Once a month under the light of the full moon, the transformation from man to wolf occurs. Agonizing screams as bones crack, shifting and changing, fill the night. The sudden process causes the skin to rupture. There springs forth a beast with razor sharp teeth that will tear into human flesh. A howl rings through the night, a warning for all those near to run somewhere safe, or else become its next meal.
Werewolves originate from the Greco-Roman world. The classical poet, Virgil, wrote about a man who turns into a wolf in Eclogue 8, but it is Ovid’s Metamorphoses that is better known for its origin Greek myth of the monster. Werewolves come from an old world and perhaps, it is a reason their popularity has fallen compared to vampires in modern
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Werewolves have since evolved from Ovid’s retelling of the ancient Greek myth to the popular werewolf tropes in modern literature.
Between 1764 and 1767, a wolf pack terrorized the province of Gevaudan, France; it was at the height of werewolf hysteria; a brief point in history much like that of the Salem Witch Trials. This event lead to the discovery of silver bullets to be a werewolf’s weakness after Jean Chastel, a local innkeeper, shot and killed a massive wolf. One hundred years later, Sabine Baring-Gould’s The Book of Were-wolves mentions the earliest reference to transformation on a full moon (1865).
Fast forward to 1933 where Guy Endore published The Werewolf of Paris, the Dracula of werewolf novels. It is part horror and part historical fiction, following Bertrand Caillet, as he tries to tame the beast within on his travels through 19th century France.
The Werewolf of Paris more or less defined the genre of werewolves. It unfortunately was not enough. In a brief article titled Werewolves in Literature, Dr. Michael Delahoyde writes that “…[werewolves have] come to represent the “animal” in the afflicted humans. Unlike vampires, werewolves have not transcended to be sympathetic. Their sole purpose is to arouse
The assimilation of the transformation is met with resistance/fear because it requires the girl wolves to leave their pack and assume a new identity. An identity change
When the answer to “were you raised by wolves?” is two-in-one: insult and factual– at least to the wolf girls. Karen Russell’s “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves,” tells the tale of the daughters of werewolves and how they assimilated into human culture. Acting as a metaphor for the residential schools used to convert the children from indigenous tribes in North America to align with the European culture and ideas of the settlers. Russell uses inserts from the “Jesuit Handbook on Lycanthropic Culture Shock” (264) to provide insight into how the wolf girls are tamed into exemplary citizens upon their graduation. The actual building of St. Lucy’s is a symbol of cultural assimilation, language and names, and home.
Whether no one would like to admit it or not, change is a difficult and not to mention uncomfortable experience which we all must endure at one point in our lives. A concept that everyone must understand is that change does not occur immediately, for it happens overtime. It could take days, weeks, months, or even years. In “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves” by-Karen Russell, she talks about three werewolf girls trying to fit in the human society. The author makes it evident to the readers that the narrator, which is claudette is in a brand new environment as the story begins.
Paralleling their ambivalence toward the wolf form, they see humanity in a light that is actually absent from the human in the story. The tribe’s desire and inaccurate belief that the human is the coveted form masks the reality of the darkness that is intertwined with humanity. The story finalizes with the “shadows quite long” and the “sun was low” and like the light disappears, so does the wolf tribe, unlike the greedy grandmother that prevails with the
Dracula is repulsed by Harker’s rosary (Stoker 24). Almost like the symbol of the rosary has a physical power over Dracula it prevents him from attacking Harker. Dracula says “Your girls that you all love are mine already. And through them you and others shall yet be mine, my creatures, to do my bidding and to be my jackals when I want to feed” (Stoker 287). This quote from Dracula feels very comparable to Eve’s temptation and Adam’s subsequent temptation like Dracula is a demon that uses temptation to ensnare his victims.
