The Nature of the Beast: Transformations of the Werewolf from the 1970s to the Twenty-First Century 9781786834560, 9781786834577

Table of contents :
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1: 'Some Wolves Are Hairy on the Inside': The Werewolf’s Journey Towards Subjectivity
2: Do You Enjoy the Company of Wolves? The Lycanthrope, the Werewolf Pack and Human Society
3: 'Before the Law Therefore, There Cannot Be Monsters...'
4: The Werewolf in the Concrete Jungle
5: Growing Pains: Lycanthropy in Contemporary Young Adult Fiction
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Filmography
Index

Citation preview

THE NATURE OF THE BEAST

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SERIES PREFACE Gothic Literary Studies is dedicated to publishing groundbreaking scholarship on Gothic in literature and film. The Gothic, which has been subjected to a variety of critical and theoretical approaches, is a form which plays an important role in our understanding of literary, intellectual and cultural histories. The series seeks to promote challenging and innovative approaches to Gothic which question any aspect of the Gothic tradition or perceived critical orthodoxy. Volumes in the series explore how issues such as gender, religion, nation and sexuality have shaped our view of the Gothic tradition. Both academically rigorous and informed by the latest developments in critical theory, the series provides an important focus for scholarly developments in Gothic studies, literary studies, cultural studies and critical theory. The series will be of interest to students of all levels and to scholars and teachers of the Gothic and literary and cultural histories. SERIES EDITORS Andrew Smith, University of Sheffield Benjamin F. Fisher, University of Mississippi EDITORIAL BOARD Kent Ljungquist, Worcester Polytechnic Institute Massachusetts Richard Fusco, St Joseph’s University, Philadelphia David Punter, University of Bristol Chris Baldick, University of London Angela Wright, University of Sheffield Jerrold E. Hogle, University of Arizona

For all titles in the Gothic Literary Studies series visit www.uwp.co.uk

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The Nature of the Beast Transformations of the Werewolf from the 1970s to the Twenty-First Century by Carys Crossen

UNIVERSITY OF WALES PRESS 2019

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© Carys Crossen, 2019 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any material form (including photocopying or storing it in any medium by electronic means and whether or not transiently or incidentally to some other use of this publication) without the written permission of the copyright owner. Applications for the copyright owner’s written permission to reproduce any part of this publication should be addressed to the University of Wales Press, University Registry, King Edward VII Avenue, Cardiff CF10 3NS. www.uwp.co.uk

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978-1-78683-456-0 e-ISBN 978-1-78683-457-7

The right of Carys Crossen to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 79 of the Copy­right, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Nine lines of free verse excerpted from Sharp Teeth by Toby Barlow. Copyright © 2007 by Thomas Barlow. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers.

Typeset in Wales by Eira Fenn Gaunt, Pentyrch, Cardiff Printed by CPI Antony Rowe, Melksham

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To my husband Nick And to my Mum, and also my Dad. You know I always like giving books as presents.

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Contents

Acknowledgementsix Introduction1   1 ‘Some Wolves Are Hairy on the Inside’: The Werewolf’s Journey Towards Subjectivity 17   2 Do You Enjoy the Company of Wolves? The Lycanthrope, the Werewolf Pack and Human Society

53

  3 ‘Before the Law Therefore, There Cannot Be Monsters . . .’

95

  4 The Werewolf in the Concrete Jungle

133

  5 Growing Pains: Lycanthropy in Contemporary Young Adult Fiction

175

Conclusion 

223

Notes  227 Bibliography257 Filmography272 Index273

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Acknowledgements

Thanks are due to my family: my husband, my parents, my sister Bethan and her partner James and my in-laws, the Anderton family, for their support and endless patience. Thanks of an academic nature are due to Professor Emerita Jacqueline Pearson, for guiding me with patience and rigour through the PhD that would provide the foundation for this work. Lively discussion and encouragement were provided by Dr Catherine Spooner, Dr Daisy Black, Dr Hannah Priest, and everyone who attended the splendid ‘Company of Wolves’ conference at the University of Hertfordshire in September 2015. My editor at University of Wales Press, Sarah Lewis, was immensely patient and helpful when dealing with a first-time author. Thanks also to everyone who attended the brilliant She-Wolf Conference at The University of Manchester in September 2010, in particular Chantal Bourgault Du Coudray, whose work I draw on heavily here, and Jazmina Cininas. Apologies if I have forgotten anyone, which is likely, and thanks all the same. The publisher gratefully acknowledges permission granted to reproduce extracts from the following works: Quotes from Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guatarri, A Thousand Plateaus © Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, 2013, A Thousand Plateaus, Bloomsbury Academic, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. Quotes from Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus. Copyright 1987 by the University of Minnesota Press. Originally published as Mille Plateaux, volume 2 of Capitalisme et Schizophrénie © 1980 by Les Editions de Minuit, Paris.

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Acknowledgements

Quotes from Reading the Romance: Women, Patriarchy, and Popular Literature by Janice A. Radway. Copyright © 1984, new introduction © 1991 by the University of North Carolina Press. Used by permission of the publisher. www.uncpress.unc.edu Quote from The Beast and the Sovereign, Vol. One, by Jacques Derrida, trans. Geoffrey Bennington. © 2009 The University of Chicago. Used by permission of the publisher. Quote from The Legendary Detective: The Private Eye in Fact and Fiction. © 2015 The University of Chicago. Used by permission of the publisher. Quotes from Wannabes, Goths and Christians: The Boundaries of Sex, Style and Status by Amy C. Wilkins. © 2008 The University of Chicago. Used by permission of the publisher. Quotes from Anna Powell, Deleuze and Horror Film. © Anna Powell, 2005. Reproduced with permission of Edinburgh University Press Ltd via PLSClear. Quotes from Gill Plain, Twentieth Century Detective Fiction: Gender, Sexuality and the Body. © Gill Plain, 2001. Reproduced with permission of Edinburgh University Press Ltd via PLSClear. Quotes from David Punter, Gothic Pathologies: The Text, the Body and the Law, 1998, MacMillan Press, reproduced with permission of Palgrave Macmillan. Quotes from Richard Jackson, ‘The 9/11 Attacks and the Social Construction of a National Narrative’, 2009, Palgrave MacMillan, reproduced with permission of Palgrave MacMillan. Quotes from Feminism and Contemporary Women Writers: Rethinking Subjectivity published by Routledge. Reproduced by permission of Taylor and Francis, © 2008 Quotes from The Wolf Gift by Anne Rice published by Chatto & Windus. Reproduced by permission of The Random House Group Ltd. ©2012 Quotes from The Wolves of Midwinter by Anne Rice published by Chatto & Windus. Reproduced by permission of The Random House Group Ltd. ©2013 Quotes from Hermann Hesse, Steppenwolf, reproduced with permission of Suhrkamp Verlag ©Suhrkamp Verlag Frankfurt am Main 2001. Quotes from The Silver Wolf reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd ©1999, Alice Borchardt. x

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Acknowledgements

Quotes from Blood Bound by Patricia Briggs published by Orbit. Reprinted by permission of Little, Brown Book Group Ltd. ©2007 Quotes from Wolfsbane by Andrea Cremer published by Atom. Reprinted by permission of Little, Brown Book Group Ltd. ©2011 Quotes from Bitten by Kelley Armstrong published by Orbit. Reprinted by permission of Little, Brown Book Group Ltd. ©2004 Quotes from ‘Wolf-Alice’ in Burning Your Boats by Angela Carter published by Chatto & Windus. Reproduced by permission of The Random House Group Ltd. ©1995 Quotes from Sisters Red by Jackson Pearce published by Hodder Children’s Books. Reproduced by permission of Hachette. ©2010 Quotes from Raised by Wolves by Jennifer Lynn Barnes published by Quercus. Reproduced by permission of Hachette. ©2010 Quotes from Sharp Teeth by Toby Barlow published by William Heinemann. Reproduced by permission of The Random House Group Ltd. © 2007

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1 Introduction

 Until the turn of the millennium, the werewolf was not a topic for academic discussion. At least, it was not a prominent or popular subject for research, unlike its more glamorous cousin the vampire. It lurked in the shadows of critical discourse, occasionally meriting a mention in texts about the horror film or in Gothic analysis, but little else. The contemporary werewolf was the subject of particular academic neglect. While the medieval werewolf, such as Marie De France’s Bisclavret (written in the twelfth century) and the literature in which it appears, have always had a following amongst medievalists,1 contemporary werewolves seldom, if ever came in for sustained analysis in works focusing on the Gothic or the horror film. At most, they merited a brief mention before the author moved on to something else – something with more cultural cachet, perhaps. In the early years of the twenty-first century, however, literary critics at long last began to rectify this critical oversight. The more analysis and research was conducted, the more the werewolf’s tremendous neglected potential for academic study becomes apparent. There is much more to the werewolf than the reductive definition of the beast within, and some of the new developments and trends in pop culture featuring the werewolf will be explored in this book. Before proceeding, it is important to explain that the werewolf will be explored in relation to the Gothic throughout this text. Therefore, some definition of the Gothic is required. The Gothic

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is never an easy phenomenon to delineate, but Chris Baldick’s definition is an excellent starting point. He describes the Gothic as ‘a fearful sense of inheritance in time with a claustrophobic sense of enclosure in space, these two dimensions reinforcing one another to produce an impression of sickening descent into disintegration’.2 The ‘fearful sense of inheritance’ is one that diffuses itself throughout nearly all the texts examined in this book in various fashions. Differing aspects of the Gothic will be examined in relation to the werewolf depending on the text being analysed, but a central tenet of the Gothic is ‘an antiquated or seemingly antiquated space . . . [in which] are hidden some secrets from the past (sometimes the recent past) that haunt the characters, psychologically, physically or otherwise at the main time of the story’.3 The various nuances and deviations of the Gothic in relation to the werewolf will be explored in the following chapters. Despite spending over a decade researching the werewolf in literature and film, I have been unable to produce any convincing reasons for its long-standing critical neglect. It is not that the werewolf itself is unheard of. The werewolf is not an obscure monster, relegated to a particular country or time period: as Barry Lopez notes, legends about were-animals are universal.4 Neither is the werewolf a recently invented monster. In The Beast Within: A History of the Werewolf (1992), an historical text exploring the werewolf’s place in Western culture, Adam Douglas states that the werewolf’s earliest recorded appearance in fiction was in The Epic of Gilgamesh, written in the second millennium BC. The werewolf has been appearing in myth and stories ever since.5 Nor does the werewolf suffer from lack of material to analyse. Although the volume of werewolf stories appearing in written fiction declined during the Middle Ages, they abound in Victorian Gothic literature, and have mushroomed in popularity since the 1970s.6 Authors as prominent as Rudyard Kipling, R. L. Stevenson, Arthur Conan Doyle, Hermann Hesse and Angela Carter have all utilized the werewolf motif in their work. But for all this the werewolf has not been a popular critical subject until very recently. I suspect, however, that the werewolf lacks the prestige of other literary monsters such as the vampire. The evolution of the vampire can be traced through classic texts such as Dracula (1897) and Le Fanu’s ‘Carmilla’ (1872), which lend it historical 2

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and literary importance, and it has continued to enjoy a greater impact in popular culture than the werewolf, judging by the phenom­ enal success of Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles and the even more recent and even more impressive success of the Young Adult series, Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight. The werewolf, by contrast, has not enjoyed popular success on the same scale, and despite some prestigious authors tackling the werewolf theme, the werewolf does not have a classic founding text in the style of Dracula. If the vampire is the adored, sophisticated aristocrat of the horror genre, the werewolf appears to be the poor peasant relation whom it embarrasses people to acknowledge. In recent years, this has begun to be rectified, and I shall reference many of the monographs that analyse the werewolf in later chapters.

Defining the Contemporary Werewolf Before I proceed any further, the question must be asked: what is a werewolf? This is at first glance a facetious enquiry: a werewolf is a man (or increasingly, a woman) who turns into a wolf. Bourgault Du Coudray in The Curse of the Werewolf uses almost this exact wording in defining the werewolf: ‘a werewolf is a human being who changes into a wolf’.7 Charlotte F. Otten offers much the same definition, stating that a werewolf is a human being who has being transformed into a wolf.8 But how then do we explain a text like Hesse’s Steppenwolf (1927), which never actually features the protagonist’s transformation into a wolf, yet focuses on a man who feels so strongly he is part wolf that the book takes its title from his dual nature? Other books, films and stories that feature beings that are arguably were-animals but never undergo a physical transformation include the 1942 film Cat People (whether or not the protagonist undergoes a transformation into a huge predatory cat is left remarkably unclear). There is also Jennifer Lynn Barnes’s Raised by Wolves series (in which a human girl becomes the leader of a werewolf pack) and Jill Paton Walsh’s Knowledge of Angels (1994), in which a girl raised by wolves is humanized by nuns, but eventually forsakes humanity to return to the wilderness. None of the wolf-girls or cat-people mentioned here are werewolves in that they turn into wolves (or 3

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cats). In fact, the central character in Cat People, Irena, is very possibly delusional rather than able to transform her shape. Yet it would not be wholly accurate to categorize Irena, or the wolf-girls depicted by Barnes and Paton Walsh as entirely human. So can someone who never undergoes a physical transformation into a wolf be termed a werewolf nonetheless? Lycanthropy is a word I have not used up until this point, and deliberately so. Derived from the Greek lukos, meaning wolf, and anthropos, meaning man, at first glance lycanthrope means precisely the same thing as werewolf: literally, a man who turns into a wolf. But lycanthropy carries with it associations that the less sophisticatedsounding term werewolf does not – associations with psychology and psychiatry. Charlotte F. Otten includes several cases of what is termed lycanthropy in A Lycanthropy Reader, in which mental illness manifests itself as the delusion of becoming a wolf. Lycanthropy continues to exist as a symptom of various psychiatric disorders rather than as a condition in its own right.9 Adam Douglas also describes several cases of clinical lycanthropy, noting, however, that it is not a common diagnosis and is not even mentioned in many psychiatric handbooks.10 Physical transformation does not occur in these cases (unless the patients had an exceptionally discreet psychologist) and yet the term lycanthropy is still applied. Being a werewolf, then, is about more than being able to change physical form. There must be a psychological aspect too. I do not count the beast within as a representation of this wolfish spirit, or wolf­ish mind. The beast within is a separate entity from the un­ fortunate human who turns into a monster depending on the phases of the moon. For instance, in the fifth season of the TV series Angel (1999–2004), the character Nina discovers she has been turned into a werewolf and is horrified at becoming a monster. The titular hero reassures her that ‘it wasn’t you. It was that thing inside.’11 Although the contemporary werewolf this text analyses may have wolfish aspects to their personality or a wolfish spirit, these are an essential component of their identity rather than some beastly alter ego that subsumes them at inopportune times. The concept of the werewolf as a divided self, human and wolf at odds with one another, is still a popular and influential one in contemporary literature and film. The remake of The Wolf-Man 4

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(2010), the werewolves on Angel and its predecessor Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997–2003) and Remus Lupin of J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series are just a few of the most famous examples of this monstrous, Jekyll-and-Hyde-style lycanthrope. And yet even these werewolves demonstrate some blurring of the boundaries between human and monster. Werewolf Oz from Buffy possesses enhanced senses, even when in human form. In the film adaptations of Harry Potter, Lupin, despite his gentle nature, grows irritable and snappish as the full moon draws near. The werewolf is not purely human, even when they are free of the influence of the full moon or whatever it is that prompts a transformation. Since the late 1980s and early 1990s, this breaking down of the divide between human and beast has gained in popularity as authors began explore more nuanced, complex ways of depicting the werewolf. As Chapter 1 will argue, the werewolf is in the process of gaining subjectivity. Subjectivity, at its most basic definition, is about possessing conscious experiences, thoughts and feelings (a more comprehensive exploration of subjectivity will be present in the first chapter). If some of these experiences or thoughts are wolf­ ish, then the subject cannot truly be termed human. Lycanthropy’s association with mental illnesses, with the belief rather than the actuality of turning into an animal, perhaps makes it a more accurate term for those stories that feature a mental rather than physical transformation, and which are surprisingly common in the werewolf genre. I will therefore be using the terms ‘werewolf’ and ‘lycanthrope’ interchangeably when describing physical transformations into a wolf throughout the book, but with more emphasis on ‘lycanthrope’ when the transformation is a mental or spiritual one. Although the main focus of this text will be on the werewolf, it will also analyse other were-animals in fiction and film. In a number of extremely interesting and influential films and texts that feature humans shape-shifting, whether mentally or physically, into animals, the animal the subject turns into is not a wolf. Cat People, both the 1942 original and the 1982 remake, is one such famous example, with the protagonist believing she can turn into a large cat. In more recent fiction, I have encountered not only werecats, in Rachel Vincent’s Faythe Sanders series, but skinwalkers (usually werecoyotes) in Patricia Briggs’s Mercy Thompson series and Carrie Vaughn’s Kitty 5

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series, werebirds in Vincent’s work, and numerous other examples of shape-shifters. (Were-gila monsters are mentioned in one novel, but sadly do not make an appearance!)12 Although these fictional creatures cannot always be considered lycanthropes in the strictest sense, they are still were-animals, and I will include them in my analysis, to allow me to examine wider developments in literature and film featuring shape-shifters.

