In this research paper, I would like to focus on the idea of werewolves in our society. By using Cohen theory, thesis six we will be looking at how werewolves in our society have operated on a spectrum of fear and desire. We will be looking at how the ideal fear that once repelled us from the animalistic side of werewolves have become something in society that’s craved. We will also be looking at how werewolves have gone from looking monstrous to sexual appealing creatures in the media.
II. History and context
Werewolf history has many roots in multiple cultures, some even advancing back to ancient times. One legend in particular that caught my attention was one heard a lot from a Native American tribe that used to live in, what we now know as Wisconsin. It is here that the gift of shape shifting into werewolves was said to be started in the Fox Tribe. This legend, started with a spirit-god by the name Wisakachek. Wisakachek was a shape shifter that was able to co-exist with humans in a peaceful manner.
One day Wisakachek stumbled across two boys by named Ken and Matchitehew [who caught a deer with a bow and arrow, that they later shared with Wisakachek. Weeks later he stumbled across them again they explained how they have yet to get gain. Remembering their kind generosity he decided to bless them with the same gift as himself. He allowed them to be werewolves under the condition that they do not harm anyone no matter the reason. Months passed without a problem until one day Matchitehew let his rage get the best of him and he killed a human boy. Because of this act of violence, they Matchitehew and Keme feared and kicked out of their tribe. Angry at what had taken place Wisakachek decided to punish Matchitehew by cursing him ...
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“St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves” by Karen Russell is a story about Claudette and her pack of wolf sisters learning how to adapt to the human society. Claudette starts off the program with a mentality of a wolf, like the rest of the girls. As she progresses into individual stages, she starts to change and adapt towards different characteristics of the human mentality. She shows good progress towards the human side based on what the Jesuit Handbook of Lycanthropia Culture Shock describes on behalf of what is suspected of the girls. But at the end of the story, Claudette is not fully adapted to the human society and mentality.
Ever thought of where monsters come from? Do they just appear in our world, or are they procreated by fellow monsters, maybe, created by humans and their desires. During the renaissance and romantic era, a belief roamed around consisting of the idea that any child not resembling their original procreators was considered deformed, therefore also considered a “monster.” Many factors were considered to affect a child’s resemblance to their progenitors, such as women imagination, and desires, absolutely crossing of the role of paternity in the creation process. Although she succeeds in providing many good examples of women’s imagination being a primal factor in procreation, Marie-Helene Huet, in her essay, “ Introduction To Monstrous Imagination,”
Sometimes fad diets are odd, a few of the stranger fad diets include; the Raw Food Diet, the Werewolf Diet, and the Cookie diet. While the Raw Food diet isn’t completely out of the ordinary with it’s claims that fruits and vegetables are the best way to go, the Werewolf Diet is a little more out there. The Werewolf Diet is based on a theory that fasting according to the phases of the moon your body will respond powerfully by flushing excess water and toxins from your body. And then the cookie diet recommends you eat about 500 to 600 calories a day from high-protein and high-fiber weight-loss cookies for breakfast, lunch and any snacks. Then you eat a normal dinner, for a total of 1,000 to 1,200 calories a day. How strange is that, a diet where you lose weight from eating the cookies. It sounds a little too good to be true to me.
the wolves were capable of. In his group he finds a monogamous pair who are
Asma, Stephen. On Monsters :An Unnatural History of Our Worst Fears. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. Print.
Scapegoat is defined as one that bears the blame for others or one that is the object of irrational behavior. Even though in retrospect the scapegoat has in some way failed in their own goals, we use scapegoats because it’s easy. When we don’t succeed in a particular goal or feel we are going to embarrass ourselves the person we blame is the person we assume to be the weakest. The weakest person is usually different from the norm and not the most popular they dance to their own beat.
...y white fur for fur that cost a lot of money. Some people like to sell their teeth for money or make jewelry. Mostly just for the thrill of it. Also to sell the whole wolf for money or cut off pieces of the wolf like head, ears, paws, and tail as a award for that they killed one. So because of all the stuff that people are doing to kill these wolves are making all them all disappear. There are less ad less. There are not in all 50 states as they use to be, they are reduced down to 7 states and Canada, that is how serious there case is now a day.
