The Beast within (intro)
"In the fairy tales of Europe, the wolf more than any other animal has come to represent the
unacceptable faces of society: sexual predation in Little Red Riding Hood,
capitalist bullying in the tale of the Three Little Pigs. Its symbolic value in
art and literature has become largely divorced from the reality of its
existence. Like all animals in fairy tales, these wolves walk on two legs and
speak with human voices. The wolf is thus a convenient metaphor for the
storyteller, no doubt chosen because of an already unsavoury image.
The legend of the werewolf has done for wolves what the legend of the vampire has
done for the bat - provided further layers of superstition and confusion,
portraying the wolf as a supernatural and terrifying beast. The werewolf, by
shifting between human and lupine forms, is at the same time a link between man
and wolf and a creature totally alienated from both, and the deception of a
creature that shifts between forms chills us further.
The symbolism of the wolf is one that has been exploited as well as subverted by Western art and
literature, from fairy tales to the 'magical realism' of modern authors. The
late Angela Carter, in her modern gothic collection of re-worked fairy tales
The Bloody Chamber, explores the savage symbolism of the wolf to Central
European cultures.
In Carter's telling of Little Red Riding Hood, our heroine is
not a naïve child, but a sexually-aware teenager, traveling the woods armed
with a knife, who brings about the fall of her werewolf foe not by escaping him
but by seducing him. In The Werewolf and Wolf-Alice, she explores the manifold
myths of werewolves that are the folklore of Central Europe, depicting through
her fiction a brutal existence made more perilous by the existence of
deceitful, powerful, sexually potent wolf-men.
Other cultures have had different perceptions of the wolf - to Native American Indians, the wolf is
regarded as a teacher and pathfinder, an animal whose skills and sense of
community made it an example from nature to be followed. In Rudyard Kipling's
Jungle Book, the hero, Mowgli, is a boy who has been abandoned in the forest
and raised by wolves, reflecting different cultural attitudes to the animal on
the Indian sub-continent. And every school child knows the legend of Romulus
and Remus, founders of Rome - they too were raised by a
she-wolf
unacceptable faces of society: sexual predation in Little Red Riding Hood,
capitalist bullying in the tale of the Three Little Pigs. Its symbolic value in
art and literature has become largely divorced from the reality of its
existence. Like all animals in fairy tales, these wolves walk on two legs and
speak with human voices. The wolf is thus a convenient metaphor for the
storyteller, no doubt chosen because of an already unsavoury image.
The legend of the werewolf has done for wolves what the legend of the vampire has
done for the bat - provided further layers of superstition and confusion,
portraying the wolf as a supernatural and terrifying beast. The werewolf, by
shifting between human and lupine forms, is at the same time a link between man
and wolf and a creature totally alienated from both, and the deception of a
creature that shifts between forms chills us further.
The symbolism of the wolf is one that has been exploited as well as subverted by Western art and
literature, from fairy tales to the 'magical realism' of modern authors. The
late Angela Carter, in her modern gothic collection of re-worked fairy tales
The Bloody Chamber, explores the savage symbolism of the wolf to Central
European cultures.
In Carter's telling of Little Red Riding Hood, our heroine is
not a naïve child, but a sexually-aware teenager, traveling the woods armed
with a knife, who brings about the fall of her werewolf foe not by escaping him
but by seducing him. In The Werewolf and Wolf-Alice, she explores the manifold
myths of werewolves that are the folklore of Central Europe, depicting through
her fiction a brutal existence made more perilous by the existence of
deceitful, powerful, sexually potent wolf-men.
Other cultures have had different perceptions of the wolf - to Native American Indians, the wolf is
regarded as a teacher and pathfinder, an animal whose skills and sense of
community made it an example from nature to be followed. In Rudyard Kipling's
Jungle Book, the hero, Mowgli, is a boy who has been abandoned in the forest
and raised by wolves, reflecting different cultural attitudes to the animal on
the Indian sub-continent. And every school child knows the legend of Romulus
and Remus, founders of Rome - they too were raised by a
she-wolf