Subjectivity in the Case of ‘Wolf-Alice’ and ‘Boobs’ The primary focus of this work is the advent of lycanthropic subject­ ivity in popular culture, something that has been gaining momentum since the 1970s. The werewolf is not the first literary monster to acquire subjectivity. As early as 1847, in Varney the Vampire; or, the Feast of Blood, the vampire was permitted to tell its own story. The titular Varney offers his own account of his origins, including a chilling description of how he first rose from the grave: ‘I was gaunt and thin, my clothes hung about me in tattered remnants. The damp smell of the grave hung about them . . .’13 Varney’s vampirism is linked to the trauma of the English Civil War, where, in a foreshadowing of his future dependence on human blood, he made a living exploiting the disorder in the country and assisting both Parliamentarians and Royalists for personal gain. Following his betrayal of a Royalist to Cromwell and his apparently motive­ ­less murder of his son, Varney is killed and resurrected as a vampire – possibly as punishment for past misdeeds. Varney’s narration, however, forms only a small section of the huge, sprawling novel, with most of the text recounting his misdeeds in the third person. It was not until 1975, with the publication of The Dracula Tape by Fred Saberhagen, that the vampire was allowed to tell its own story in its entirety. Saberhagen’s novel is centred round the eponymous tape, which records Dracula telling his version of Stoker’s famous tale in eloquent, if self-serving manner. The following year also saw the publication of Anne Rice’s better-known Interview With the Vampire, which featured the original character of Louis de Pont du Lac telling the tale of his immortal life to a young reporter. The vampire’s subjectivity was aided by the fact that eloquence has 6

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frequently been a defining characteristic of the Undead. Varney possesses ‘the rare and beautiful gift of eloquence’,14 while Dracula himself waxes poetical listening to wolves howling: ‘listen to them, the children of the night. What music they make!’15 The vampire’s appearances in early nineteenth-century European literature such as Polidori’s The Vampyre (1819) established the Byronic vampire tradition, in which the vampire is presented as sophisticated, aristo­ cratic, and often seductive. The vampire has been primed for subjectivity for nearly two hundred years because of these char­ acteristics, and where the vampire leads, the werewolf and other monsters will eventually follow.16 But whereas the vampire has been embraced by pop culture as a celebrity, something that has reached its zenith with the beautiful, rich, sparkly and eternally youthful vampires in Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series, throughout much of the twentieth century the werewolf was a mere monster. Since the Victorian era, the only fate a werewolf had to look forward to was finding redemption in death, or life as a beast. This began to change in 1979, with the publication of Angela Carter’s collection of short stories, The Bloody Chamber. It incorporated three stories to feature wolves and werewolves. The final story in the collection, ‘Wolf-Alice’, is the tale of a grave-robbing Duke and the eponymous Wolf-Alice, a girl raised by wolves. Carter’s story focuses on how Wolf-Alice is captured by humans, separated from the wolves, partially tamed by nuns, and finally dumped in the Duke’s grim household. Wolf-Alice is not a true wolf, something that is continually emphasized by Carter, but neither is she human. ‘Nothing about her is human except that she is not a wolf’17 is how the author describes her wolf-girl. As critics such as Jessica Tiffin have pointed out, Carter disliked essentialism in all forms, and it is clear by the end of the story that although Wolf-Alice has learned some human habits and mannerisms, she has not fully adopted a human perspective or behaviours.18 Yet Carter’s depiction of identity in this tale suggests a basic human identity that emerges gradually once she is removed from her wolfish family. Although the story depicts Wolf-Alice’s gradual acquisition of self-awareness, she has no human role models save her brief interactions with the nuns. The Duke hardly counts as human, but is a strange amalgamation of several fictional monsters. He feasts on 7

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corpses like a zombie, and like a vampire, casts no reflection. Instead, ‘Wolf-Alice’ depicts the girl’s gradual realization of self through her interactions with her own reflection in a mirror – the moment she becomes aware of herself is a profound and important one. Carter writes that ‘. . . yet her relation with the mirror was now far more intimate since she knew she saw herself within it’.19 It is interesting to note that this is a discovery Wolf-Alice makes entirely on her own, with no guide or teacher. Wolf-Alice’s learning to recognise her own reflection (an ability only humans and a very few animals possess) is arguably innate, as she has no tutor other than herself.20 The inhuman Duke barely acknowledges her existence and at no point in the narrative do the nuns ever show her a mirror. Her strange upbringing and abandonment to the Duke’s household ensures that no one is present to dictate who she is or how she should behave. Instead, Wolf-Alice gradually discovers and constructs her own identity, free of the restraints human society would try to impose on her. ‘Wolf-Alice’ quite literally depicts the dawning of subjectivity for its lycanthrope. From being utterly unselfconscious and un­ knowing, Wolf-Alice gradually learns to recognise herself in a mirror, tell the passage of time when she begins menstruating and eventually even grants subjectivity to the Duke, who, like a vampire, has no reflection. After he is shot by a vengeful villager, he lies helpless as Wolf-Alice licks him clean, with his reflection gradually appearing in the mirror as she licks his invisibility, his lack of self, away. Aiden Day remarks that the stories Carter wrote for The Bloody Chamber end with an image of the future, an image of what might be.21 For my part, I believe that the unrealized something is the werewolf gaining self-awareness and agency rather than merely being reduced to a monster – the advent of lycanthropic subjectivity. Carter was a maverick author who challenged all dominant discourses, so it is unsurprising that she anticipated this development. A decade later, Suzy McKee Charnas published another story about a young female lycanthrope. The protagonist of ‘Boobs’ (1989) is Kelsey, who is bullied at school for her large breasts and disgusted by the onset of her menstruation. However, Kelsey escapes both her tormentors and menarche when she unexpectedly turns into a werewolf. Far from being terrified or appalled, she is delighted 8

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at her transformation. Like Wolf-Alice, Kelsey is able to recognise herself in the mirror after she transforms, and considers her wolfish self to be gorgeous. ‘Boobs’ is a significant story in two respects: firstly, it is told through first-person narration, and secondly Kelsey retains her conscious mind and self throughout her transformation. Alarmingly, she still kills and eats the boy responsible for bullying her, reasoning that he got what was coming to him. Kelsey’s vicious­ ness cannot be explained away as magic, or as the dark, repressed desires of her unconscious rising to the surface, as has traditionally been the case in representations of the werewolf. ‘Boobs’ marks the moment the werewolf became self-aware, and thus gained agency. Kelsey’s decision to kill may be disturbing, but it was a conscious choice and not because her human side had been subsumed by a monster. Arguably, Kelsey no longer has a human side, as her subjectivity incorporates both her human and wolfish forms and selves. If ‘Wolf-Alice’ represents what the lycanthrope’s journey towards subjectivity might look like, then ‘Boobs’ depicts the final destination: what a fully subjective werewolf might resemble. Of course, these definitions are very reductive: there are many different facets to subjectivity, as we shall see in the first chapter, and many different ways of attaining it. But these tales, published just as the monster in popular culture was beginning to speak for itself, represent a significant turning point for the werewolf. The vampire is becoming a subject, and has arguably been tamed and domesticated. Zombies have risen to fill the monstrous gap left by the werewolf and enjoyed tremendous popularity in TV series such as The Walking Dead (2010–ongoing) and in films such as 28 Days Later (2002). But even zombies are beginning to achieve subjectivity, as in Isaac Marion’s Warm Bodies (2010) and the film of the same name, which are narrated by R, a surprisingly intelligent zombie who admits to eating people but still retains sufficient consciousness to feel conflicted about it. Monsters in contemporary popular culture are changing, and are being granted subjectivity – a new mode of subjectivity that is not necessarily bound up with being human. Of course, the subject is still strongly associated with humanism, as will be demonstrated by the various texts analysed in this monograph. But the point is that subjectivity is changing, both for the werewolf 9

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and because of the werewolf, and this text will examine these changes.

The Werewolf in Contemporary Popular Culture The werewolf is typically found on the pages of horror, fantasy and Gothic literature. The cinematic werewolf appears predominantly in the horror film, in classics such as The Wolf-Man and An American Werewolf in London (1981). It is not the intention of this monograph to include or exclude texts on the basis of genre, however. Any text that features a werewolf, according to the definitions given in this introduction, will potentially be included in the analysis to come. Whilst this raises the inevitable danger that a significant number of lycanthropic texts will be included or excluded on arbitrary grounds, the intention of this study is not to provide a comprehensive overview of the lycanthropic fiction and film produced since 1979. Instead, this monograph will examine some of the major trends that have become prevalent in werewolf literature in the past forty-odd years. These trends all stem from the werewolf’s acquisition of subjectivity. Subjectivity, for the purposes of this introduction, is defined as con­ sciousness: an awareness of self, thoughts, feelings and the posses­sion of memories and lived experiences. It is also based upon the possession of agency: the subject wields power over oneself and others, and is affected by them in turn. A more comprehensive exam­in­ation and definition of subjectivity will be offered in the first chapter. But what is vital in terms of this study is that new developments in how the werewolf is depicted in popular culture have emerged owing to this new lycanthropic subjectivity. Social networks, laws and their enforcement and different environments are all aspects of the new, subjective werewolf that will be explored in this book.

Other Critical Examinations of the Contemporary Werewolf Previous works of criticism about the werewolf have also focused on the contemporary werewolf’s emerging subjectivity, but utilizing different theoretical standpoints and arguments than will be employed 10

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in this text. Chantal Bourgault Du Coudray’s The Curse of the Werewolf: Fantasy, Horror and the Beast Within appeared in 2006, using Jungian and feminist theory to analyse the figure of the contemporary werewolf. Bourgault Du Coudray’s monograph posits how feminist and ecofeminist concerns make possible new ideas about identity and subjectivity. Their suggestion that femininity, a connection with nature and intuition are positive traits imply that the werewolf is no longer necessarily the beast within of legend, but can become a symbol of an optimistic reimagining of the relationship between humanity and nature. Brent A. Stypczynski is another author to focus on the modern werewolf: indeed, his monograph is entitled The Modern Literary Werewolf: A Critical Study of the Mutable Motif (2013). The central argument of the book is that modern literary werewolves such as J. K. Rowling’s Remus Lupin draw their inspiration from werewolf texts produced during the Medieval and Middle Ages, such as Marie de France’s Bisclavret. According to Stypczynski, these modern werewolves bring Medieval ideas and themes to a contemporary audience, or rather point backwards towards a chivalric past, just as Bourgault Du Coudray argues that the werewolf points back to an age when humanity lived in harmony with nature and also raises the possibility that such a relationship may be regained. Rosalyn Weaver and Kimberley McMahon-Coleman are the authors of another monograph that examines the figure of the contemporary werewolf and other shape-shifters, examining a wider range of metamorphic characters than Bourgault Du Coudray and Stypczynski. In Werewolves and Other Shapeshifters in Popular Culture: A Thematic Analysis of Recent Depictions (2012), they devote particular attention to the werewolf in Young Adult fiction, and I draw on their work in the fifth chapter especially. Their analysis, like Bourgault Du Coudray’s, is arranged thematically, with an examination of such issues as gender and sexuality, and other, less explored ones such as the issue of drugs and narcotics in relation to the contemporary werewolf. It is important to acknowledge that many of the themes explored in the fifth chapter – most particularly those of identity and family – have previously been explored by McMahon-Coleman and Weaver, who examine the difficulties lycanthropy poses for teenagers attempting to formulate a coherent identity. 11

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Leslie A. Sconduto’s Metamorphoses of the Werewolf: A Literary Study from Antiquity Through the Renaissance (2008) is another con­ tribution to the field, published just two years after Bourgault Du Coudray’s monograph. However, as the title suggests Sconduto’s focus is the werewolf in literature produced up until the Renaissance, and as such Sconduto’s analysis will not be referenced extensively in my examination of the werewolf from the 1970s onwards. A more recent critical collection that focuses on werewolves of all eras is She-Wolf: A Cultural History of Female Werewolves (2015), edited by Hannah Priest. As the title indicates, the female werewolf is the focus in this collection, featuring in a range of essays that deal with topics ranging from video games to Estonian legend. Another recent edited collection entitled Werewolves, Wolves and the Gothic (2017), edited by Robert McKay and John Miller explores increasingly diverse themes such as the werewolf’s connection to nationalism and its links to Native American culture in mainstream cinema. And the werewolf has begun to feature in works such as Barbara Creed’s Phallic Panic: Film, Horror and the Primal Uncanny (2005), which devotes a chapter to a psychoanalytic study of such films as The Wolf-Man (1941) and Wolf (1994). Although a relatively small body of work, these texts display certain themes in common: female werewolves are particularly popular subjects for analysis, the influence of the Medieval lycanthrope is strongly felt and the werewolf’s connection with nature and ecology is frequently examined. It is my intention to examine some very different themes and issues that have appeared in recent werewolf fiction and film, as well as using the theories of Deleuze and Guattari and the Gothic to analyse the werewolf from a new per­spective. Chapter 1 will explore subjectivity in relation to the werewolf: how it is defined, how it is depicted and how it is evolving. For the purposes of this monograph, the work of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, particularly their collaborative work A Thousand Plateaus and most notably their concept of ‘becoming’, will be used to explore the development of lycanthropic subjectivity. Becoming is not only the concept of an identity in constant flux, but refers to the ever-changing borders and thresholds where one multiplicity enters into a relationship with another. Identity for Deleuze and Guattari is all about what is on the surface and how it intersects 12

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Introduction

with what they term the multiplicities surrounding it, in marked contrast to previous modes of analysing the werewolf which have relied heavily on the theories of Jung and Freud and what lies within. Subsequent chapters will explore what developments have resulted from the werewolf’s development of subjectivity. Chapter 2 will explore one of the most remarkable and dramatic developments in depictions of the contemporary werewolf: the werewolf pack. Although wild wolves are sociable animals, the literary and cinematic werewolf has always been an exceptionally isolated creature. In contrast to the vampire, whose melancholic solitude forms part of its charm, and the zombie, nearly always construed as part of a mob, the werewolf has been isolated from both the natural world, due to its unnaturalness, and humanity, due to its beastliness. But the subjective werewolf, able to interact with other subjects and shape its identity in relation to them, is able to move through and become a part of both lycanthropic and human society, mirroring the rise of identity politics since the 1960s and its reconceptualization of identity as a signifier of group membership rather than individualism.22 This chapter will examine the increasing popularity of and nature of the werewolf pack in popular fiction, the werewolf’s changing place in both human and lycanthropic society and the impact becoming a social creature has had upon lycanthropic identity. Chapter 3 will examine a new role the werewolf has begun to assume as a result of both its subjectivity and its novel guise as a social being. The werewolf has begun to adopt the role of lawgiver, enforcing both lycanthropic and human law, sometimes sitting in judgement and sometimes enacting rough justice. The werewolf’s complex relationship to the law within popular culture will be explored here, together with the multifaceted and complicated definitions and versions of the law that exist in literature. In recent years werewolf has frequently been portrayed as vigilante, private eye and even police officer, which is a distinct contrast to the werewolf’s long historical association with the outlaw. The intro­ duction of the werewolf pack has necessitated lycanthropic codes of behaviour, however, together with werewolves capable of en­ forcing such behaviour. This chapter will explore if the werewolf can assume the identity of a law enforcer within a culture or whether 13

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it is more suited to the role of vigilante, embodying its own concept of justice. Chapter 4 will study another change in how the werewolf has been depicted that has been made possible by the advent of lycan­ thropic subjectivity. Although werewolves are often interpreted as representatives of a forgotten nature and alluring wilderness, in recent texts that feature lycanthropes a city setting has become increasingly popular. A surprising amount of contemporary werewolf fiction (and even films, as in the case of the Ginger Snaps franchise) has situated the werewolf in a city or in the suburbs, suggesting that the werewolf, instead of being at odds with humanity, is learning to live alongside it, made possible by their adoption of a social structure and rules governing modes of behaviour. This chapter will examine the werewolf’s shift into human-dominated spaces and how this impacts on its status as a liminal being, as well as exploring and responding to the popular critical arguments that the werewolf is essentially a representative of a mystical Mother Nature. Chapter 5 represents a departure from what came before, in that it examines a particular genre of fiction as opposed to themes to be found in a wide range of works. Nonetheless, the theme of subjectivity and the developments that have resulted from the werewolf acquiring it will be explored in the chapter. It will analyse the phenomenon of the werewolf in Young Adult fiction and how it compares to other monsters in popular fiction for adolescents – most particularly, the vampire, which is often presented as object of desire and focus of romantic longings. Although in YA fiction the lycanthrope has yet to achieve the stratospheric popularity of its close cousin the vampire, the number of werewolf-centred books and book series written for teenagers is increasing thanks to the immense success of series such as Meyer’s Twilight, both the books and the film series. Although hybridity/transformation as metaphor for adolescence is not an original concept in critical terms, this chapter will aim to provide a fresh look at the teenage struggle for identity by applying to it the factors discussed in previous chapters; the lycanthropic attainment of subjectivity, the introduction of the pack and lycan­thropic law and the werewolf’s new status as an urban dweller and their impact on the evolving identities of lycan­ thropic adolescents. 14

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Although several studies of the contemporary werewolf have been produced recently, this book will be one of the first to examine the concept of subjectivity using the theories of Deleuze and Guattari as a rebuttal to the increasingly outdated Freudian concept of the beast within.23 It will also take a different route from the more established critical position of interpreting the werewolf as represen­ tative of a forgotten nature and wilderness, or as a monster that points backwards to a distant past. The primary focus of this study is the werewolf as subject, and its central argument is that con­ temporary depictions of the werewolf in literature have started to reject the reductive portrayal of the werewolf as merely the beast within, representative of humanity’s beastliest urges and instincts. The book argues that the werewolf’s subjectivity is incomplete and still evolving – that the lycanthrope is in the midst of what Deleuze and Guattari term ‘becoming’.24 It will analyse what the werewolf is in the process of becoming, and posit that rather than wholly embracing a group identity, the werewolf is still very much working out who and what it is as an individual.

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1 ‘Some Wolves Are Hairy on the Inside’: The Werewolf’s Journey Towards Subjectivity  Until the 1980s, the fictional werewolf was the devil we knew. It did not share the mutability of the mellifluous, ever-changing vampire. The vampire is a supremely adaptable metaphor that has represented everything from panic about the AIDS epidemic in the 1990s to the importance of abstinence (from both blood and sex) in the early twenty-first century. The werewolf, by contrast, was comfortingly predictable. Once a month, by the light of the full moon, he (and it was nearly always a he) would become a ravening monster, kill a few unfortunates, turn back into his guilt-stricken human self in the morning and most likely die by the end of the novel or film in which he was featured. There were a few exceptions; Marie De France’s Bisclavret for instance, in which the werewolf is allowed to survive and be rewarded by his king. Or the 1985 horrorcomedy film Teen Wolf, in which the likeable lycanthrope is embraced by the small town in which he lives. But these fortunate werewolves remained aberrations. From the Victorian era onwards, the werewolf in Western culture became representative of what has been popularly termed the beast within. Chantal Bourgault Du Coudray has com­ mented on what she terms ‘the dichotomies underpinning nineteenthcentury thought’ in relation to the werewolf, observing that The unconscious part of the mind was regularly associated with the bestial, instinctive life of the natural, material world as opposed to the

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The Nature of the Beast rational, cultured world of the conscious mind. In this sense, the unconscious became strongly linked with the notion of a ‘beast within’.1

Hence the notion of the werewolf as representative of humanity’s beastly, savage, repressed impulses was propagated and became almost a default method of depicting lycanthropy. Sigmund Freud himself contributed to the creation of the beast within in Western culture, naming one of his most famous case studies the Wolf-Man, and observing the contrast between the Wolf-Man’s charm, his keen intelligence and his complete inability to restrain his passionate, instinctual urges.2 The Wolf-Man never believed himself to be a werewolf, nor did Freud ever diagnose him with lycanthropy. But the description of him as cultured and attractive and yet wild and unrestrained in his instinctual appetites chimes with the traditional portrayal of the werewolf in Western popular culture as the beast lurking within humanity. Though Freud did not originate this method of depicting the werewolf, his name is continually invoked when describing it. From the nineteenth century onwards, the werewolf in literature was the quintessential Freudian monster, the ‘beast within’3 who was at the mercy of his unconscious, the Id, and its dark, violent repressed desires. The beast within has dominated cultural depictions of the werewolf since the nineteenth century. Examples of what I shall henceforth term the ‘classic’ werewolf abound in both fiction and film. There is Universal’s famous The Wolf-Man, the unfortunate protagonist of An American Werewolf in London (1981), G. M. Reynolds’s Wagner the Werewolf (1847) and, more recently, the kindly Remus Lupin in J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series. Even arguably Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886), a text that can be defined as a prototype werewolf novel at the very least, focusing as it does on a man transforming into a beastlier, more savage and instinct-driven version of himself. It is worth noting that Stevenson’s dualistic model of the subject is more complex than the infamous binary opposition between Jekyll and Hyde – a phrase so culturally significant that it has passed into common usage to describe someone with severe mood swings. Jekyll, in a curious foreshadowing of twentieth-century theories such as the multiplicities proposed by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, writes ‘I hazard the 18