Chabon examines the concept of failed heroism or rather a false hope in an individual that reflects a faulty perception of one’s abilities when he or she dons a false identity to conceal weaknesses. The idea of the “disappointed optimist” appears again in a different context of Chabon’s life: optimism that is in fact the delusive faith in a hero who is ultimately powerless in saving an individual entangled in his or her own internal conflicts. In the short story, Werewolves in Their Youth, Chabon incorporates elements of failed marriages in order to reveal the larger issue or implication of false hope, connecting the two elements of heroism and marriage to portray the futility of overcoming conflicts through optimism. Paul, who struggles to
In Karen Russell's short story, “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves”, a pack of wolf-girls are sent to a church to transform them into human-girls. As they journey through their transformation there is a guide called, The Jesuit Handbook on Lycanthropic Culture Shock that helps the nuns running St. Lucy’s. The book describes the transformation in stages to help determine the girls’ place as a human. Claudette, the narrator, arrives at St. Lucy’s with her pack to begin their transformation. She struggles through most of the stages, but succeeds in only a couple of them.
For centuries stories have been told about monsters. Stories that include monsters themselves as the main character, and stories that include a battle between a heroic figure and the monster to represent good vs. evil. The root word for “monster” is “monstrum”, which means that which reveals or warns. A monster is the product or symbol of a culture from which the monster comes from. They are more than their physical body and entertainment value that plays into these stories of the monstrous figure we read about or watch in movies or television.
Russell wrote a short story that took place at “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves”. The parents of the girls sent them away to train to become a functional and civilized member of society and provide them with a better life than their werewolf parents could provide for them. In this book, Russell introduced each stage of change with an epigraph that described what the girls should be expected to complete in the stage. The epigraph furthers the reader 's knowledge by outlining what they should expect from the girls in each stage. It develops the girls as individual characters in a different manner than the stages do.
In the short story “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves,” author Karen Russell develops the narrator, Claudette, through the use of five “stages” to show her progression from her wolf identity to the human culture. This short story follows a group of girls raised by wolf parents through their journey at St. Lucy’s, which is a rehabilitation center for human children raised by wolf parents. Throughout their time at St. Lucy’s, the girls are expected to experience five distinct stages as they adapt. Each of these stages is described by a fictional text entitled The Jesuit Handbook on Lycanthropic Culture Shock. The nuns at St. Lucy’s use it as a guide for teaching their students.
In Mowat’s writing, he uses emotion, facts, and trust to convince the reader that wolves are not bloodthirsty killers. To begin with, Mowat uses emotion to help the reader connect with the wolves. In chapter five he watches as the wolves are “centered around the playing of a game of tag” (64). From this, readers are able to connect with the wolves and understand the joy
Also, with the help of Ootek, a local Eskimo he was able to understand how wolves communicate and hunt, and he saw that these wolves were not a tremendous threat to the caribou. This book gives the reader a view into the life of these wild animals and how they all work together in their unique environment. Mowat had many doubts, but he slowly understood the truth about wolves. He also spent time following the wolves as they hunted and he examined their techniques. Mowat even experienced close up encounters and the wolves did not treat him like a foreigner.
Comparison of Dracula and Twilight’s vamps Characterisation of Dracula and Meyer’s vamps in these two books is entirely different. Through Stephanie Meyer 's novel vampires are illustrated as inhumanity attractive, powerful almost human creation. Her vampires have major advantages over Stocker 's they are described almost without any weaknesses. Despite of vamps ' reputation they can consume garlic and drink animal blood which is enough for survival, cannot transform into a bat or wolf but some of them have special talents as reading in others minds (Edward), steering emotions (Jasper) or see the future (Alice).
Through many decades and years, folklore has been shaping up culture and pretty much said differently over time. Vampires and zombies were the main source of how folklore changed over time, whether it was by stories, the media or how you saw yourself in them everyone had there own aspects of each monster. “ John William Polidori stitched together folklore personal resentment and erotic anxieties into the vampyre, a story that is the basis for vampires as they are understood today” (292). That is how the famous story of vampires started. For zombies in the other hand “ His origins, we learn – we who dabble in the recklessly expanding field of zombie studies – are in Caribbean folk nightmare” (299).
Wolves, when in groups, are universally threatening and recurrently feared. This being known, they are often portrayed as an evil or opposing force. Although, on occasion, they have also been known to be referred to as “noble creatures who can teach us many things.” (http://www.wolfcountry.net/) But consequently, despite the popular interpretation of wolves and their characteristics, each story presents its own interpretation of their many characteristics.