Werewolf

Werewolf: a human who transforms into a wolf. Also called a lycanthrope. The werewolf is a myth, a type of fictional character, a popular fantasy and/or horror monster. There are werewolf legends, and countless werewolf stories.

A typical example of the werewolf myth is the human who is bitten by a wolf or a werewolf, and who transforms into a wolf on the full moon, then back again into a human. Sometimes the transformation happens at will, or in connection with powerful emotions. Werewolves are often protagonists, who must struggle against their nature as such, or monsters and villains, typically killed by silver bullets, but the werewolf myth is so popular that it has no fixed rules. Movies and literature offer hundreds of examples.

The werewolf is nearly as popular as the vampire, and both myths share certain similarities: the biting, the transmission of the werewolf or vampire condition via bodily fluids, the use of stereotypical charms of protection (silver), and the transformation of humans into monsters. In cinema and television, the vampire's greater popularity might be explained by the cheaper makeup and/or special effects required to create the monster.

Werewolves and Gender, Werewolves and Sex

Most werewolf stories are about men, and the transformation of man into beast, or emergence of the beast within men. One would guess that the assimilation of women to animals and to nature renders the idea of a female werewolf redundant within patriarchal ideology.

Etymologically, the first part of "werewolf" likely derives from the Old English wer (or were), a word which refers to male humans. The corresponding word for a female human, wif or wife, is not generally used for female lycanthropes (which is a word of greek origin: lycan for wolf, and -thrope from the root for the human race, rather than only the male human). This can perhaps partly be attributed the the disharmonious fricative alliteration of "wifwolf" or "wifewolf", although the disuse of "wife" as a general term for a human female in the English language and its specialisation as a term for a woman married to a man, a female spouse, would also contraindicate the feminisation of the word "werewolf" into "wifewolf".

Instead, the prefix "were-" has been extended to apply to any human who transforms into an animal. This is an example of the sexist practice of using male-specific word forms interchangeably with generic word forms for humans, and with specific uses for females. (See WereWomen.)

Stories about women and wolves often tend to fall under the "Little Red Riding Hood" format, instead, in which the victims are females, who are attacked and rescued by male predators and male heroes.

Nevertheless, there are stories about female werewolves, and feminist explorations of the werewolf theme. The Ginger Snaps movie trilogy, for instance.

Biology and Ideology

In real life, conditions such as rabies, hypertrichosis and porphyria have been linked to the werewolf myth. The hypothesis is that the characteristics of such conditions are at the root of the myth's imagery, such as the neurological symptoms of rabies or porphyria for wild behaviour, the full-body pilosity of hypertrichosis for hairiness.

But the assimilation of a human being to a wolf, rather than to a monkey, an ape, or another animal, derives no doubt from the importance, especially in Europe, of wolf myths and imagery, and thence too, through cultural exportation and imperialism, its spread to other regions of the world.

While some werewolf stories attribute the transformation of a human into a wolf to a curse brought on to the werewolf by its actions as a human, or in a metaphorical way, many stories use lycanthropy in a transmissible form, as supernatural contamination, sometimes even as a fantastic type of infectious condition. Hybridisation of humans and animals can also be the cause for such sub-types of werewolves as those that take on an intermediate form, of the human halfway transformed into an animal. This avenue and the infectious model lend the werewolf myth to science-fictional exploration.

The werewolf's lunar transformation cycle can be linked to the menstrual cycle (menses, the latin plural for "month", comes from the same root as "moon"). This parallel to female biology and the attending vocabulary can easily justify an exploration of women as lycanthropes, and/or, as in Ginger Snaps, a thematic assimilation of lycanthropy and female puberty.

But the power of the werewolf myth is also a source of prestige, and patriarchal storytelling must deprive women of prestige in order to justify women's oppression. Thus it is more easy to limit the condition of menstruating women to PMS and vague women's troubles, and to continue to situate women halfway between humans (i.e., men) and animals innately.

In the Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV series) episode "Phases", one character, reassuring her boyfriend who has become a werewolf, says:

"Yeah, okay, werewolf, but that's not all the time. I mean, three days out of the month, I'm not much fun to be around either."

If the subjection of women to (by) our animalistic nature is a routine and unexceptional fact, then only the transformation of a man into a beast becomes exceptional and fantastic. Within a sexist framework, this difference serves to glorify men and trivialise women.

Men's weakness is sometimes portayed as feminine: falling prey to instinct, losing rationality, men lose the faculties they claim grant them dominion over women and over nature. But violence and physical power, when they come via the transformation of a man into an animal, are held as valid as men's violence and physical power normally are in establishing their domination over women and nature.

Conversely, the same sexist ideology routinely provides a slew of animalistic nicknames and attributes justify the subjection of women to men. Women are bitches. A female werewolf is thus only a more dangerous bitch in the eyes of male power, a wilder creature to be tamed.

Lycanthropy as Metaphor

Disease

The Harry Potter books by J.K. Rowling contain a number of mythical creatures, including werewolves. The magical world of her witches and wizards holds a distinctly pejorative view of werewolves: the condition is transmitted via a scratch or a bite, it is very unpleasant, and werewolves are seen as dangerous. The main werewolf character is a kind and gentle man who must take a special potion every month to alleviate his symptoms. He at first tries to keep his condition a secret, and is later rejected by most of magical society when they find out he is a werewolf. The werewolf condition, in this character's case, can be seen as a metaphor for AIDS. Another werewolf who appears in a later book as a villain is said to deliberately infect his victims with his condition.

Addiction

In Ginger Snaps: Unleashed, the main character must routinely inject herself with a decoction of a specific herb to halt her progressive transformation into a werewolf. Because of the needle marks on her arms, she is mistaken for an addict and confined to a rehab clinic.

Puberty and Other Life Changes

See Ginger Snaps for an example of lycanthropy paralleled with female puberty.

The 1994 movie Wolf, staring Jack Nicholson, whose character's lycanthropy reflects his mid-life crisis. (And predates Viagra as a booster for declining virility.)

Wildness & civilization/humanity

See Pat Murphy's Nadya: The Wolf Chronicles (a werewolf) and Wild Angel (not a werewolf but a girl raised by wolves) for treatments of the theme of werewolf and wolf as wild, wilderness, juxtaposed with civilization, humanity, etc.

See also women and wilderness.

Race and racism

See Kit Whitfield's Bareback for a close reading of lycanthropy used to explore racism.

Werewolf as Species

In some examples, lycanthropes form a distinct species or community. Cf. Blood Trail (1992), Underworld (2004), Blood and Chocolate (1997).

The werewolves in Tanya Huff's Blood Trail (1992), for instance, have integrated wolf pack characteristics and human activities. They farm sheep.

External Links

• Werewolf entry at Wikipedia

See also

• List of works featuring werewolves
• List of works featuring werewomen (not just werewolves, but selkies and other were-animals)