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guess that man will be ultimately known for a mere polity of multifarious, incongruous and independent denizens.’4 The theories of Deleuze and Guattari – and how they can be used to analyse the figure of the contemporary werewolf – will be explored in detail later in this chapter and throughout the book. Nonetheless, the famous contrast between the upstanding Dr Jekyll and the beastly Mr Hyde is strikingly similar to the unwitting humans turning into monsters in The Wolf-Man and An American Werewolf in London. Comprehensively listing the ‘classic’ werewolves in popular culture would take far more space and time than is available here. But the popular perception of the werewolf is still that of a divided subjectivity, alternating between a ravening monster and an often conscience-stricken, despairing human. This is unsurprising given the close affinity between psychoanalysis and Gothic literature. The earliest psychologists drew upon literature for inspiration, with Freud in particular relying on fairy tales to explain psychoanalytical concepts.5 Michelle A. Massé has identified numerous similarities between psychoanalysis and the Gothic, observing that while both the literary genre and the treatment of mental illness strive to main­ tain the borders between fantasy and reality, the blurring of these boundaries result in a gap from which the uncanny emerges.6 The werewolf did not appear in the earliest Gothic texts produced in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and is a noticeable absentee from any Gothic texts until the mid-nineteenth century. It began to appear in potboilers such as George Reynold’s Wagner the Werewolf and was fully established as a Gothic monster by the fin de siècle. The werewolf embodied the Gothic sense of enclosure in its very being: Wagner is entrapped into becoming a werewolf once a month due to a pact with the Devil, for instance. Other nineteenth-century werewolves are imprisoned by their lycanthropy, finding release only in death (Alexandre Dumas’s Thibault in the 1857 novel The Wolf-Leader or even the ill-fated Dr Jekyll) or until their curse is lifted, such as in Rudyard Kipling’s 1890 short story ‘The Mark of the Beast’, where an Indian priest is compelled to repeal the curse of lycanthropy from an Englishman after being tortured. Links to and secrets from the past manifest in the majority of werewolves tales too: Wagner’s and Thibault’s pacts with the Devil, the degenerate madness in the otherwise noble family of 19

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lycanthropes in R. L. Stevenson’s ‘Olalla’ (1885). Moreover, the werewolf conjures what might be termed a Gothic atmosphere. Its blurring of the boundaries between human and animal, its natural affinity with wild, untamed spaces, and its resurrection of a primordial, savage past by its transformation from a civilized human into an uncivilized, prehistoric wolf, mark it as a Gothic creature. The werewolf is also a stalwart of the horror film, another genre of popular culture with close links to the Gothic. William Patrick Day has analysed what he terms the ‘striking parallels between Freud’s thought and Gothic fantasy’,7 suggesting that For Freud, dreams are the expression of wishes unacknowledged in waking life; the Gothic fantasy is the expression of the fears and desires created, but unacknowledged, by conventional culture. Like a dream, it reveals the inner life of the individual.8

If we accept Day’s assertion that the Gothic fantasy reveals the ‘inner life’ of a person, it might offer an indication as to why the werewolf has not traditionally been included in studies of the Gothic. Throug­ hout the nineteenth and much of the twentieth century, the werewolf has seldom had an ‘inner life’ to reveal to its audience. The Gothic as a genre has always placed emphasis on subjective experience: from the competing narratives of Victor Frankenstein and his Creature to Varney the Vampire and the epistolary narrative of Dracula. The traditional werewolf, in its transformed state, is pure violence, pure bloodthirstiness and pure instinct, leaving no capacity for rational thought or reflection. In the nineteenth century, werewolves such as Clemence Housman’s beautiful White Fell and Frederick Marryat’s Christina were beasts concealed behind a veneer of womanly beauty; they had no inner life, no subjectivity.9 In the twentieth century, werewolves such as Larry Talbot, tormented by their unwilling misdeeds, were unable to reconcile their beastliness with their humanity; their inner life was sundered, divided. Other lycanthropes, such as the eponymous Ginger of the Ginger Snaps film trilogy (2000–4) embraced their new, savage wolfish sides only to be sub­ sumed by them. It is only since the 1990s that literature featuring werewolves began to move beyond the concept of the beast within and explore new modes of subjectivity. 20

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Accordingly, it is not the beast within that we are concerned with at present. This focus of this chapter will be on the ‘new’ werewolf that has emerged in popular culture since the 1980s, and which is steadily gaining ground against the classic, monster-oncea-month Freudian werewolf. The new method of depicting the werewolf in popular culture does not break with tradition entirely. There are still plenty of transformations brought on by the full moon, some silver allergies, and plenty of gory violence. Crucially, however, the contemporary werewolf in popular culture is no longer solely associated with the unconscious. A few decades ago, the fictional werewolf began to change, and not just at the full moon. The werewolf is in the process of attaining subjectivity. Subjectivity, in the manner I intend to apply it to the contemporary werewolf, has several layers of meaning. The simplest meaning is that the werewolf is becoming a conscious subject. When they transform, it is no longer into a ravening monster, but into something that typically resembles the wild wolf, canis lupus. Most importantly, the werewolf, no matter what form they assume, retains their conscious mind, their rationality and their sense of self rather than temporarily being consumed by a monster. The traditional divided subjectivity is losing popularity, and the beast no longer dwells solely in the unconscious. Examples of this new, thinking, self-aware werewolf are rare prior to the 1980s, but are becoming increasingly popular in contemporary fiction. The werewolf has for decades existed as a metaphor for an identity at war with itself, made possible by its divided self. The werewolf’s eternal conflict of human vs beast could in turn be interpreted as representing civilization vs nature, rationality vs instinct, and control vs aggression. However, in recent popular culture the werewolf is no longer invariably comprised of human and monstrous selves at war with one another. Although the werewolf often struggles with its lycan­ thropy and all it entails, increasingly the werewolf in literature embodies the struggle to find, or the effort involved in establishing an identity. The struggle for an identity is particularly evident with contemporary female werewolves. As June Pulliam observes, many of the werewolf’s traditional characteristics, such as furious anger and overt sexual desire, are incompatible with traditional expectations of femininity.10 Nonetheless, the female werewolf has become an 21

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increasingly prominent figure in contemporary horror, fantasy and Young Adult fiction, with their authors often exploring how the female lycanthrope reconciles her beastly, bad-tempered, wild side with society’s expectations of her – and, more importantly, with the female werewolf’s expectations of herself. Kelley Armstrong’s heroine Elena Michaels in her Women of the Otherworld series spends literally years reconciling her lycanthropy, which was inflicted on her by her werewolf lover and her eventual husband, with her own desire for a ‘normal’ life. To Elena, normality consists of a home, a human husband and human children. Carrie Vaughn’s Catherine ‘Kitty’ Norville in her Kitty Norville series (the name came first) embarks on a very different journey towards establishing her identity. When the series commences she is the lowest-ranking member of a werewolf pack in thrall to a cruel alpha/leader. Kitty’s story shows her escaping the unjust rule of the alpha, and later returning to overthrow him and assume the mantle of leadership herself. A female alpha is a rare development in contemporary werewolf fiction and one that indicates just how extraordinary Kitty is.11 These are just two examples of the character development fictional in which female werewolves are currently engaged. Both Armstrong and Vaughn have authored several books about their lycanthropes, allowing their struggle for identity and subjectivity to be played out in lengthy and vivid detail. This development is by no means confined purely to female werewolves: male werewolves, such as Reuben Golding in Anne Rice’s Wolf Gift series and W. D. Gagliani’s hero Nick Lupo, in Wolf’s Trap (2003) and its sequels, are frequently engaged in the same process. However, it is important to remember that this evolution of lycanthropic subjectivity is definitely not a universal occurrence. The classic beast within is still prevalent in fiction, with texts such as David Wellington’s Frostbite (2009), John Farris’s High Bloods (2009) and J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series all featuring werewolves who lose all sense of self when transformed. The Freudian concept of ‘the beast in the unconscious’ is still deeply entrenched in Western popular culture and is especially popular in film.12 The werewolf must overcome centuries in which it has lacked any form of subjectivity or a means of defining itself, hence its ongoing becoming. 22

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Whereas the classic werewolf is predominantly a threat that must be neutralized or contained, usually by the death of the unfortunate lycanthrope in question, one challenge the new werewolf must confront is learning to live alongside – or even among – humans. As Barbara Creed has observed, ‘born of the modern period, monsters have embodied particularly modern fears and anxieties’.13 Were­ wolves, along with other monsters such as vampires and zombies, are supremely suited to representing the marginalized and socially excluded, embodying ethnic, racial, cultural and sexual difference and even disability. J. K Rowling has stated explicitly that her character Remus Lupin’s lycanthropy is a metaphor for how people react to disability and disease.14 That the new werewolf is – sometimes – permitted to survive and even thrive together with humanity is perhaps indicative of changes in Western society since the 1980s, with the other, whatever its form, becoming more accepted. The increasing acceptance of the other in popular culture has been gathering pace since the 1990s, as the monster, rather than its victims, came to be sympathized with by the reading audience.15

The Werewolf and Subjectivity While the vampire’s journey towards subjectivity was aided by The Dracula Tape and especially by the popular and influential Interview With the Vampire, there is no corresponding text that marks the advent of the werewolf’s subjectivity. The latter has been a much more gradual process, making it difficult to pinpoint the exact moment the werewolf became a subject. Arguably, Suzy McKee Charnas’s short story ‘Boobs’, first published in 1989 in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, is the first instance the werewolf achieved subjectivity in Western popular culture. Told in the first person by a teenaged female werewolf, the story is one of the earliest instances in which a werewolf tells their own tale, using first-person narration.16 Admittedly, Herman Hesse’s Steppenwolf is partly narrated by its lycanthrope, the misanthropic Harry. However, Steppenwolf is the exception that proves the rule. It was published nearly seventy years before ‘Boobs’, and despite its intriguing hero and spirit of philo­ sophical enquiry, it was not an example of a wider trend in werewolf 23

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fiction. The werewolf featured most frequently in the pages of pulp magazines during the 1920s and 1930s, with Bourgault Du Coudray observing the isolationist tendencies of the USA, where the majority of magazines were published, meant that the lycanthropes they portrayed were symbolic of a corrupt, decadent and threatening Europe.17 Steppenwolf had no apparent influence on contemporary werewolf fiction and is seldom examined by critics as a werewolf story.18 ‘Boobs’, by contrast, was published just as the popularity of the werewolf in fiction was about to explode, and anticipated numerous trends such as first-person narrative, the female protagonist and conscious reasoning subjectivity that were shortly to become more widespread in werewolf stories and novels. Up until this point in time, the werewolf was unable to tell its own story for the simple reason that, at least once a month, or oftener depending upon the writer, it turned into a senseless, ravening beast and all humanity and rationality, not to mention the power of speech or ability to hold a pen, was completely obliterated. However, Charnas’s werewolf, Kelsey, relates her story eloquently and with satisfaction, describing her transformation into a gorgeous wolf and her deadly revenge on the school bully who had been making her life a misery. Kelsey never loses her sense of self, her self-control or her conscious mind, even when in her wolf form. Her revenge on the bully is carefully plotted and executed and, unlike the guilt-stricken traditional werewolf, Kelsey feels no remorse or qualms about her nocturnal killing. Kelsey’s lack of moral qualms is atypical of the contemporary, subjective werewolf, for whom the renegotiation of morality is often an essential com­ ponent of establishing and accepting their lycanthropic identity. Regardless of her dubious ethics, her status as subject makes this a notable story in terms of the development of the contemporary werewolf. However, McKee Charnas’s tale is much more conventional in some respects. Kelsey is a very traditional werewolf in that she changes once a month, her transformations are apparently governed by the full moon and she also frequently kills and eats humans. And notably, Kelsey remains unique, a solitary werewolf. No other lycanthropes appear in the story and, perhaps a little strangely, Kelsey does not even wonder if any exist. In this sense, Kelsey-as-werewolf 24

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is hardly a subject at all. In his definition of subjectivity, Nick Mansfield observes that The subject is always linked to something outside of it – an idea or principle or the society of other subjects. It is this linkage that the word ‘subject’ insists upon. Etymologically to be ‘placed (or even thrown) under’. One is always subject to or of something. The word subject, therefore, proposes that the self is not a separate and isolated entity, but one that operates at the intersection of general truths and shared principles.19

Subjectivity, then, is dependent on the subject’s associations and links. The modern werewolf’s subjectivity is inextricably connected to their overcoming their traditional isolation and alienation. The werewolf’s evolution in this respect mirrors the rise of identity politics since the 1960s, described by Katherine Mayberry as ‘a telling reconceptualization, evolving from its 1960s obsession with self-absorbed individualism . . . to a signifier of a group affiliation’.20 The werewolf’s ‘group affiliation’ and its links with both human and lycanthropic communities will be explored in detail in Chapter 2. But the werewolf’s representation in recent popular fiction also depicts a repositioning of the lycanthrope’s attitude towards itself. The classic werewolf’s preoccupation was with itself: its guilt, its monstrosity, the usually futile hope of ameliorating its condition. The new, subjective werewolf’s gaze is beginning to turn outwards, towards its environment, rather than inwards. The relentless ex­ cavation of the werewolf’s psyche has revealed little that is new or original since the nineteenth century, so the werewolf has aligned itself with the rise of identity politics and is exploring the possibility of belonging to a group, to society. The werewolf’s new subjectivity has raised this and many other possibilities, some of which were first explored as early as the 1920s, in Hesse’s novel Steppenwolf.

The Overlooked Importance of Steppenwolf The werewolf’s transition from beast within to conscious subject can be explained most effectively by analysing Hermann Hesse’s 25

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1927 novel Steppenwolf, which is influenced by his own experience of psychoanalysis.21 It is a work that, strictly speaking, falls outside the scope of this monograph due to its date of publication, when Modernism was at its zenith. Steppenwolf has suffered from critical neglect and was not impactful on subsequent werewolf fiction. Nonetheless, it anticipates the late twentieth- and early twentyfirst-century development of the werewolf to a remarkable degree. It is the story of Harry Haller, a social outcast who is also known as the Steppenwolf. Harry suffers psychological torment because he believes he is both a man and a wolf: two selves trapped in a human body. These disparate sides of his personality, his self, are seldom in accord and Harry suffers from their conflict. Driven to nearsuicidal despair, he is saved by the appearance of a woman named Hermine and her coterie of young, careless and sexually promiscuous friends. Hermine, despite her outwardly cavalier attitude towards life, recognises Harry’s existential despair and offers him salvation by offering a revolutionary approach to life and a new way of thinking about himself and his subjectivity. As observed in the Introduction, when writing The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Stevenson hinted at a multiplicity of selves before he concentrated upon the famous story of the upstanding doctor and his beastly alter-ego. Steppenwolf journeys into the mental terrain observed by Stevenson’s novella, guided by Hermine. She explains that Harry’s perception of himself as half-man, half-wolf is hopelessly simplistic, a view supported by a mysterious pamphlet given to Harry, entitled ‘Treatise on the Steppenwolf’. The Treatise informs Harry and the reader that although man has a solitary physical form, he possesses not one or two souls but countless multitudes: ‘the beast and the body are indeed one, but the souls that dwell in it are not two, nor five, but countless in number’.22 The all-knowing Hermine tells him that different aspects of Harry’s self are at different stages of development; ‘Harry the thinker is a hundred years old, but Harry, the dancer, is scarcely half a day old.’23 Harry’s route to salvation involves accepting his multitudinous selves and fostering the previously neglected aspects of his personality. Crucially, although Harry exists on the fringes of society, reflecting Modernism’s interest in the outsider, his journey towards subjectivity is concentrated on forming connections with other people, in a 26

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reflection of Richard’s definition of the term.24 His experience reaches its zenith as Harry enters the Magic Theatre, ‘price of admittance your mind’.25 Harry does so and experiences the ultimate journey through fantasy and nightmare as he attempts to discard his old divided self in favour of myriad possible selves and continuous spiritual development. Although Harry’s mystical journey is not yet complete by the end of the novel, it ends on an optimistic note, with Harry reflecting that one day he will learn how to laugh, something he has hitherto neglected, suggesting he will continue to learn and develop the varied aspects of his being. According to Bourgault Du Coudray, Hesse’s intentions for the novel were to encourage the rejection of Freudian dualism in favour of Jungian collectivism.26 Hesse was exasperated by the audience response to the novel, which embraced the concept of the half-man, half-wolf, but did not engage as well with the Jungian multifaceted personality. In contrast, the few literary critics who have examined Steppenwolf have consistently analysed the novel using Jungian theory. David G. Richards, in his monograph on Hesse’s fiction, pays little attention to Steppenwolf, nor does he examine in the context of its being a werewolf novel, but still emphasizes that Harry Haller’s old Freudian view of his personality ‘is refuted in favour of a view based on Jung’s postulate of a collective unconscious consisting of thousands or “uncountable” pairs of opposites’.27 Rather than being a dichotomy of human and wolf, Richards argues that Haller’s self is in fact ‘a multiplicity of personality fragments and potentials’.28 This is a view that is strongly suggestive of Jung’s archetypes, which have been defined as universal, primordial images and ideas that have an influence on humanity’s conscious thoughts and concepts.29 If we conceive of Haller’s ‘self’ as being a collection of these images and ideas, then his self, rather than being unique to him alone, in fact has a deep connection to humanity. Drawing as it does on a wellspring of shared psychological heritage, Jung’s collective unconscious has a profound effect on how the Steppenwolf’s lycanthropy is portrayed. It has influenced the beliefs of the character Haller, the writer of the ‘Treatise on the Steppenwolf’, the author Hesse and subsequent literary scholars. Consciously or otherwise, the Jungian theory of Steppenwolf has had an influence on how the contemporary werewolf has been 27

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studied by literary critics. Though the body of criticism of the werewolf in fiction and film is comparatively small, several critics have adopted Jungian theory as the preferred method of analysing the werewolf, following on from Hesse’s intentions for his lycan­ thrope. Bourgault Du Coudray relies heavily on Jungian theory in her analysis of the werewolf, not limiting it to her examination of Steppenwolf. The Jungian concept of the collective unconscious is identified as the source of modern conceptions of masculinity as linked with violent and sexually aggressive impulses.30 More posi­ tively, Bourgault Du Coudray identifies the collective unconscious as a component in the rethinking of subjectivity, along with romanti­ cism and New Age philosophy that allows the lycanthrope to reconnect with nature and their innate wildness.31 In his examination of the modern werewolf Brent A. Stypczynski also makes frequent reference to Jung, with much of his focus being on what Jung terms the shadow. Stypczynski defines the shadow as comprised of humanity’s socially unacceptable, transgressive urges and asserts that the literary werewolf either learns to accept the shadow as an essential part of their being, or suffers a Jungian failure as the shadow becomes the dominant aspect of their personality.32 Bourgault Du Coudray and Stypczynski conceive of the Jungian werewolf in much the same way, identifying a Jungian archetype, the shadow, as the source of the werewolf’s darker, socially unacceptable desires and drives.33 The conclusion of the typical werewolf story, according to Jungian analysis, either allows the violent, transgressive tendencies to be integrated into the werewolf’s personality and ultimately offer regeneration and hope, or else makes them the lycanthrope’s undoing. Both Bourgault Du Coudray and Stypczynski identify a shift in the way the werewolf has been depicted in contemporary literature, from a mindless beast to conscious (if sometimes impetuous and uncontrollable) subject, a stance that is akin to my own arguments. However, their Jungian analyses identify the werewolf as connected with utterly different concerns than my own study. Bourgault Du Coudray characterizes the werewolf as a conduit that can potentially offer humanity a chance to reconnect with a long-lost wildness, with an alluring natural world. Stypczynski identifies the werewolf as pointing backwards to a Medieval European past. I intend to examine the werewolf in entirely different contexts, with the 28

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assistance of some very different critical theorists, to offer a different perspective on the newly subjective werewolf that has been emerging since the 1970s.