The wolf girls struggle to reconcile this new way of life with the way they were raised and push back against this forced assimilation. While this story is fantasy based it can be interpreted as historical criticism in regards to the wars between European settlers and American Indians. Aliken to the wolves, Native Americans have a unique culture that is carefully intertwined with nature. In the late 19th and 20th centuries Native American children were forcibly taken from their homes and forced to assimilate to a white American world within Catholic schools. “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves” is symbolic with the assimilation of the werewolf girls into human culture of how Catholic boarding schools and the American Government forced
In the novels Grendel and Frankenstein, two characters are presented as one of, or the, isolated and alienated main character. Both experience rejection by the hands of man, and are pushed into roles by the actions of man. Their relation to man, or their state as man’s, “otherkin” magnifies their rejection, but again their status as being “other” justifies their rejection in spite of the harshly negative results. Their status in these novels reflects much of how contemporary authors write about monsters. Out of ignorance, humans rejected their otherkin, Grendel, and the creature from Frankenstein, and as a result the rejected became violent and wreaked retribution on humanity.
Jeffery Cohen's first thesis states “the monster's body is a cultural body”. Monsters give meaning to culture. A monsters characteristics come from a culture's most deep-seated fears and fantasies. Monsters are metaphors and pure representative allegories. What a society chooses to make monstrous says a lot about that society’s people. Monsters help us express and find our darkest places, deepest fears, or creepiest thoughts. Monsters that scare us,vampires, zombies, witches, help us cope with what we dread most in life. Fear of the monstrous has brought communities and cultures together. Society is made up of different beliefs, ideas, and cultural actions. Within society there are always outcasts, people that do not fit into the norm or do not follow the status quo. Those people that do not fit in become monsters that are feared almost unanimously by the people who stick to the status quo.
“St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves”, by Karen Russell is the story of a pack of human girls who were born of werewolves. They are taken from their families in the wilderness and brought to a St. Lucy’s. It was here that they were to be civilized. The process of civilization involved stripping them of their personal and cultural identities and retraining them in a manner that was acceptable to the human world. This is a close analogy to the Residential Schools of Cultural Assimilation for native Americans from 1887 to the early 1950’s.
Storment, Suzanna. "Frankenstein: The Man and the Monster." Commentary page. October 2002. Washington State University. 8 April 2003. http://www.wsu.edu/~delahoyd/frank.comment3.html.
Firstly, one must understand what the lycanthrope, Greek for wolf-man and interchangeable with werewolf, is. This is no easy task. What they are and how they come into being change from culture to culture and almost from person to person. We are most familiar with the werewolf who was a normal human being who, bit by a werewolf, is now tragically infected with the werewolf disease and metamorphoses into a beast every night or full moon. This werewolf is known as the “victimized werewolf” (Otten 165). A good natured member of society is forced, on a regular basis, to become a sinister beast that eradicates any previous resemblance, in personality and physical appearance, and replaces it with an indiscriminant urge to kill.
The film Dances With Wolves focuses mainly on one man named Jon Dunbar and his growing relationship with the Lakota Sioux Indian tribe. The Lakota Sioux Indian tribe migrated in the 1700's to different areas in South Dakota. For over one hundred and sixty years, the Lakota tribe held a massive piece of land in the plains to support their numerous herds of bison, which they also hunted in order to survive. They lived in the typical teepees and were exceptional horsemen, hunters, and warriors. They culture contained no written language and their heritage was trusted upon storytellers and drawings made on the bison hides. One bison hide could represent over fifty years of Lakota history.
Nowadays, people are still enticed by fear, they have a curiosity for the supernatural, evil and frightening. Although modern day society is supposedly politically correct, we are still an immoral society and many of us would treat a creature like Frankenstein’s creation or a vampire like Dracula like a monster. In this way, the novels still have social significance.