to encounter poetry. The wolf appeals to her not only sexually and not only because of his evident maturity, but also because he seems to be a conduit to poetry. However, the speaker grows up to find the wolf both creatively and personally uninteresting and even oppressive, and thus leaves him.
The Wolf
The wolf first appears impressive to the speaker, although the very things that make him impressive also make him faintly absurd. He reads his own poetry out loud and has a beard stained with red wine. His behavior is threatening rather than overtly aggressive. For instance, when the speaker discovers a dove, he eats it in a single bite. Ultimately, however, the wolf is revealed to be somewhat pathetic, especially because his grasp of poetry is less sophisticated than the speaker's. Once the speaker realizes this, she finds it easy to kill and leave the wolf.