The New Werewolf in Popular Fiction Prominent examples of the new subjective werewolf published since the turn of the millennium include Reuben Golding in Anne Rice’s The Wolf Gift, Elena Michaels in Canadian author Kelley Armstrong’s Women of the Otherworld series, and the werewolves in Glen Duncan’s The Last Werewolf trilogy, first published in the United Kingdom. Armstrong and Duncan’s protagonists tell their story using first-person narration, even when they turn into wolves, a device that would have been almost unthinkable for a werewolf story written prior to the 1980s. Rice’s Wolf Gift Chronicles are written in the third person but follow the point-of-view of sympathetic werewolf Reuben Golding throughout. Interestingly, Reuben’s career in the novels is as a professional journalist and writer. It is a job that involves writing articles on the ‘Man-Wolf’, Reuben’s alter ego, allowing him to put forward his musings on his lycanthropic state, and his changing perspectives on the nature of good and evil. Crucially, all these examples feature lycanthropes who undergo a physical transformation into a wolf or a wolf-like creature. The subjectivity of all the lycanthropic characters alters considerably once they are able to transform physically. Mary Midgley observes that identity is lodged in individual consciousness rather than in the body, in texts where the two diverge.34 This is an apt description of the classic werewolf, whose consciousness is interrupted by its monstrous transformation. It is also characteristic of the Gothic, where fainting, unconsciousness and hallucinations frequently interrupt consciousness and limit the perceptions of the subject.35 But the new, subjective werewolf’s transformations differ in that they are seldom, if ever presented as a loss of consciousness, and therefore their identity suffers no disruption, even when they turn into a wolf. Barbara Creed has argued that the werewolf’s trans­ formation into its beastly form represents the death of the human 29

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subject, but this is not wholly true of the new werewolf.36 While the human side of the lycanthrope may suffer a metaphorical death as the werewolf transforms and wolfish instincts and impulses come to the fore, the new werewolf, whatever its form, remains a subject. Lycanthropic subjectivity is very much a work-in-progress, and requires considerable effort, unlike with the vampire, which has easily and almost effortlessly become a subject. The werewolf might not be becoming more human, but they are definitely becoming more complex.

Varieties of Lycanthropic Subjectivity The werewolf’s subjectivity has taken numerous and varied forms in contemporary fiction. In Patricia Briggs’s Mercy Thompson and Alpha and Omega series, it is stated that it is vital for a newly made werewolf to learn to control themselves, their animal instincts and urge towards violence.37 Those who cannot learn control must be killed for the safety of the pack and of the human population. This is very similar to the classic werewolf in that two opposing person­ alities are sometimes in conflict. Nonetheless, Briggs’s novels diverge from the typical tragic ending of the beast within by promoting the means of survival for werewolves by relying on the wolfish and human sides reaching an accord and learning to accommodate one another. Despite the werewolves’ propensity towards violence, Briggs depicts their wolfish sides as capable of reasoned thought and considered action, occasionally even showing them reining in their human halves.38 Alice Borchardt presents a similar state of affairs in her historical fantasy The Silver Wolf, which is set in Ancient Rome and focuses on unwilling werewolf Regeane, who is of royal blood and is used as a pawn in the struggle for power amongst various factions in the city. Regeane generally thinks of herself as human and refers to the wolf as a separate entity, though she does visualize the reactions of her lupine alter ego to the events around her. This divide is strengthened at the beginning of the novel as Regeane’s wolf-half is restricted to night-time hours – she never appears during the day. When the wolf begins to make her presence felt during 30

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daylight, it is a source of terror rather than joy for Regeane. Her wolf-half is philosophical about Regeane’s horror: ‘the wolf gazed at Regeane solemnly, then she made a soft sound of regret and vanished into the darkness’.39 The wolf is often presented as wiser than her human half, hence her strategic withdrawal when Regeane’s fear manifests. Despite Regeane’s apprehension, the relationship between the human woman and the wolf is one that deepens and changes throughout the novel, with an accord finally being reached at the climax: ‘Regeane could call on her by day or night, and the magnificent killer beast would rise to serve her. She’d won.’40 Although this scene is shown through the eyes of Regeane-ashuman, implying the triumph of the woman, it is in fact the wolf who enables Regeane’s continued existence, in keeping with Borchardt’s critical attitude towards humanity. In contrast to Briggs’s books, which are set in the contemporary USA and where humans must restrain their wolves from committing violent acts, Regeaneas-human is often too passive or squeamish to take action to defend herself in the brutal setting of Ancient Rome. Her wolf-half has no such compunctions and fights to defend herself. Instead of the destruction that used to be the werewolf’s inevitable fate, lycanthropy is becoming a means of survival. This process of reconciling oneself with lycanthropy is played out in numerous contemporary novels. Contrasting depictions of subjectivity include Rice’s Reuben Golding, who remains conscious of his actions even when he has transformed into a werewolf and who embraces his new lycanthropic existence and the perils and privileges it confers. Rice’s portrayal of lycanthropy will be examined in more detail later in this chapter. Another popular contemporary werewolf is Carrie Vaughn’s Kitty Norville, whose first appearance was in Kitty and the Midnight Hour (2005) and who has starred in several subsequent novels, which have charted her progress from the lowest-ranking member of a werewolf pack in Denver, Colorado, to radio show host, alpha of her old pack and eventual key player in an epic struggle between good and evil. Kitty, witty and humorous when human, is not fully in command of herself as a wolf but nonetheless retains memories of her time spent as a lupine, and is able to recognise herself in her transformed state. Kitty, upon viewing video footage of herself changing into a wolf, finds her alter ego 31

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alluring rather than repulsive. ‘She was beautiful. She was me’, Kitty thinks, demonstrating her ready acceptance of her wolfish self, in an echo of McKee Charnas’s Kelsey, who also found her wolfish form beautiful.41 Kitty certainly does not view her alter ego as a beast, and in one book actively refutes the notion that she is a monster: ‘I held onto my sanity by clinging to the belief I was human – maybe a different kind of human with some wacky super­ natural problems going on, but human all the same.’42 For Kitty, subjectivity is irrevocably connected to her humanity, but rather than view herself as divided, she opts to expand the boundaries of what she considers human. Yet another intriguing depiction of lycanthropic subjectivity has appeared in Andrea Cremer’s Nightshade series, in which the were­ wolf’s alternate shapes, wolf or human, exist alongside them in a non-tangible form. In short, there are as many different forms of subjectivity in contemporary fiction as there are fictional were­ wolves. Although the beast within is still a tangible presence in popular culture, the werewolf is no longer necessarily a metaphor for a nature at war with itself. Yet the werewolf still has far to go in achieving a full, complete subjectivity – not least because of its changing relationships to society and the world it finds itself inhabiting.

Jungian Theory vs Deleuze and Guattari In a broader context, the contemporary werewolf has begun to move beyond the concept of the beast within, and is currently engaged in a struggle to create and assume a new form of identity. One thing many werewolves have in common is their struggle to adapt and come to terms with their lycanthropy. One prominent book series to feature werewolves, Kelley Armstrong’s Women of the Otherworld, is set in contemporary Canada. For the first few books in the series, Armstrong follows the progress of her heroine, reluctant werewolf Elena, as she learns to let go of her much-desired humanity and accept life as a werewolf. A key component of Elena’s development also involves her learning to accept her less-appealing personality traits – her tendency to violence and her moodiness. As 32

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Elena eventually admits, all her flaws were inherent in her well before she was turned into a werewolf: ‘I was a monster... Yet I had to admit the truth. Being a werewolf didn’t make me that way.’43 A perfectly valid Jungian reading would be to interpret this as Elena learning to accept the shadow, as werewolves must if they are to survive. But the difficulty with this reading is that these socially transgressive personality traits are not in fact the result of becoming a werewolf, a realization it takes Elena an entire novel to arrive at. Elena’s transformation means she is more prone to acting on her violent impulses and less inclined to suppress her anger, but she acknowledges that she was a moody, snappish and aggressive person even before becoming a werewolf. Elena’s shadow exists despite her lycanthropy, not because of it. Her troubled past and Elena’s resulting emotional scars are all very human in origin – she was orphaned at a very young age and has been sexually abused – and predate her lycanthropy. Elena even suggests that what might be termed the shadow is nearly always human in origin. When working as a journalist, she covers the story of a sadistic killer who is described in the press as a beast and an animal. Privately, she reflects that ‘the truth is, if a werewolf behaved like this psychopath, it wouldn’t be because he was part animal, but because he was still too human. Only humans kill for sport.’44 As in Borchardt’s fiction, what darkness there is in the personalities of Armstrong’s characters does not exist because they are lycanthropes, but because they are innately wicked or consciously choose to be cruel and violent. Whilst Armstrong’s lycanthropes are by no means as wise and benevolent as Borchardt’s, their viciousness is very much human. Anne Rice’s protagonist Reuben Golding is at first glance a more promising candidate for a Jungian reading of the werewolf. Prior to his being bitten and turned into what he comes to call the ‘ManWolf’, Reuben is a gentle, accomplished man from a privileged back­ground. He is so (apparently) carefree and things come so easily to him that his family and girlfriend refer to him as the baby of the family, the golden boy who has never truly known pain or suffering. Reuben has no obvious shadow, no dark side to his personality prior to his transformation. After he is infected with lycanthropy, his moral dilemmas and musings stretch across two books and remain unresolved by the conclusion of the second. Most unusually, Rice 33

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offers an explanation about the origins of lycanthropy, explain­ing that, thousands of years ago, a primitive ape-like subspecies of humanity evolved the ability to shape-shift into brutal, snarling canines when hunting or punishing wrongdoers. When a homo sapiens manages to acquire the ability (by being repeatedly bitten) he transforms into the first specimen of the altogether more sophisticated, discerning Man-Wolf. This beginning is strongly reminiscent of what Bourgault Du Coudray identifies as Jung’s ‘emphasis on evolutionary heritage’. She goes on to explain that ‘according to Jung’s logic, modern subjectivity is still shaped by residual impulses derived from humanity’s earlier, more bestial incarnation’.45 This is partially true in the case of Rice’s Man-Wolf, who, along with his lycanthropic compatriots, inherits his shape-shifting abilities from the earlier, more bestial creatures that died out thousands of years before the novel commences in present-day San Francisco. Yet a Jungian reading of Reuben’s emotional and spiritual journey is still not wholly satisfactory in that although the capacity to transform has its origins in the mysterious ape-like creatures, this evolution does not explain the moral intricacies Rice introduces to her depiction of lycanthropy. Reuben and his werewolf kindred possess the remarkable ability to sense evil, and a near-irresistible compulsion to eradicate and kill it. This manifests itself as vigilante action, in which the Man-Wolves hunt down and kill wicked people. The danger of this approach is that it will induce moral insensibility; why concern yourself with the ethics of murder when you can be sure all your victims are entirely deserving of it? This might be entirely in keeping with the emphasis on ‘evolutionary heritage’ attributed to Jung, given that wild wolves hunt because instinct compels them. Rice’s Man-Wolf does the same. The notion of the infallible wolfish avenger has appeared previously in at least one werewolf novel: Sparkle Hayter’s Naked Brunch (2002), in which lycanthropes can smell evil and target wrongdoers accordingly. However, Rice largely avoids creating this moral blindness in her werewolves and instead introduces numerous moral questions and quandaries for her characters to grapple with. Far from fully accepting his dark, violent tendencies, Reuben, the Man-Wolf, remains ambiguous about his lycanthropic existence, and the moral debate surrounding it continues into the second novel 34

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in the series, taking on a religious and philosophical cast as the story continues. Catholic mysticism and ritual abounds in the novel, which, atypically for the Gothic, does not demonstrate an antiCatholic sensibility.46 This is partly due to Reuben’s choice of confidant about his transformed state: his brother, Jim, a Catholic priest. During confession, Reuben tells him about being the ManWolf, and Jim is obliged to keep the secret because of his vows. However, confession in The Wolf Gift is not about Reuben receiving absolution for the murders he has committed as the Man-Wolf. Reuben is unrepentant about what he has done, viewing it as entirely justifiable, a stance that will be examined in more detail in Chapter 3. Instead he seeks out his brother in order to gain self-knowledge, using confession to puzzle out his new worldview and to construct a new subjectivity.47 He denies to Jim that he is losing his soul and becoming an uncomplicated, bloodthirsty monster, explaining that ‘I am Reuben, yes, but I’m Reuben under a new series of influences.’48 Reuben refers to these influences as ‘hormones’ and a ‘virus’ flowing through him and altering his biology in his conversation with Jim. Viewing his transformation through the prism of biology is one that allows Reuben to refute the concept of the beast within. He is not subject to a curse, or supernatural forces, and, most importantly, Reuben is not made responsible for containing an inner monster that overwhelms him at intervals. Instead, his self, his very being evolves to encompass his new lycanthropic status. He renegotiates his morality and asserts his subjectivity, albeit one undergoing dramatic change. This is a concept that could be applied to the contemporary werewolf in general, not just Rice’s Man-Wolf. Kelley Armstrong’s Elena, and Glen Duncan’s werewolves in his The Last Werewolf trilogy, are all conscious subjects when in werewolf form, as they are when fully human, but they are operating under a new series of influences, whether in the form of a lycanthropic virus, pure magic or something undefinable. They are not humans who turn into monsters once a month, nor are they Jungian were­ wolves, getting in touch with their primal heritages. They are works in progress, creatures developing new identities, making them up as they go. This process is most evident in the reflective, thoughtful Reuben, but it is apparent in nearly all contemporary werewolves that eschew 35

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the ‘classic’ werewolf model of the beast within. Armstrong’s Elena takes a long time to accept her lycanthropy, slowly acknowledging that her future lies with the werewolf pack and the werewolf who bit her. She resists the realization because, owing to the early deaths of her parents and a wretched childhood spent in foster care, she craves permanence, security and a place in human society. It is worth noting that the series is set in Canada, where, as Cynthia Sugar argues, Gothic is inextricably linked with historical anxiety, and, most particularly, with the desire for a sense of shared national history.49 Elena attempts to put down roots and connect with human society by working as a journalist, living with a human boyfriend and acting conventionally feminine, e.g. wearing skirts and lacy nightgowns that she hates. Her werewolf lover, Clay, regards these activities with scorn, telling Elena: To you, the only acceptable happiness comes in the ‘normal’ world, with ‘normal’ friends and a ‘normal’ man. You’re bound and deter­ mined to make yourself happy with that kind of life, even if it kills you.50

Nonetheless, by the end of the first book in the series, Elena finally acknowledges that she is better suited to life as a werewolf than life as a human. It is not the end of the evolution of her identity as a werewolf, though a Jungian analysis might conclude that Elena has accepted her shadow. However, the development of Elena’s subject­ ivity continues throughout Armstrong’s series, which involves her becoming a mother to two werewolf children and forging relation­ ships with other supernatural beings. Likewise, Glen Duncan’s werewolves do not necessarily lend themselves to Jungian analysis. Unlike Rice’s Man-Wolves, or even Armstrong’s Elena, desperately trying to hold on to some portion of her humanity, Duncan’s werewolves are more akin to the classic werewolf. They transform once a month at the full moon, only hunt humans and are mute when in werewolf form. They tell their story in the first person, however – including when they are trans­formed. They do not lose themselves entirely when transformed; they are still subjects, albeit ones with a craving to kill humans. Moreover, none of Duncan’s werewolves suffer any 36

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moral qualms about killing and eating people. Neither do they necessarily choose their victims from among criminals and wrong­ doers. The narrator of The Last Werewolf, the bored and rather self-consciously clever Jake Marlowe, actually chose his wife for his first victim, and the only regret he expresses is that she would have been a much better werewolf than he has ever managed to be. Duncan’s werewolves do not need to accept the shadow – it is already an intrinsic part of them. What is intriguing about Jake and his lycanthropic cohorts is the multiplicity inherent in their subjectivity. This is not the multifaceted personality of the Steppenwolf, but is due to what happens when a werewolf devours their human victim. Duncan’s werewolves absorb all the memories and emotions of the humans they eat, in essence taking their souls into themselves. One werewolf describes the experience: ‘his life, hurrying, grabbed all the above and countless other things on its way out (into me)’.51 There appears to be no limit to the number of people a werewolf can ingest in Duncan’s work, which means that a werewolf’s being is forever expanding to absorb and accommodate the people who have been eaten. Although Duncan’s werewolves easily accept their Jungian shadows, their personalities and identities are in a constant state of development and flux. So long as the werewolf is alive, they have the capacity to absorb more human souls. Their identities will continue to grow and expand infinitely; a statement that is also true of the werewolves created by Armstrong, Rice and numerous other contemporary authors. The contemporary werewolf is a work in progress; in many of these recent lycanthropic stories, you simply cannot turn into the same wolf twice. The concept of the continually-evolving self, of shifting and changing subjectivity, is one that has been advanced by two twentiethcentury theorists who differ radically from both Jung and Freud. Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari explored the concept of identity in relation to what they termed ‘multiplicities’. 52 A simplified explanation of their concept of identity is that it is not a fixed and immutable entity, but something that is forever changing, in a permanent state of flux. Like the author of ‘Treatise on the Steppenwolf’ in Hesse’s novel, they refute the Freudian notion of duality, as embodied in the conscious and the unconscious selves: 37

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The Nature of the Beast The distinction to be made is not at all between exterior and interior, which are always relative, changing, and reversible, but between different types of multiplicities that co-exist, interpenetrate, and change places – machines, cogs, motors, and elements that are set in motion at a given moment, forming an assemblage productive of statements: ‘I love you’ (or whatever).53

This statement is an extraordinarily accurate summary of the evo­ lution the fictional werewolf has undergone since the 1970s. The Freudian, classic werewolf is formed from an exterior human and an interior wolf; the beast within. The modern, subjective were­ wolf is made up of what Deleuze and Guattari term ‘multiplicities’: their thoughts, memories, experiences, what form they happen to be in at a given moment. This offers a new mode of identity that is not dependent on the other; that exists outside human subjectivity. Admittedly, this sounds remarkably similar to Jung: the concept of the personality as multiple fragments, with endless potential for development. However, Jung envisioned the personality on a journey to create a harmonious whole. Patricia McCormack, in an examination of Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of becoming, suggests that becoming-wolf (or werewolf), or what she terms ‘a posthuman project towards becoming-animal’,54 is in fact an end in itself. She explains ‘the venture, the becoming is the focus and the final form never arrives’.55 Appropriate, given that the were­ wolf is still undergoing the process of acquiring subjectivity. And unlike the rather static, unchanging classic werewolf (if that is the right description to use), which was always remarkably predictable, these new werewolves are continually evolving, always learning from their experiences. In applying Deleuze and Guattari’s theories to an examination of monsters, Patricia McCormack asserts that ‘we cannot ask what a werewolf or a vampire is as each is always changing’.56 The werewolf has always changed, one might argue, from man into wolf and back again. The ultimate divided self, it embodied numerous opposites, numerous polarities within its being: self and other, nature and civilization, masculine and feminine. However, the contemporary werewolf does not simply vacillate between these two fixed states of being. Steppenwolf charts the lycanthrope’s 38

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evolution with remarkable accuracy, from duality to multiplicity, from the Freudian beast within to something altogether more mellifluous and unpredictable. As the pamphlet ‘Treatise on the Steppenwolf’ explains to both Harry Haller and the readers of the novel, man has not yet reached a fixed and final form – he is still experimenting with different selves and identities.57 The same is true of the contemporary werewolf, which, instead of expressing a crisis of identity such as experienced by the classic werewolf, is representative of the struggle to attain, to formulate an identity to have a crisis about.

Freud vs Deleuze and Guattari Harry Haller’s spiritual development remains incomplete at the end of Steppenwolf: Haller himself admits that there is plenty of work still to be done, while David G. Richards suggests that ‘the primary factor in [Hesse’s] popular success may be his uncompromising commitment to the discovery and development of the self’.58 The werewolf’s current popularity is arguably due to the same commit­ ment: the discovery and ongoing development of a lycanthropic identity. For decades, the model of the beast within has served as metaphor for mankind’s conflicting drives and repressed desires, embodying polarities such as nature vs civilization, irrationality vs reason. But with the gradual rejection of the classic lycanthrope in contemporary popular culture, new forms of identity and subjectivity are gradually evolving to take its place. In Steppenwolf Harry Haller learns that the duality of man and wolf, which Hesse equates with Freud’s work on psychoanalytic theory, is an inadequate approach to understanding his self and his personality, and may actually be harming his already fragile mental state.59 Over the course of the novel Harry discards this concept of his self as a man and wolf at war with one another in favour of a Jungian methodology that allows for exploration of multifarious selves. There is a clear parallel in the development of the werewolf in popular culture over the last century. Like Harry, for years the lycanthrope has been viewed as an antagonistic amalgamation of human (the conscious self) and wolf (the suppressed, rampaging 39

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unconscious). But now the werewolf of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries is moving on from the beast within, and is undertaking the task of formulating a complete identity and attaining subjectivity. Contemporary critics such as Bourgault Du Coudray and Stypczynski have interpreted this development through the prism of Jungian theory, marking the werewolf’s reconnection with the natural world, a return of the wild impulses mankind has forgotten or neglected.60 However, the Jungian focus on the natural world and mankind’s neglected heritage does not account for other aspects of the werewolf’s new subjectivity and self-awareness, a development that is both individual and social. Despite this apparent contradiction, it is easy to explain. The development of lycanthropic subjectivity is very much an individual journey. Authors such as Armstrong and Duncan guarantee this focus by use of first-person narration, con­ centrating the attention of the audience solely on the moral and mental development (or decline) of an individual werewolf. Other examples of this device abound in contemporary werewolf fiction: Patricia Briggs’s Mercy Thompson series, Carrie Vaughn’s Kitty series and Jennifer Lynn Barnes’s Raised by Wolves series, to name but a few. Even in werewolf novels that are written in the third person, the werewolf’s emotional journey and spiritual growth are invariably at the centre of the story. A possible legacy of the werewolf’s centuries of being portrayed as an isolated creature, the werewolf’s journey towards subjectivity nonetheless often involves forming relationships with other individuals (both humans and werewolves) and in finding a place within a social group. Bourgault Du Coudray in her monograph identifies focus on the individual as Freudian and focus on the collective as Jungian.61 The thrust of her argument is that the modern werewolf (particularly those that originate in the fantasy genre) adopts a Jungian approach in the development of their subjectivity.62 However, Bourgault Du Coudray identifies the ultimate aim of the contemporary werewolf’s quest for spiritual development as the transcendence of conscious­ ness. Or, as she explains, ‘the sense of self (as conscious, reasoning subject) is shed through a sublime experience of connectivity’.63 Bourgault Du Coudray identifies this development in werewolf fiction as the product of the fantasy genre, and as a particularly 40

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subversive occurrence considering the importance of subject­ivity to modern and postmodern thought. She argues that the ‘supposedly “radical” or “subversive” subjectivities of the cyborg and the monster appear to pursue a rather conservative privileging of the subject by comparison with fantasy’s approach’.64 She concludes that, ultimately, fantasy provides a context for analysis and alteration of selfhood that allows werewolves to ‘survive, learn, develop ethical frameworks and achieve spiritual fulfilment’.65 Bourgault Du Coudray contrasts this with the more traditional Gothic werewolves, asserting that they are doomed to make the same mistakes over and over. Bourgault Du Coudray focuses heavily on the fantasy genre when making her argument about lycanthropes transcending, temporarily, their consciousness and their status as an isolated individual. The majority of werewolf novels and stories already cited in this chapter would probably be defined as horror or paranormal romance. However, regardless of how they are classified, the works featured here do focus on the individual attaining subjectivity rather than on what Bourgault Du Coudray terms a ‘sublime experience of connectivity’. Bourgault Du Coudray identifies the werewolf as characteristic of the postmodern construction of the self, with its transgression of boundaries and hybridity typical of late twentiethcentury modes of theorizing the self.66 The term postmodern is not an easy one to define, but Brian McHale identifies postmodernism as an ontological movement. That is, it is preoccupied with the nature of being, but also with the world in which the being finds itself. McHale argues that postmodernism raises questions about the very nature of the world, querying what a world is and how the self must adapt itself to differing ones.67 The idea of the world itself being unstable and difficult to define has drastic implications for the concept of the self, which in turn will be more unstable and difficult to define as it struggles to establish which world it is located in and the necessary actions it must take. In the latter half of the twentieth century, the theory that humans are mostly, if not wholly the product of their environments gained currency with sociologists. The ‘blank paper’ theory, that man has no innate nature or instincts and is entirely the product of his culture, is identified by Mary Midgley as being common amongst late twentieth-century sociologists and psychologists.68 It has proven 41

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particularly popular with gender theorists, notably Judith Butler, who argues that gender is not innate but something that humans are taught to perform over time.69 However, postmodern construct­ ivity theory is now being questioned by new models of subjectivity that rely on biology and genetics for an understanding of identity. Susan Oyama argues that the nature–nurture opposition is too re­ ductive and that nature in particular is not a fixed or immutable constant. All contributors to a subject’s nature ought to be included under the definition, including both genetics and the process of nurturing that the subject undergoes.70 Nonetheless, Oyama asserts that genetics play an important role in forming identity. This is true of the contemporary werewolf. Whether born a lycanthrope or turned into one, the werewolf differs biologically from humans, even in texts that use magic as an explanation for lycanthropy. Armstrong’s Elena Michaels informs her audience bluntly that werewolf blood is ‘screwed up’, though she does not offer an explanation as to why.71 Rice’s Reuben Golding finds his lycanthropic self leaves no trace – hair and blood samples taken from him degrade and dissolve within minutes, unlike those from a true human. The importance of genetics in distinguishing lycanthropes from humans in contemporary texts suggests that for the modern were­ wolf, identity is not something that is wholly shaped by society. Bill Hughes, in an examination of werewolves in Young Adult fiction, asserts that the werewolf, more than any other supernatural creature in contemporary pop culture, is subject to biological determinism.72 The werewolf is in the process of acquiring an identity, as I have argued throughout this chapter, which suggests a starting point – something essential and innate. While the were­ wolf is inarguably shaped by the society in which it finds itself, it is only since the 1990s that the werewolf has become a social animal and in some cases a functioning member of society (both human and lycanthropic). While no longer wholly defined by innate impulses as the classic werewolf was, the contemporary werewolf is still shaped from within rather than without. However, the focus on individual subjectivity, conservative or not, is still extraordinarily innovative when applied to the werewolf, which has traditionally been presented as beastly, irrational and uncivilized. It requires a new way of thinking about the self, one that moves past the old 42

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Freudian duality of conscious and unconscious, and which, owing to its emphasis on the individual, requires theories other than those of Jung, with his focus on the collective unconscious, to analyse it. This emphasis on individual subjectivity is at odds with what Bourgault Du Coudray terms ‘transcendence’, in which the were­ wolf (temporarily) loses their sense of self altogether. In the consciously Jungian Steppenwolf, at the climax of the novel the protagonist visits the mysterious Magic Theatre, in which he is told to leave his personality in the cloakroom.73 However, the struggle the contemporary werewolf is involved in is to retain their personality and their consciousness, rather than discard them. Maggie Stiefvater’s Young Adult series The Wolves of Mercy Falls, for instance, is centred round this struggle. The werewolves in Stiefvater’s series suffer from a mysterious medical condition that turns them into wolves when their body temperature dips sufficiently low, human when their temperature rises. The focus of the three books of the series is finding a cure for the condition that will allow the lycanthropes to maintain their humanity. This is eventually accomplished by eliminating the ability/necessity to turn into a wolf, owing to inducing a high fever in the lycanthrope undergoing treatment. Lycanthropy in Stiefvater’s work is traditional in that it represents the loss of the subjective human self. Beck, the werewolves’ leader in the first book in the series, Shiver (2009), makes it clear that when transformed his lycanthropes lose almost all sense of self. He describes the torment of his protégé, Sam: ‘I made a personal hell for him. He needs that sort of self-awareness, and when he loses that and becomes a wolf . . . it’s hell.’74 Although the werewolves retain some memories and sense of self when in wolf form, their wolfish brains are unable to process them in the same manner as their human consciousness. Stiefvater’s werewolf novels centre round the struggle to achieve a human subjectivity, and its resolution signals the end of her werewolf trilogy. For the majority of werewolves in contemporary fiction, however, the efforts to create and thereafter maintain a subjective identity are an ongoing process, one that will not be resolved easily or quickly. As Patricia McCormack comments, ‘we cannot ask what a werewolf or a vampire is as each is always changing’.75 The focus of the majority of contemporary werewolf fiction featuring the new 43

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werewolf is their journey towards subjectivity, rather than its voluntary abandonment as in the case of the Jungian werewolf or the complete, involuntary surrender of the self for the traditional werewolf. This is strongly reminiscent of Deleuze and Guattari’s work on identity – particularly their refutation of psychoanalysts and psychology, including the work of Carl Jung: The least that can be said be said is that the psychoanalysts, even Jung, did not understand, or did not want to understand. They killed becoming-animal, in the adult as in the child. They saw nothing. They see the animal as a representative of drives, or a representation of the parents. They do not see the reality of a becoming animal, that it is affect in itself, the drive in person, and represents nothing.76

If we apply Deleuze and Guattari’s theory to the contemporary werewolf, therefore, their wolfish transformations and traits no longer necessarily represent humanity’s dark side, baser impulses or repressed beastliness, but are simply an intrinsic part of the werewolf’s personality. As we have already seen, Kelley Armstrong’s werewolf Elena gradually comes to realize she cannot blame her vicious, bloodthirsty traits on her lycanthropy, which is her excuse for rather than the reason for them. As she acknowledges, with resignation rather than bitterness, she is a monster – but becoming a werewolf did not turn her into one. Monstrosity was inherent in her she was bitten.77 Likewise, in Rice’s The Wolves of Midwinter (2014) the werewolves are compelled to transform and destroy evil, which they are alerted to by scent. But Reuben, the central character of the series, comes to understand that this ability is not what shapes him and his lycan­ thropic companions. After watching his friends kill men who were cowardly but not evil, he realizes that ‘the scent of evil does not make us what we are, and once we are beasts we can kill like beasts, and we have only the human part of us, the fallible human part, to guide us’.78 Reuben’s unerring instinct for evil does not preclude him from making moral judgements or evolving as an individual, making mistakes and learning from them. In fact, it is emphasized that one of Reuben’s simultaneous weaknesses and strengths is his willingness to listen to criticism of himself and his actions. Reuben 44

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is not simply a werewolf; he is ‘becoming-wolf’, as Deleuze and Guattari define it. Reuben’s moral journey is the focus of Rice’s books; he may never arrive at a fixed form or identity, not least due to his immortality, which will force him to assume a new home and identity several times each century. No werewolf’s quest for subjectivity is ever complete in contemporary fiction – there is always something new to learn, a new society to integrate into or a moral renegotiation to undergo. Although Stiefvater’s werewolves retain their subjectivity by discarding their lycanthropy and becoming fully human, they represent the effort to attain subjectivity that is currently ongoing for the contemporary werewolf. Admittedly, the efforts to eliminate or cure their wolfish sides in the Mercy Falls series are reminiscent of the classic werewolf, for whom lycanthropy is an unmitigated curse. Similar efforts to control or at least contain their beastly sides are made by Remus Lupin in the Harry Potter series and by werewolves George and Nina in the BBC TV series Being Human (2008–13). Nonetheless, for the classic werewolf, containment of their monstrous alter ego is usually the best that can be hoped for. For the new werewolf, some sort of acceptance and even influence over their lycanthropy is possible as part of their ongoing efforts to attain subjectivity. Carrie Vaughn’s quick-talking, quick-thinking werewolf Kitty Norville offers an example of this, as she actually builds a career, business investments and social network around her lycan­thropy. Far from isolating her, lycanthropy also enables Kitty to form deep and lasting friendships and eventually a romance with the man/ werewolf who becomes her husband. Although Kitty does not possess full control over herself when she transforms into a wolf, neither does she become a ravening monster. At certain movements in the narrative, her lycanthropy becomes her greatest asset. During the events of the second book in the series, Kitty Goes to Washington, Kitty is imprisoned by her adversaries and forced to transform on camera. However, she does not behave as her enemies expect her to: Everyone stared at the wolf huddled in the corner. Frightened, she just wanted to be left alone . . . The broadcast cut off there. Watching a miserable wolf wasn’t that exciting, the network decided.79

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Kitty’s unwilling on-screen transformation mobilizes the concept of becoming. Anna Powell, in an analysis of Deleuze and the horror film, suggests that ‘as well as opening up unforeseen possibilities, becoming gives us a sense of solidarity with, and respect for, all forms of life’.80 The ‘unforeseen possibilities’ in Vaughn’s novels is actually the revelation to the world in general that werewolves, vampires and other supernatural creatures exist, and, somewhat unexpectedly, the decision on the part of the Supreme Court to acknowledge their existence and grant them the legal rights of American citizens – a decision aided by Kitty, her testimony, and her career in the media. Kitty’s lycanthropy does open unforeseen possibilities, both for herself in terms of her career and the life she leads, and for the society (human and werewolf) of which she is a part. Kitty’s respect for all forms of life is evident through the series: her network of friends and allies is ever-expanding. In Kitty Goes to Washington and subsequent novels, Kitty’s knowledge, under­ standing and personality (of both the world she finds herself in and the wolfish aspect of her nature) expands. Her being is not static, unchanging – her character is in a constant state of flux and development. Kitty is continually becoming, a process that has yet to reach its conclusion. It is a process that the werewolf in contemporary literature as a whole is undergoing. Examples of the new werewolf, the subjective werewolf, are becoming ever more frequent in fiction – though not, for some reason, in film.

The Contemporary Werewolf on Film Despite the recent innovations and development of the werewolf in popular fiction, examples of the beast within, the raveningmonster-once-a-month werewolf still abound in literature and especially film. J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series contains two of the best-known recent examples. There is the sympathetic Remus Lupin, who is one of the kindest, most gentle characters in the series, and the far more malevolent Fenrir Greyback, who is dedicated to furthering the cause of the villain Lord Voldemort. Another example is David Wellington’s werewolf duology, comprising Frostbite and Cursed, which puts an unusual spin on the werewolf 46

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legend by having his unfortunate lycanthropes transform every time the moon rises, regardless of its phase. And in the TV series Being Human and its American remake of the same name, werewolves undergo a horrifically painful transformation once a month and struggle to manage their lycanthropy, with varying degrees of success. The werewolf in many texts still represents humanity’s struggle to master its baser, more violent impulses, as it has done for thousands of years. This notion of the beast within has nonetheless come in for some recent criticism, despite its continuing popularity on film. Andrew Tudor, despite suggesting that audiences are attracted to the horror film because it resonates with their own inner beast, concealed under a veil of civilization, acknowledges that this is at best a partial explanation for the genre’s status.81 It does not establish why some viewers love the horror film and others hate it, and Tudor concludes that a more specific, contextual approach to horror film is necessary for fruitful analysis.82 The risk of being fatally reductive in labelling the werewolf as merely the beast within, in both critical and cultural terms, is more than apparent. Which makes it all the more curious that werewolves on film are such static, unchanging figures. It would be beyond the scope of this study to offer a thorough explanation as to why this is the case, as it would require a much more com­ prehensive examination of Gothic, the horror film and the werewolf than there is space for here. Nonetheless, Hollywood is notoriously reluctant to experiment and take risks on new material, so the triedand-tested beast within is the film industry’s preferred approach. The werewolf’s evolution on film has been much slower when compared with either its literary counterpart, or even the con­ temporary vampire. However, Barbara Creed identifies some gradual change in the cinematic werewolf, citing films such as Wolf (1994) and The Howling (1981) as examples of the werewolf embracing their lycanthropy, with the hirsute hero of Wolf allowed to live and thrive beyond the film’s ending.83 She argues that this survival is linked to the werewolf’s inherent connection with nature, a link also made by Bourgault Du Coudray.84 Creed suggests that One interpretation is that the horror and fantasy film represents the wolf-man as a sympathetic monster precisely because he represents

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This is explored in films such as Wolfen (1981) and The Howling, which place tremendous emphasis on the werewolf’s con­nection with wild, untamed nature – a connection that, if embraced, can allow the werewolf to, most unusually, survive beyond the end credits of the film. Perhaps curiously, this development in lycanthropic film has not been explored in great detail, except by Creed, whose analysis is focused predominantly on gender. Creed argues that the werewolf in film is part of a wider tradition, one of many shapechangers in popular culture that signifies ‘a deep-seated anxiety over the definition of what it means to be male and human’.86 Bourgault Du Coudray makes a similar observation, asserting that ‘the cinematic werewolf has become a perennial figure of masculine crisis’.87 This is in contrast to the werewolf in fiction, where the female werewolf has been gaining ground steadily and changing the traditional lycanthropic narrative; even the masculine renegotiation of identity in works by authors such as Rice and Gagliani is not so much a crisis as a gradual, philosophical contemplation of change. But the cinematic werewolf is still having an identity crisis, and it is perhaps worth noting that it is often gentle and meek men (mild-mannered Larry Talbot in The Wolf-Man, the unassuming Will Randall in Wolf ) who are turned into lycanthropes, often becoming aggressive, prone to violence and sexually insatiable. Becoming a wolf, in other words, makes a man out of them. The cinematic werewolf is typically encoded as male, and generally represents a crisis in masculinity that has yet to achieve any resolution. Although there are exceptions – Ginger Snaps and Cat People are the supreme examples of lycanthropy viewed as a feminine state – the werewolf on film remains resolutely masculine. The cinematic werewolf frequently represents the return of humanity’s repressed, animalistic sense. The cinematic werewolf, like its literary counterpart, is a Gothic creature. The cinematic werewolf is Gothic, according to the definition explored in the Introduction, in that it nearly always has to contend with what Baldick terms ‘a fearful inheritance’.88 Larry Talbot, in both the 1941 version of The Wolf-Man and its 2010 remake, is bitten and 48

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infected with lycanthropy on his return to his ancestral home. The unfortunate protagonist of An American Werewolf in London suffers a similar fate, being turned into a werewolf after visiting the Old World, as embodied in the wild moors of England. The cinematic werewolf differs from the contemporary werewolf in fiction in that it is unable to move beyond this inheritance and the past. The cinematic werewolf is still trapped in the classic representation of the werewolf as a (male) monster continually at war with itself, unable to find a socially acceptable form of masculinity. And also, as in fiction the cinematic werewolf has never been able to compete with the vampire in terms of popularity, and there are simply fewer films produced about werewolves, still fewer that allow for any kind of innovation concerning their lycanthropes. Subjectivity is still very much the domain of the literary werewolf – though one or two examples have appeared on television, such as the Canadian adaptation of Kelley Armstrong’s Bitten (2014–2016) and the British children’s series Wolfblood (2012–2017). Both of these, however, are centred round female werewolves, though male lycanthropes play prominent roles. It will be interesting to see how the cinematic werewolf develops in the near future; as an iconic figure representing forbidden masculine desires, or as a force for exploring new configurations of identity.

Why Has the Werewolf Changed? To date the reasons behind the werewolf’s development of subject­ ivity have not been explored extensively. The evolution of the werewolf might be due to the vampire’s previous attainment of subjectivity. Always closely related in the realms of fiction, where the vampire leads, the werewolf will eventually follow.89 It is a safe assumption that the werewolf has at the very least begun this process of assimilation. Western society has changed considerably since the 1970s, the time at which the fictional werewolf began to change, becoming more inclusive and accepting of differences in race, gender and sexual orientation. Several contemporary werewolf texts examine the revelation of lycanthropy to the world, and how it is dealt with both by the werewolves themselves and the human population. 49

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Patricia Briggs’s Mercy Thompson series has werewolves revealing themselves to the human population, albeit this is not a central theme of most of the novels in the series. Nor does Briggs address the reactions of the human population on discovering werewolves exist and are living among them. Carrie Vaughn’s Kitty Norville series deals with the issue much more directly. Kitty encounters prejudice from some people (generally religious fanatics) but American society as Vaughn depicts it is surprisingly accepting. Benjamin Percy’s werewolf novel, Red Moon (2013), by contrast, also depicts a world where lycanthropy is common knowledge, but uses it as a metaphor for the War on Terror, depicting underground lycanthropic terror­ ist cells plotting attacks on the human population and the brutal repressive measures taken against the werewolves by the US govern­ ment. As Percy’s novel makes clear, full assimilation of the werewolf into human society has yet to occur. Werewolves have not been domesticated as the vampire has. So why else has the werewolf been granted subjectivity? The werewolf’s connection with the Gothic is one strong impetus behind its striving for subjectivity. The Gothic has always emphasized subjective experience, as seen in classic Gothic texts such as Franken­ stein and the epistolary narrative of Dracula. The Gothic continues to be a popular genre of popular fiction, undergoing yet another revival in the early twenty-first century, with texts such Meyer’s Twilight series, Christopher Nolan’s Batman film trilogy and even Neil Gaiman’s bestselling novels for children such as Coraline and The Graveyard Book all displaying distinctly Gothic sensibilities. Subjective experience has always been a key component of the Gothic, even where its monsters are concerned. The tradition of monstrous subjectivity extends as far back as Mary Shelley’s Franken­ stein (1818), in which the astoundingly eloquent monster tells Victor Frankenstein of his sufferings – albeit filtered through the words and perceptions of first Victor and then the ship’s captain hearing Victor’s sorry tale. If the werewolf is inherently a Gothic monster, then this development of lycanthropic subjectivity is unsurprising. Perhaps the surprise is it has taken so long to occur. However, prior to the late twentieth century werewolves were not as prolific as the vampire in Gothic novels and short stories, nor is there a founding werewolf text in the manner of Dracula for 50

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vampires. Werewolves existed on the margins in more than one sense throughout the nineteenth and most of the twentieth centuries, and it is only now that they are being welcomed into the fold. Throughout this chapter werewolves have been referred to, whereas for decades if not centuries, werewolf (singular) would have been more accurate. The werewolf has always been a particularly isolated, alienated monster, for the simple reason there was seldom more than one werewolf in existence at a time in horror films such as The Wolf-Man and The Werewolf of London, or in novels such as Wagner the Werewolf and Clemence Housman’s The Were-Wolf (1896). This is simply no longer the case: werewolves are beginning to proliferate, with Rice’s Wolf Gift Chronicles and Duncan’s The Last Werewolf trilogy (despite the name) all featuring communities of werewolves, and authors such as Carrie Vaughn, Patricia Briggs and Kelley Armstrong all depicting werewolf packs and societies. This is a development that has been made possible by the growth of lycanthropic subjectivity, and which will be explored in detail in the next chapter.

Conclusion Since the late twentieth century, the werewolf has undergone signifi­cant change in Western popular fiction, with authors recog­ nising the potential of lycanthropic subjectivity. But lycanthropic subjectivity has not yet fulfilled that potential. The contemporary werewolf in the majority of texts must undergo an examination and exploration of the self – their consciousness, their personality, their morality and ethic – and in many instances must renegotiate their understanding of themselves and the world they find themselves in as a result of their lycanthropy. Several critics have interpreted this process through Jungian theory, arguing that the contemporary werewolf has learned to accept the shadow and thus ensure its own survival. However, the werewolf’s subjectivity is still unfinished, with the traditional beast within continuing to exert a powerful hold over Western culture and the collective imagination. The werewolf is still in the process of becoming, with multiple texts depicting its evolution. Whilst it is tempting to view this merely as 51

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human and wolf reaching an accord, reconciling the disparate parts of their personality, as in Steppenwolf, this is an overly simplistic view. It is impossible to distinguish where beastliness truly dwells – humans are as likely to be vicious and violent as werewolves, whereas werewolves can often be peaceable and sociable. There are what Deleuze and Guattari term multiplicities to consider, numerous different situations, social settings and personality fragments to reconcile into a cohesive whole. Nor is the contemporary werewolf wholly shaped by external factors. New modes of theorizing the self has suggested the impact of biology and genetics upon identity, suggesting instincts and innate characteristics also play an important role in forming the self. The complexity of lycanthropic subjectivity has ensured that the werewolf is still undergoing the process of becoming a full subject, and what further developments occur as a result of this evolution remain to be seen.

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2 Do You Enjoy the Company of Wolves? The Lycanthrope, the Werewolf Pack and Human Society  The Werewolf and Language? The werewolf has, for centuries, been the most solitary of monsters. Even in the rare instances where a fictional werewolf found acceptance amongst humans, such as in Marie De France’s Bisclavret, where the werewolf becomes a companion of his king when in wolf form, they remained unique, the only one of their kind. The classic film The Wolf-Man refers to a Man rather than Men. Landmark lycan­ thropic tales such as Housman’s The Were-Wolf and George Reynold’s Wagner the Werewolf focused on a single werewolf with no mention of any others. In recent years, however, this has begun to change. The fictional werewolf has begun to emulate the wild wolf, canis lupus, by increasingly being presented as a member of a pack: a family or a social unit. This is a development that is very much the province of literature. Multiple werewolves have been featured in films such as Underworld (2003) and Wolfen (1981), although in both instances, there was little apparent social cohesion or systems among the lycanthropes. Occasional werewolf packs have appeared on television, such as the motley but loyal collection of lycanthropes in the BBC TV series Being Human (2008–13), a family of werewolves in the children’s series Wolfblood (2012–17) and in the Canadian TV series Bitten (2014–16), based on Kelley Armstrong’s book of the same name. But for the most part, the werewolf pack remains

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more popular in fiction than it does onscreen. Werewolf packs in any form of media, print or visual, were virtually unheard of before the 1980s. The wolf pack, by contrast, has a long history in literature: the wolves who raise Mowgli in The Jungle Books are perhaps the most famous example. But what about the werewolf pack? What is its (brief) history, its reasons for coming into being? Before proceeding, it is important to define what is meant by the term ‘pack’ in relation to this chapter. It means that rather than living in seclusion, or even as a motley collection of persons, werewolves have begun to be presented as a closely-knit, carefully structured unit, with a leader, rules, regulations and methods of dispensing justice, together with a strictly ordered social hierarchy. The werewolf has begun to form societies, defined for the purposes of this chapter simply as a definite population living together.1 As demonstrated in Chapter 1, the advent of the pack has had significant implications for lycanthropic subjectivity, and also mirrors the reconceptualization of identity from staunch individualism to a product of group membership that has taken place since the 1960s.2 The literary werewolf’s subjectivity and its evolution has shadowed this development, with the pack now forming an essential component in the contemporary lycanthropy’s identity. Depending upon the author, the pack may be a coded represen­ tation of the family, of a wider community, or of both. In Toby Barlow’s Sharp Teeth (2008), lycanthropic packs even operate as street gangs, staking out territory in downtown Los Angeles. Numer­ ous examples of the pack as family and community have begun to appear in recent years, with werewolves forming their own societies that are often (but not always) distinct from the human societies they may simultaneously find themselves in. To be a pack lycanthrope is often considered superior to living in isolation: in Armstrong’s Women of the Otherworld series, lone werewolves are referred to disparagingly as mutts and are viewed as a nuisance at best and criminals at worst. In Rachel Vincent’s Faythe Sanders series about a pride of werecats, lone cats are called strays and are often treated brutally, regardless of their offences or their merits. These are just two examples – but what is worth noting is that these lone wolves (or cats) are nearly always male. In both Armstrong’s and Vincent’s series, females are considered too rare and valuable to be allowed 54

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to live separately from a social or family group. Depressingly, it is also often too dangerous for them to live alone, with sexual violence an inescapable threat. The evolution of the werewolf pack, its members and outsiders, both on-screen and in print, is very much a gendered development. Hannah Priest, in an examination of the contemporary female werewolf, observes that The socialisation of werewolves privileges idealised feminine char­ acteristics of communication and negotiation over the predatory and solitary aggression found in literary traditions of presenting male werewolves.3

Priest also observes that social units tend to form themselves around female werewolves, even if the female werewolf in question is inherently unsociable and desires to live alone. Toby Barlow’s Sharp Teeth observes that every werewolf pack needs a woman, to promote cohesion among the males who band together to protect her and remain in the pack in hopes of mating with her. Even though Barlow’s pack is composed primarily of male werewolves, when the (feminine) facilities of communication and negotiation between the werewolves break down, the pack almost literally tears itself apart. In another instance, the deeply anti-social and psychologically troubled protagonist of Martin Millar’s Lonely Werewolf Girl series, Kalix, is exiled from her family after defeating her father, the pack ruler in combat, is separated from her lover and feuds with nearly everyone she meets. Yet despite her inherently unsociable disposition, a social unit still forms around her when two well-meaning students take her in, a fire elemental befriends her and she strikes up an odd rapport with her cousin Dominil. The werewolf’s two aspects – human and wolf – suggests the potential for simultaneous integration and division. The werewolf may be accepted into human society, but will always be a breed apart. Yet gaining acceptance into a werewolf society that exists alongside humanity may be both difficult and undesirable, particularly for female werewolves. Deleuze and Guattari argue that for human beings, life is divided into segments, in both a social and a special sense.4 The same is also true of werewolves, who are often segmented between human and lycanthropic society in contemporary fiction, 55

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and are segmented further depending on the structure of the pack, whether or not they pursue a career among humans and whether or not they have a mate and children. However, one thing the werewolf seldom is in contemporary fiction is solitary. Since the nineteenth century, under the influence of Freudian theory, the werewolf has been segmented, its personality split. It was, however, the werewolf’s personality, its inner self that was fragmented. Following the advent of the subjective werewolf, the challenge facing the modern lycanthrope is that it is often at odds with some or all of the segments that make up its external existence, and must learn to reconcile them, whether the hostile segment consists of family, human society, a romantic relationship or the werewolf pack. This emphasis on lycanthropic socialization and interaction with others, whether humans or werewolves, has both evolved from, and forms, an interesting parallel with the developments in lycan­ thropic subjectivity explored in the previous chapter. As Nick Mansfield suggests, the subject is defined by its links and associations and, crucially, the werewolf’s new subjectivity is shaped by its new position in society and its ability to form relationships with both other werewolves and humans.5 This demonstrates the influence of new theories concerning human identity, in which subjectivity is ‘increasingly seen not as a function of individual enlightenment, but rather as the product of institutions such as the military, govern­ ment, church and school through which the individual is rendered subject to society’.6 Although the majority of werewolf packs do not have a religious function or formal educational institution (though education is often a vital component of life in a werewolf pack), they always have a system of government and many packs have a violent, quasi-dictatorial nature, with regular fights and struggles for dominance taking place. Regardless of what institutions a werewolf pack may or may not possess, the crucial role of society in shaping the identity of an individual has begun to be acknowledged in werewolf fiction, following on from new ways of thinking about human identity as explored in Chapter 1. The werewolf is no longer necessarily engaged in a struggle against itself as it was when the beast within reigned supreme. The werewolf is now struggling to establish its own identity in an often-hostile environment – sometimes 56

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a wolf pack where violence reigns supreme, sometimes in a fearful and suspicious human world. This martial atmosphere in contemporary werewolf fiction almost inevitably favours male werewolves. Packs are often structured as a patriarchy, to the extent that this has become virtually a default method of depicting the werewolf pack in fiction. There are ex­ ceptions, of course, but the patriarchal pack has become a staple of contemporary werewolf fiction. Patriarchy in this context is taken to mean a society in which women are defined solely by their relationships to men, who typically wield more power than women.7 Examples of this include Patricia Briggs’s Mercy Thompson series, where female werewolves share their ranking in the pack hierarchy with that of their mates, irrespective of their own merits.8 There is also Vincent’s series Faythe Sanders series, where male werecats outnumber females five to one and thus females are expected to marry young and devote their lives to childbearing and rearing while their mates govern the pride (the werecat equivalent of a pack) and control finances and territory. Nonetheless, many books, particularly those by female authors, depict the ways in which female lycanthropes resist and sometimes escape patriarchal control. And conversely, despite the continuing popularity of the patriarchal pack in contemporary fiction, female leadership is also gradually becoming more common in werewolf literature, with a growing number of novels depicting female leaders, or alphas, of werewolf packs. The pack, typically, is composed of lycanthropes, usually were­ wolves, but humans and other supernatural creatures are counted among its members in some instances. Jennifer Lynn Barnes’s Raised by Wolves series focuses on a human girl raised by werewolves who eventually becomes the alpha of her own pack. Briggs’s Mercy Thompson is a skinwalker, a were-coyote raised by werewolves and who is a species apart from both humans and werewolves. Relationships (often forbidden) between humans and lycanthropes are a staple of Young Adult fiction in particular, with Annette Curtis Klause’s Blood and Chocolate (1997) and Christine Johnson’s Claire de Lune (2010) both portraying werewolf girls in love with human boys. Klause’s couple break apart after the revelation of the girl’s lycanthropy, but Johnson’s remain together and optimistic about their future. Inclusivity and diversity are themes explored in numerous 57

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modern werewolf novels: the pack sometimes provides a refuge and social network for misfits and those who are unable to find acceptance in any other setting. Society has changed considerably since the advent of the beast within in the nineteenth century, with the law in the United States and numerous other Western nations acknowledging the rights of women, gay men and lesbians, ethnic minorities and the disabled to be regarded as free and equal. Monsters too, often chosen as representative of the other, are no longer necessarily excluded from society. Both humans and other monsters are more willing to accept them. This process of integration is explored in Charlaine Harris’s Southern Vampire Mysteries, Carrie Vaughn’s Kitty Norville series and, to a lesser extent, Patricia Briggs’s Mercy Thompson series. Elsewhere, werewolves are shown coming together and forming their own communities and remaining separate and secret from human society, such as in Rice’s Wolf Gift Chronicles. These trends are also explored in a wider setting in works such as Carrie Vaughn’s Kitty Norville series, where werewolves reveal their existence to humanity. The socialization of the werewolf often features them struggling, in true lycanthropic fashion, to find accept­ ance both within the pack and also within the wider human world. Sometimes the lycanthrope in question is forced to relinquish one or the other: Anne Rice’s Reuben Golding, by the second book in the series, finds himself having to increasingly withdraw from his family and human friends, a process that will be accelerated in years to come as they age and he does not. Carrie Vaughn’s Kitty is exiled from her pack at the climax of the first book in the series, Kitty and the Midnight Hour, although she does eventually return to assume its leadership in a subsequent work. Nonetheless, lycanthropes often find themselves having to adapt to both human and werewolf societies, human and werewolf traditions, and human and werewolf laws. This may be a personal desire of the part of the werewolf, or it may be necessary to protect werewolves as a whole. As Kitty Norville explains in Kitty Goes to War, werewolves have survived till that point because of secrecy, because they have remained hidden from humans. But with Kitty pursuing a career in the media, secrecy is no longer an option, and the stakes are high. As Kitty observes, one false step by the werewolf community could ensure they are perceived as monsters rather than fellow citizens.9 58

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The complex and sometimes strained relations between lycan­ thropes and the rest of humanity are coming under increasing scrutiny in contemporary fiction, particularly in fiction produced since the events of 9/11. Benjamin Percy’s novel Red Moon is a noteworthy example of this. Percy’s texts follows the interwoven stories of several protagonists in a world where werewolves, called lycans in the book, are a minority group who are regarded with understandable, even justifiable, fear and suspicion by the human population. A violent faction of lycans are carrying out terrorist actions such as bombings and mass slaughters of humans. However, the oppressive and brutal treatment of lycans by successive US governments has aggravated the tensions to boiling point as the novel commences. The book has been described by one reviewer as the world’s first post-9/11 werewolf story.10 Although Percy’s novel is certainly not the first werewolf novel to be influenced by the events of 9/11, it is the first to deal so openly with the changes in society and subsequent actions that resulted, and presumably it will not be the last.

The Origins of the Pack in Popular Fiction Although critics have explored the werewolf’s relations to society as a whole,11 the pack in popular fiction has not received extensive analysis to date. It is difficult to pinpoint the first appearance of the werewolf pack in popular fiction, but the werewolf began to be presented as a social animal sometime in the early 1990s. This places the origins of the pack shortly after the advent of the subjective, thinking and reasoning werewolf. A logical progression, given that in order to exist in a social unit werewolves must be capable (if not always willing) of obeying the laws of that particular society and in reaching some sort of accord with their fellow citizens, family members or pack brethren. The classic werewolf, a ravening beast, must either be contained or exiled by society in order to preserve the status quo. The subjective werewolf, by contrast, is beginning to integrate themselves into either a human or a wolfish social unit – sometimes both. The wild wolf is a social animal, existing in packs that function as family units, providing protection, companionship 59

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and support in the fight for survival, and contemporary werewolves are adopting the same mode of existence. Cheri Scotch’s The Werewolf’s Kiss (1992) is one of the earliest texts to present werewolves living in a social group, based in New Orleans. Although the werewolves in Scotch’s novel are a looseknit group with no real hierarchy or written rules or laws, there is a great deal of familial affection between them, and they have a leader of sorts in the shape of the lycanthrope Zizi, one of the oldest among them, who takes it upon herself to teach and instruct new or would-be lycanthropes in the ways and traditions of the werewolf. Nonetheless, Scotch’s novel does not fit the definition offered at the start of this chapter. The earliest examples of the werewolf pack are therefore found in the late 1990s and early 2000s, notably in Annette Curtis Klause’s Blood and Chocolate and in Armstrong’s Women of the Otherworld series – Bitten was first published in 2000. Significantly, one of the most frequent developments in recent werewolf fiction to feature the pack is the interesting fact that it is nearly all written by female authors. Although the pack has sometimes appeared in fiction by male authors, such as Toby Barlow’s Sharp Teeth and Martin Millar’s Lonely Werewolf Girl series, male authors tend to favour the traditional depiction of the ‘lone wolf’,12 or else portray lycanthropes in loose, motley collections of individuals with little social cohesion, such as in David Wellington’s Ravaged (2010), where his group of werewolves dislike and mistrust one another, and only stay together for survival. In contrast, the carefully structured and governed pack, bound by ties of blood and/or loyalty, is becoming a sufficiently common convention in fiction by women for it to be taken note of. The central role played by the female werewolf in forming social units or allowing social units to form around her is often reflected by the gender of the author. Female authors are especially concerned with the role their female werewolves play in society, their negotiation of relationships with their families and prospective romantic partners and ways in which women can resist and subvert unfair and biased systems of government and social expectations. As Judith Butler observes, gender is intimately bound up with social structure and, in particular, the expectations imposed on females. She argues that gender overlaps race, class, sexuality and nationality in forming identities, and varies considerably according 60

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to historical context. Hence gender cannot be separated from the historical and social situation that produces it.13 Accordingly, the gendered expectations of the pack are linked to their political structure and lycanthropic culture – which, in fiction to date, has shown a marked tendency to be patriarchal in nature. Male werewolves are therefore typically expected to be hypermasculine – dominant, aggressive, prone to violence and overtly sexual – while female werewolves, despite being just as beastly as their male counterparts, are expected to be more submissive, docile and obedient within the environs of the lycanthropic pack. Few of the werewolves examined in this study, both male and female, live up to these expectations, and this conflict between societal expectation and personal inclination forms the basis of many storylines featuring the werewolf pack. The fact that numerous packs in werewolf fiction are presented as patriarchal societies suggests that feminine resistance to oppressive social structures is a particular concern for female authors, their female werewolves and, by extension, their female readers. A patriarchal society assigns only limited roles to women, most com­ monly those associated with care-giving and nurturing; mother, caretaker, wife, nurse and so forth. This has serious implications for female subjectivity. Radha Chakravarty observes that If the traditional individual is seen as unchanging essence, the post­ structuralist subject is not identical with the ‘person’, but refers, rather, to the conglomeration of positions which a person is required to inhabit, by the discursive or historical frameworks within which he or she is situated.14

The poststructuralist female werewolf is, according to this definition, the roles she is obliged to inhabit, which are always defined in relation to male werewolves. The female werewolf within the patriarchal pack is a mate, a mother, a daughter but rarely possesses power or wields any kind of influence. Particular emphasis is placed on breeding, if the female werewolf is capable of doing so, in texts such as Rachel Vincent’s Faythe Sanders series. Although the female werewolf may be partially defined by her general werewolf biology, as explored in Chapter 1, this does not distinguish her if she is a 61

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member of a lycanthropic pack – she is defined by the roles assigned her. The female werewolf’s choices are therefore to accept the limits placed on her subjectivity, or, as more commonly occurs, resist them and attempt to achieve her own subjectivity and identity. On one level this use of the female werewolf and the patriarchal pack is unsurprising. Lori Gruen, in her examination of the symbolic functions of women and animals in Western culture, argues that historically both women and animals have been coded as subservient, as the other, which has allowed men to dominate them and to justify doing so.15 With women and animals serving the same function – that of submission to men – it is only logical that the female werewolf, an amalgamation of woman and animal, is used to explore this submissive status and whether it is warranted or the unfortunate result of circumstance and history. Quite often, an author appears to have created a pack in order to criticize it, and in order to see what results from this criticism – whether the narrator manages to change her pack, leaves it behind or is eventually reconciled to it.

The Patriarchal Pack and the Exceptional Female The very concept of the patriarchal pack is a curious contradiction, considering that the female werewolf is apparently essential to their cohesion. This construction of the fictional pack as male-dominated does not correspond to the formation of wild wolf packs either. Barry Lopez notes that in the wild, female wolves may lead packs, often outlasting a succession of alpha males, and that they always have a profound influence on pack decisions and activities.16 More­ over, Lopez observes that whilst humans have a tendency to draw parallels between their social structure and that of animals, in the case of the wolf pack, the analogy is a poor one because in many Western cultures women continue to have a status subordinate to that of men. The patriarchal pack, therefore, does not draw its inspiration from the wild wolf pack, but offers a commentary on contemporary Western society. This is unsurprising, given that the pack appears most frequently in fiction by female authors.17 The structure of the patriarchal pack has gradually begun to change – 62

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female alphas are becoming increasingly frequent in contemporary werewolf fiction – but the high rate of recurrence of the patriarchal pack in lycanthropic literature is worth noting. One of the rationales behind the patriarchal pack in fiction is that female lycanthropes are often presented as being much rarer than males, and therefore the pack shapes itself according to the needs and desires of the masculine majority. At the beginning of the Women of the Otherworld series Kelley Armstrong’s Elena is the only female werewolf in the world. In Meyer’s Twilight series there is only one female werewolf among numerous males, Leah Clearwater. Anne Rice’s man-wolves are indeed comprised mostly of men. An exception to this rule can be found in what I shall term the exceptional female lycanthrope, a common convention in con­ temporary werewolf fiction. The exceptional female werewolf is frequently the focus of the narrative, and is often a lone insider in an otherwise exclusively masculine world. These female werewolves are exceptional in that they are female, but also often because of their own personal qualities. Armstrong repeatedly emphasizes her female werewolf’s attractiveness and intelligence. Other authors emphasize the same qualities, though toughness and courage also often feature prominently. Deleuze and Guattari’s examination of multiplicities also acknowledges this societal predisposition towards producing exceptional individuals, stating ‘wherever there is multi­ plicity, you will also find an exceptional individual, and it is with that individual that an alliance must be made in order to become animal’.18 Accordingly, these exceptional female werewolves serve as narrators and guides for the audience, often proffering explanations about werewolf society, pointing out injustices and providing a sympathetic or compelling character for audiences to identify with. As Deleuze and Guattari go on to explain, ‘every Animal has its Anomalous’,19 and the numerous female werewolves featured in contemporary texts are anomalous because they have greater degrees of courage, intelligence or determination. Or, conversely, they are anomalous because they lack certain characteristics that are considered desirable in women, both human and lycanthropic. They will be deficient in patience, submissiveness and have no predisposition towards sacrificing themselves for the good of others, or to conform to societal expectations of the self-sacrificing woman. 63

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Hannah Priest has identified an expectation that female werewolves should be selfless and willing to martyr themselves for the greater good in contemporary fiction – particularly Young Adult fiction.20 For instance, Andrea Cremer’s YA Nightshade series centres on a young female werewolf named Calla, who endangers herself repeat­ edly for the good of her pack and the boy she falls in love with and is glad to do so, as duty and her personal inclination happily coincide at numerous points in the narrative.21 By contrast, Stephenie Meyer’s sole female werewolf, Leah Clearwater, is presented un­sympathetically as making life difficult for the male werewolves owing to personal heartbreak and resentment over her transformation. Prior to her becoming a werewolf, Leah’s lover, Sam, underwent his own transformation and subsequently ‘imprinted’ on Leah’s cousin Emily. ‘Imprinting’, as depicted by Meyer, is an involuntary process in which a werewolf creates an unbreakable emotional bond with their destined soul mate. No one in this love triangle – Sam, Leah or Emily – is presented as having any choice in the matter. Despite Leah’s efforts to make the best of the situation, once she becomes a werewolf she enters into a telepathic connection with the entire pack and everyone, Sam included, learns of her emotional turmoil and anger at this turn of events. Instead of offering support and understanding, the rest of the pack are resentful towards Leah for making life difficult for them. When protagonist Bella expresses sympathy for her, reflecting that it must be painful to lose a love, her vampire boyfriend Edward reacts scornfully, scoffing that ‘she’s making life exceedingly un­pleasant for the rest of them. I’m not sure she deserves your sympathy.’22 That Leah may also be finding her new life and status difficult is not addressed or even mentioned within the narrative, nor is she complimented for fulfilling her duty despite the most trying of circumstances. Doing one’s duty is not sufficient: the female is expected to glory in her self-sacrifice. Bella Swann fulfils this expectation perfectly and accordingly serves as the trilogy’s heroine. As Hannah Priest points out, ‘given that the existence of werewolves in the Twilight series is predicated on such narratives of sacrifice, it is hardly surprising that the series’ only female lycanthrope is expected to deny self-preservation in favour of tribal duty’.23 Leah, despite her inner turmoil, is a dutiful werewolf and subordinates her personal desires for the good of the pack. She 64

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follows orders and protects her fellow werewolves – although she is not without a streak of rebelliousness, or possibly self-interest. When Jacob Black, another werewolf and secondary love interest of series protagonist Bella Swann, leaves to form his own pack (mostly to protect Bella) Leah follows him, as doing so will allow her to sever her telepathic connection with Sam and the other unsympathetic male werewolves. However, Meyer does offer an alternative viewpoint from Bella’s would-be lover and werewolf Jacob, who reflects in exasperation that ‘the girl [Bella] was a classic martyr. She’d totally been born in the wrong century. She should have lived back when she could have gotten herself fed to some lions for a good cause.’24 Nonetheless, Jacob’s opinion is a minority one in the Twilight series – and in most werewolf packs in popular fiction, where the female werewolf must serve the greater good and refrain from expressing any discontent with the situation. Despite her bitterness at her lycanthropic state Leah is exceptional simply by virtue of being a werewolf, as is Armstrong’s Elena Michaels, and other female lycanthropes who are a minority in a man-wolf’s world. These exceptional female werewolves must be clever, tough and brave in order to survive in the often-brutal atmosphere of the patriarchal pack. The female werewolf often has to contend with physical violence and even the threat of sexual assault and rape. Other examples of the pack show females as protected by the males, but demonstrate that oppression also comes in ideo­ logical form. Ruth Bleier describes, in her analysis of patriarchy, how patriarchal societies assign subordinate, inferior social roles to women. These roles encourage specific characteristics that are considered feminine: passivity, desire for approval, being loving and caring, obedient and empathetic.25 Rachel Vincent’s Faythe Sanders series emphasizes these expectations of werecat women. Owing to the low birth rate for females as compared to males, women are expected to marry young (Faythe receives her first marriage proposal aged just sixteen), to have a large family in the hopes of producing a girl, and devote their lives to caring for and nurturing their families. Even if a female werecat (known as tabbies in the novels) attains power, it is often to act as a pacifying force. Faythe’s homemaker mother, the only other tabby in Faythe’s pride at the start of the series, astonishes her daughter 65

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by informing her she once sat on the ruling council comprised of all the pride leaders. Her role, however, was primarily as peacekeeper: the male werecats were volatile and hot-tempered when gathered together, and Faythe’s mother typically acted as the voice of reason and pacification.26 Faythe’s mother embodies almost to a fault the virtues that Bleier claims patriarchal orders assign women. She is patient (a necessity when dealing with Faythe), loving, caring and nurturing. Faythe, a hot-tempered, impatient and rebellious individual, is a complete contrast to her mother, and often confuses and appals the men (the toms) in her pride with her lack of feminine characteristics. Nonetheless, her fierceness and ability to fight serve her well when she is threatened by enemies, which are typically toms – either strays or males from a rival pride. Faythe is exceptional even among the few tabbies who populate her world, few of whom show any inclination for resisting the control of their alpha, typically their father or husband. Faythe is an example of one method of resisting patriarchal control – the direct method. She is outspoken, non-compliant and prone to casual violence. Faythe represents one end of the spectrum in resisting an oppressive social system: the other extreme is represented by Patricia Briggs’s Alpha and Omega series and its heroine, Anna. Set in Chicago, the series focuses on Anna, who was turned into a werewolf against her will and since then has been the victim of a long campaign of abuse, bullying and financial and sexual exploitation at the hands of her pack.27 Anna, in true fairy tale romance style, is eventually rescued by the nearest the werewolf world has to a handsome prince – the son of the supreme leader of the werewolves, Charles Cornick. Charles is a rescuer with a dark side, however: he works as his father’s enforcer of rule and law, and it is implied that he also serves as executioner when required. Nonetheless, the story of Charles and Anna follows the typical romance pattern: he falls in love with her at first sight (or at least his wolf-half does). After taking Anna as his mate, Charles ensures her freedom by killing the alpha responsible for her treatment, Leo. He also reveals the reason Anna was targeted and turned into a werewolf: Anna is an Omega werewolf, the peculiarity of which is that they have a soothing, calming effect on everyone around them, lending feelings of peace and security. She is also remarkable in that the Omega stands outside pack structure, 66

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having neither a high nor a low ranking, a rarity in the strictly hierarchical werewolf society Briggs depicts. An Omega is invaluable to a werewolf pack, where the wolves are nearly always on the verge of losing control and causing carnage. When Anna is near, however, the ‘beast within’ dwindles into nothing, almost as if Anna is a mythical maiden who can tame savage beasts. The presence of an Omega werewolf within a pack is a bonus as it means fewer werewolves have to killed (again, for the good of the pack) because they cannot exercise sufficient self-control. Anna was brought into the pack for self-serving reasons, however. The Alpha’s mate Isabelle had gone insane and killed all the other female werewolves in the pack from jealousy. Anna’s status as Omega keeps Isabelle calm and rational. In order to thwart Isabelle’s jealousy towards another woman, Leo proceeded to brutalize Anna into terrified submission and countenanced her sexual abuse, until Isabelle, who retained enough sanity to feel pity for Anna, intervened and protected her. Anna had little other recourse against this treatment as it is sanctioned by the Alpha and she cannot defend herself physically against stronger, more vicious male werewolves – it is implied that her Omega nature means she is gentle and passive by werewolf standards. ‘She didn’t want to be dominant and have to fight and hurt people’ Anna thinks plaintively at one point.28 It is a compassionate perspective, but one that means she is utterly unsuited to life as a werewolf. Her subjugation and eventual rescue by a handsome man ensures that Anna’s story follows the plot of the typical romance novel, albeit with some exaggeration – murder is not suggested as a solution in the majority of romance novels. Anna’s lack of power and status as victim provide the impetus for the story, as Charles instantly feels the urge to protect her. In this respect, Anna’s powerlessness is presented as something to be celebrated, and paradoxically her powerlessness is presented as truly powerful – she encourages passivity in others, after all. Sue Wilkinson and Celia Kitzinger suggest that a feminist reading of traditional romance fiction is problematic not only because it eroticizes the power of men, but also because it eroticizes women’s helplessness and lack of power.29 Although the abuse meted out to Anna is not eroticized, her victim status is to a certain extent, as necessitated by the story’s traditional romance 67

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structure. If Anna were capable of escaping or standing up to the tyrannical alpha without the assistance of her future husband Charles, the primary motivation for the story would be lost. And her relation­ship with Charles is presented as highly desirable, especially for a female werewolf. Despite the female lycanthrope’s role at the centre of lycanthropic social units, as noted by Hannah Priest, many of them find sustaining a heterosexual romance difficult, particularly if their partner is human. In Faith Hunter’s Jane Yellowrock series about a shape-shifting bounty hunter, the eponymous heroine reflects on the difficulty of attracting prospective romantic partners. Her strength, shape-shifting abilities and fighting skills mean that she does not need a man to protect her, something that many men sense and which they find disconcerting.30 Anna herself wields little actual, tangible power. She is not an accomplished fighter or warrior, what status she holds among the werewolves is derived from her mate Charles and she is softly spoken and timid. She is not self-sacrificing in the mode of Leah Clearwater or Vincent’s Faythe, who both subsume personal feelings and inclinations for the sake of their duty. Anna’s suffering is gratuitous to a degree: her Omega influence would work in any circumstances, she does not have to be badly treated for it to emerge. The reasoning behind it is that if Anna were protected, Isabelle, the mad female werewolf she was brought into the pack to pacify, would despise her, thus negating Anna’s primary function. Female kinship and support is rare in Briggs’s work due to the scarcity of female lycanthropes, and those who are present tend to view one another jealously, as rivals.31 Female werewolves, in Briggs’s narratives, are therefore almost entirely dependent on men for protection and support, both financial and emotional. A Cinderella-style rescuer is the preferred solution for a mistreated female. Failing that, stoicism and endurance are a woman’s best options within the controlling environment of the pack. But perhaps there is a point to Anna’s mis­ ­treatment after all. In her study of the contemporary romance novel, Janice A. Radway comments that The romance’s preoccupation with male brutality is an attempt to understand the meaning of an event that has become almost unavoidable in the real world. The romance may express misogynistic attitudes

68

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Anna does not ‘deal’ with misogynistic attitudes in any concrete sense, unlike Faythe, Carrie Vaughn’s Kitty or Armstrong’s Elena or other contemporary female werewolves, who fight to defend themselves and others or else use their often-formidable intelligence to escape danger. Her greatest strength as a werewolf is her selfcontrol and self-discipline, and the fact that she can inspire the same characteristics in others. Anna is exceptional among werewolves in possessing these traits: she is in many ways the polar opposite of the classic beast within. She also possesses a robustness that allows her to endure the abuse meted out to her until rescue arrives. But it is her status as what John Ruskin sentimentally termed the ‘unlessoned girl’ in his essay Sesame and Lilies that makes Anna exceptional. Ruskin, in analysing a Shakespearean heroine, com­ mented upon ‘the calmly devoted wisdom of the “unlessoned girl,” who appears among the helplessness, the blindness, and the vindictive passions of men, as a gentle angel, bringing courage and safety by her presence’.33 Anna too is an unlessoned girl – quite literally, as she was deliberately kept in ignorance of her rights as a werewolf by the alpha and has little idea about werewolf rules and laws until Charles explains matters to her. Briggs’s romance is not as overtly feminist as that of Vincent’s or even Armstrong’s. In fact, it is almost medieval in its depiction of gender. Not in the sense of being regressive, but in the tropes and motifs she employs, a tendency that Stypczynski argues is prevalent in contemporary werewolf fiction. Briggs’s portrayal of the pack is similar to that of other contemporary authors in that she structures the pack as essentially a miniature feudal state, with a single ruler and brutal punishments for those who disobey pack law. The popular story form of a royal family/ feudal society allows a number of concerns, particularly regarding the power and status of women, to be played out in the setting of a lycanthropic pack. In this sort of setting, Anna’s role as muse/ civilizing influence makes more sense. She can function literally as the mythical maiden, the unlessoned girl who tames savage beasts through her goodness. Peter Harrison has commented on the 69

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association of beasts and animals with strong feelings and passion, observing that A concrete connection was provided by actual instances of control over irrational creatures by those who mastered their own irrational passions. In cases of exceptional piety, it was thought, the dominion over wild beasts once enjoyed by the innocent Adam could be revisited, hence the numerous medieval traditions in which wild beasts keep company with holy men and women.34

Although Anna is hardly a holy woman, her Omega nature functions in much the same way. She does not exhibit control over the irrational werewolves, but she allows them to master themselves because her own self-mastery is excellent. It is established early on in the series that Anna successfully gained control of the wolfish side of her personality without assistance from older or more experi­ enced werewolves, and that she enables survival in other werewolves who would otherwise have to be killed due to their irrational and violent behaviour. Anna is therefore the patriarchal society’s ideal woman in many respects. She is patient, compliant, sensitive and understanding, not to mention nurturing. Her role within the were­ ­wolf pack is an exaggerated version of the one female werewolves play in contemporary fiction – and also in video games. Jay Cate observes that: Significantly, here, bonding and communication are presented as the primary attributes of a pack. Violent behaviour is mentioned, but it is figure in terms reminiscent of the ‘she-wolf’ – protective, territorial and fiercely loyal.35

Although Cate’s analysis is centred on a video game entitled Werewolf: The Apocalypse, her observations are still applicable to contemporary werewolf fiction. The advent of the subjective werewolf, capable of rational thought and forming bonds with other rational beings, has enabled the werewolf to live as a member of a society, which naturally privileges attributes such as communication and loyalty (which are perceived as feminine) and is threatened by violence, aggression and a preference for solitude (which are traditionally 70

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perceived as masculine).36 Anna’s Omega nature encourages the former and suppresses the latter, allowing her pack to function as a successful social unit. However, Anna fails the patriarchal ideal of the perfect woman in one important respect: she is unable to have children. Whereas Vincent’s rebellious werecat Faythe makes a conscious choice to delay having a family, in Briggs’s novels female werewolves are unable to bear children, as the stress of monthly transformations in­­variably causes a miscarriage three or four months into the preg­ nancy.37 Male werewolves are able to father children with human women. However, these children are not born werewolves. Briggs’s female werewolves are by no means unusual in being unable to have children. Carrie Vaughn’s Kitty Norville learns she is unable to carry a pregnancy to term owing to her lycanthropy, and Stephenie Meyer’s Leah Clearwater ceases menstruating on becoming a were­ wolf and believes herself to be infertile (albeit this is not proven absolutely). The sterility of the female werewolf is another very common theme in contemporary werewolf fiction, one that is initially at odds with the patriarchal pack. What implications does an absence of children have for the pack, particularly if it is structured as a family unit, or as a patriarchal society that assigns a nurturing, caring role to its females?

Female Werewolves and Fertility Issues Hannah Priest observes that the difficulties inherent in lycanthropic pregnancy feature in a number of texts about female werewolves, but that texts about male werewolves do not generally share the same concerns.38 In stories about male werewolves, paternity is represented as a social role, rather than there being any emphasis on the biological aspects of fatherhood.39 Instances of this include Anne Rice’s Reuben in The Wolf Gift, who is mentored by the older and wiser Felix and becomes a mentor himself to Stuart, a teenager he bites and turns into a man-wolf by accident. In Kelley Armstrong’s Women of the Otherworld series, the alpha of Elena’s pack is the supremely patient, understanding and paternal Jeremy. In Vincent’s Faythe Sanders series, the alpha of a typical werecat 71

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pride is the father of most of its members and surrogate father to the others, a role Faythe’s father fulfils admirably but which, if not performed correctly, leads to dysfunction and lawbreaking.40 This status allows these paternal male werewolves to fulfil one of the most enduring definitions of masculinity: being a good provider for their families.41 Other typical masculine characteristics, such as aggressiveness, risk-taking and a tendency towards embracing physical danger, come as standard for the male werewolf. A male lycanthrope does not need to go and out and prove himself, he is a male by default.42 The female werewolf, in stark contrast to the male’s protective role, has often been depicted as representing a serious threat towards the family and domesticity, particularly children.43 This tendency was particularly pronounced in Victorian literature featuring the female werewolf, with numerous stories depicting an evil female werewolf killing children – in some cases, even her own.44 Despite significant shifts in the depiction of the werewolf, rearing children and most particularly pregnancy are deeply problematic in numerous modern werewolf texts. In most instances, the female werewolf is able to conceive but not carry a pregnancy to term owing to her monthly transformations, which cause too much stress on the foetus. Vaughn and Briggs both cite this as the reason their female werewolves are unable to have children. In some novels, a genetic imperative causes miscarriage. In Jennifer Lynn Barnes’s Raised by Wolves series, female werewolves are exceptionally rare as female werewolf babies always miscarry owing to werewolf biology. In Barnes’s books, the only female werewolves born at the start of the series are those who have a male twin to shield them from whatever gene or hormone prompts the termination of the pregnancy. In Christine Johnson’s Young Adult novel Claire de Lune, the precise opposite occurs: all werewolves in the world are female, and male foetuses miscarry the first time a female werewolf transforms after the conception. In other works featuring werewolves, such as Charlaine Harris’s Southern Vampire Mysteries, it is emphasized that werewolves often find it difficult to have children, and in other texts it may be impossible for lycanthropes and humans to breed.45 The Victorian werewolf’s savagery towards infants has not been inherited by the contemporary subjective werewolf, with most 72

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characters consciously avoiding harming children. However, the construction of the female werewolf as unnatural mother in Victorian texts, noted by Bourgault Du Coudray, has lingered.46 The subjective werewolf is not a mindless killer, but they do kill, and violence and ruthlessness are necessary for survival in the majority of contemporary werewolf texts. All these traits are the antithesis of those celebrated in contemporary pop culture depictions of good mothers: nurturing, selflessness and self-sacrifice and kindness. The werewolf, both the fictional and those featured in the werewolf trials of the Middle Ages, has always had an uneasy relationship with children and infants. The Malleus Maleficarum details the case of a man who believed himself to be a wolf and went about at night devouring children.47 Another infamous ‘real’ werewolf alleged to have consumed children is Peter Stump or Stubbe. According to a pamphlet published in London in 1590, Stubbe was a farmer in what was then High Germany, who, after torture, confessed to entering into a compact with the Devil and being a werewolf for twenty-five years. He is reputed to have torn unborn babies from their mother’s wombs and devoured them, describing them as dainty morsels and stating that they were his favourite delicacy.48 Although both these historical werewolves are male, the fictional female werewolf has a particular tendency to devour children, even her own. Victorian authors such as Rosamond Marriott Watson depicted the female werewolf as guilty of cannibalism and infanticide, and these themes have survived into the present day in stories such as Beth Daley’s ‘Sweet Tilly’.49 Even in J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, her villainous werewolf Fenrir Greyback shows a marked preference for attacking children, notably the sympathetic werewolf Remus Lupin. It is perhaps unsurprising, therefore, that the werewolf, even though it has begun to be presented as capable of being integrated into a social unit, cannot necessarily be a member of a typical Western nuclear family. When Armstrong’s Elena Michaels is turned into a werewolf by her lover Clay, her anger against him is not merely for his forcing lycanthropy on her, but because she believes she has lost the chance for a family. Elena informs the reader that werewolves never marry owing to the need for secrecy and that she would never risk passing lycanthropy on to a child. Consequently, she will never have what she considers either a real home or a real family.50 73

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Elena’s anger over her loss turns out to be premature, as she later reconciles with Clay and successfully gives birth to twins, a boy and a girl.51 But her supposition that lycanthropy and domesticity, particularly in relation to bearing and raising children, are incompatible has precedence in werewolf literature. Nonetheless, the female werewolf is unusual amongst other female monsters in literature and film in seldom being able or willing to give birth. Barbara Creed, in The Monstrous Feminine, suggests that woman’s ability to give birth clearly does constitute a major area of difference giving rise to a number of contradictory responses on the part of men, including awe, jealousy and horror.52

Although Creed frames her analysis of birth according to a gendered, masculine response, it is undeniable that there are numerous examples in popular culture both of monstrous births and of monsters giving birth. Victor Frankenstein arguably begets his monstrous progeny, an alien baby bursts out of an unfortunate man’s stomach in Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979) and more recently, in Meyer’s Breaking Dawn, Bella Swann gives birth to a half-human, half-vampire baby after its kicks break her back and her vampire husband is forced to cut into his belly with his teeth to deliver the child. The female were­ wolf is an oddity amongst feminine monsters in being unable to give birth. In her study of the Gothic, however, Susanne Becker states that mothers have been largely absent from the tradition until the twentieth century, so the female werewolf, who often lacks any kind of maternal instinct, may simply be a reflection of this omission.53 The female werewolf’s frequent inability to bear children owing to her physical transformation is nonetheless an incongruous one. Barbara Creed observes that the female body – lycanthropic or human – is rendered uncanny and less stable than the male body owing to its malleability and changing shape during pregnancy.54 It is curious that the female werewolf is often rendered infertile because of her body’s malleability and instability. However, it is entirely plausible that being able to alter her form at will removes the necessity for the female werewolf to become pregnant. She alters her body often, sometimes at will or when forced to by the 74

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lunar cycle (which is, of course, closely linked to the menstrual cycle).55 Creed suggests that the werewolf, when transforming, gives birth to themselves over and over again.56 If this is the case, the werewolf’s entire existence is composed of one endless cycle of rebirth and there is consequently no need for the female lycanthrope to reproduce through pregnancy. It is also entirely possible that removing the female werewolf’s ability to bear children may be a perverse form of wish-fulfilment for female authors and female audiences. The werewolf, for so many years representative of the rampant, uncontrollable, sexualized aspect of human nature, represents a freedom of sorts from social control and societal expectations – and also gendered expectations, judging by the sustained threat lycanthropy has posed to domesticity ever since the Victorian era. The freedom of the female werewolf – to roam, to fight and to engage in volatile and highly sexualized relationships – would almost certainly be curtailed by the arrival of a bouncing baby werewolf. As the appropriately named Virginia Woolf noted ironically in her polemic A Room of One’s Own, after a baby is born a minimum of five years must be devoted to playing with it.57 In Western culture caring for and raising infants is a responsibility that still rests mainly with women,58 and women who make a conscious decision not to have children are often regarded as somehow selfish and unnatural by society in general, in that they fail to meet the expectations of feminine sacrifice.59 The female werewolf who is unable to have children owing to her lycanthropy sidesteps this issue. She retains her freedom and escapes the charge of selfishness often levelled at childless women, especially if lycan­thropy was inflicted upon her rather than being her reasoned decision.60 However, a number of female werewolves who find them­­selves unable to give birth because of their lycanthropy lament their inability to have children: Leah Clearwater and Kitty Norville are two of the most prominent examples. Perhaps oddly, considering her Cinderella-like story trajectory, Patricia Briggs’s Anna experi­ ences a moment of shock when she discovers she can no longer have children, yet she does not appear dismayed by this in later books in the series, where the subject is not raised at all. This is a possible result of Anna’s sexual fears and diffidence, hardly surprising after the years of sexual abuse she suffered from her pack and its 75

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alpha. But one of the reasons for sexual intercourse is, of course, reproduction. Unusually for a werewolf, Anna is not a particularly sexual being and her inability to have children means she has no obligations to have sex for the sake of procreation.

The Female Werewolf and Motherhood: The Case of Glen Duncan’s Talulla Rising Although the female werewolf has traditionally posed a threat to children, the family and domesticity, a growing number of female werewolves in popular culture are capable of carrying a preg­nancy to term and giving birth to healthy babies, which are usually little werewolves.61 Armstrong’s Elena Michaels gives birth to twins in Broken; in Jennifer Lynn Barnes’s Raised by Wolves, the protagonist’s foster mother also gives birth to twin were­wolves, despite being human herself.62 Although werewolf babies have been born in several lycanthropic texts, there has been com­ paratively little focus on lycanthropic motherhood in contemporary popular culture. Broken, for instance, concludes with the birth of Elena’s babies and subsequent novels in Armstrong’s Otherworld series focus on characters and happenings distinct from Elena’s family. Likewise, the experience of motherhood is not dwelt on in Barnes’s were­wolf trilogy, though as the protagonist is only in her mid-teens throughout the books this is perhaps unsurprising. This ensures that the impact of becoming a mother does not impact on the female werewolf’s subjectivity – or, rather, its impact is not depicted in the majority of texts. It is an end in itself, rather than the start of a new stage of the female werewolf’s existence in most cases. Critics such as Jorie Lagerway and Susan C. Staub have argued that motherhood is little short of an obsession in contemporary popular culture – or, more specifically, that the ideal of a devoted and perfectly loving mother is a modern obsession.63 Staub goes so far as to observe that motherhood is big business, while Susan Douglas and Meredith Michaels have identified what they term the new momism, an idealization of motherhood in Western popular culture that undermines women by presenting an unattainable 76

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ideal of perfect, fulfilled motherhood.64 Likewise, Diane Negra has argued that pregnancy has been fetishized in contemporary culture and advertising. Instead of having to be concealed, it can now be displayed and even flaunted as a womanly ideal.65 This saturation of imagery depicting blissful expectant, or doting and fulfilled mothers has trickled down to the female werewolf, who now more than ever is presented as capable of carrying and bearing children. Nonetheless, contemporary werewolf fiction is seldom, if ever, slavishly uncritical of the experience of pregnancy, and by extension motherhood. Rather, contemporary authors who do explore the issues surrounding motherhood in werewolf texts use lycan­thropy to resist and interrogate the ideal mother presented in pop culture and advertising. Glen Duncan’s Talulla Rising, the second book in his werewolf trilogy, is one of the most wide-ranging examin­ ations of lycanthropic pregnancy and motherhood produced to date. Talulla, a novice werewolf, is pregnant by her dead (were­wolf) lover Jake and goes into labour at the start of the novel. But Talulla’s experience of motherhood is far from straightforward; she gives birth in werewolf form, and seconds after her son is born he is kidnapped by vampires. Moments after the vampires escape, she gives birth to her daughter, yet another example of lycanthropic twins. The remainder of the book focuses on Talulla’s efforts to retrieve her son and protect her daughter. It also focuses on her experience of motherhood and her feelings about it. Talulla’s initial impressions of motherhood are underwhelming, as she explains: I want to tell you that as soon as I saw him the paradigm shifted, that the rubbishy clutter of myself fell away, that the contract was rewritten, that he’d come out of me dragging half my soul behind him like a blanket, that I was now – with molecular certainty and before I was anything else – a Mother. The truth is I felt neutral.66

Talulla has internalized cultural notions of pregnancy and mother­ hood as somehow divine, uplifting, fulfilling, and it is unsurprising the reality fails to match the ideal. Talulla gives birth in werewolf form, and it is a primitive, instinctive act to which her body, rather than her spirit, is subject. Her feelings about giving birth are purely 77

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physical: after labour is over, she is so exhausted she falls asleep. Although being a mother adds another aspect to her subjectivity in that she now has new links with other potential subjects, it fails to uplift her or radically transfigure her subjectivity. Moreover, Talulla finds herself constantly falling short of the motherly ideal to which she aspires. Surprisingly, the fact that she is a werewolf who must kill and devour humans for survival, the very antithesis of the all-loving, nurturing mother, does not overly preoccupy her. Talulla believes that despite being a werewolf, she ought to be capable of the all-consuming devotion and love a new mother ought to feel for her child. And yet she was unable to: ‘I didn’t feel anything for him. There was just a blank space where love should’ve been.’67 The fact that she was unable to protect her son from the vampires’ attack is further cause for Talulla’s guilt. By the climax of the novel, however, she does partially redeem herself (in her own eyes) by successfully rescuing her son. Motherhood-as-redemption is a common theme in contemporary popular culture, according to Negra, but the typical redemption narrative involves an ambitious, self-absorbed woman becoming a more caring, maternal individual who renounces material and financial success.68 Talulla’s status as a werewolf ensures that her redemption is bloodier and more violent than in most popular texts: she must track down her son, and kill those who mean to do him harm. Talulla is a direct descendant of Rudyard Kipling’s Mother Wolf, who adopts Mowgli in The Jungle Books and who was known as Raksha, the Demon, before she had cubs. Even the tiger Shere Khan knows he cannot stand against Mother Wolf in a rage: ‘Shere Khan might have faced Father Wolf, but he could not stand up against Mother Wolf, for he knew that where he was she had all the advantage of the ground, and would fight to the death.’69 Whilst Talulla will inevitably fail to measure up to the human ideal of the perfect mother (as will all women, sooner or later), the example of Mother Wolf, ferocious and stubborn, is a better role model for a werewolf mother. Talulla’s status as werewolf ensures that while the ideal of the human mother promotes living entirely for one’s children, the brutal and dangerous world the werewolf mother exists in means she must be prepared to die for her children instead. 78

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The characteristics of the successful werewolf mother, like that of the wild wolf, must promote her offspring’s survival. In Blood and Chocolate Vivian’s mother Esme acts more like a roommate than a parent, engaging in casual sex and fighting over men. Nonetheless, she is aware of the dangers of engaging with humans when her daughter begins dating human boy Aiden, offering wise advice that Vivian chooses to ignore. In Andrea Cremer’s Nightshade series, by contrast, the heroine’s mother (Naomi) turns a blind eye to injustices and cruelties meted out to her pack by their overlords in favour of encouraging her daughter, the heroine Calla, to act conventionally feminine, which consists of wearing pretty clothes and submitting to men. Naomi is killed after Calla revolts against their rulers, the Keepers, for her supposed failure as a mother. Although Naomi encouraged what she perceived as survival, in submitting to men and thereby gaining powerful protectors as Anna does in Briggs’s ‘Alpha and Omega’, it is a strategy that proves ineffective in Cremer’s novels. Men, human or lycanthropic, may prove inadequate protectors, as in Kitty and the Midnight Hour, where pack alpha Carl is a tyrannical bully, or they may desert the woman who needs defending. Talulla herself does not have the option of seeking protection from a man. Her lover Jake is dead and for the majority of the novel her only male allies are her manservant Cloquet and her new lover Walker, both of whom are human and thus unable to defend her against supernatural beings such as vampires and werewolves. Although Walker is eventually turned into a werewolf, his transformation only occurs after he has been raped and tortured by Talulla’s enemies. Female werewolves, particularly those with children, cannot rely on men to protect them, no matter how brave or well-intentioned their guardians may be: Briggs’s Anna is the exception rather than the rule. Patriarchal societies, such as the werewolf pack, encourage passivity in women, but the female werewolves examined in this chapter know that to survive, to protect their children and to thrive, they cannot afford to be meek, docile or submissive. Patriarchy is an outmoded social structure in the majority of texts examined in this chapter, one that must be deconstructed for the benefit of all lycanthropes. Does the same apply to the werewolf family? 79

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Den Mothers and Cubs: The Werewolf Family Occasionally, werewolf families who are capable of producing children structure themselves as a conventional nuclear family, with a father, mother and children, possibly with some close friends or relatives forming an extension of this basic unit. There are exceptions, of course: in Christine Johnson’s Claire de Lune, all werewolves are female and daughters are raised by single mothers. In Armstrong’s Women of the Otherworld series, the same scenario occurs but with male werewolves raising their sons alone or with the help of other male pack members, at least until Elena becomes pregnant and gives birth. The reasons behind this gradual shift, from a vicious opposition to the family to being capable or even desirous of having one, are uncertain, but the werewolf’s gradual assimilation into human society – made possible by the advent of lycanthropic subjectivity – means that the werewolf is no longer excluded from the family unit. By extension, the contemporary werewolf is able to form and sustain familial bonds, and if a female werewolf is a daughter or a wife, then it is no great stretch of the imagination to her becoming a mother. The female werewolf does have a historical tendency towards infanticide, as shown in nineteenth-century Clemence Housman’s The Werewolf and Rosamund Marriott Watson’s ‘The Gudewife’, to name but two examples,70 but this has been downplayed in contemporary werewolf texts. Admittedly, it would be difficult (though not impossible) to make any werewolf sympathetic if it was in the habit of devouring children.71 But other cultural influences may be at work behind the increasing number of female werewolves who are able to bear children in modern fiction. Since the turn of the millennium there has been a marked discomfort with the possibility of abortion in popular culture. Rebecca Munford and Melanie Waters, in an examination of depictions of pregnancy in recent American popular culture, observe that abortion is rarely mentioned as an option for women, even if the pregnancy is unplanned and that popular culture has a tendency to valorize women who choose to go ahead with a pregnancy rather than terminating it.72 Abortion is an uncommon subject in contemporary werewolf literature, which is curious, given the female werewolf’s history of 80

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infanticide in literature, a term that is often conflated with abortion. This postmodern discomfort with the possibility of a woman termin­ ating her pregnancy may very well have bled over into contemporary depictions of the female werewolf.73 In Patricia Briggs’s Blood Bound (2007) a male werewolf (named Samuel) who made his human lover pregnant laments her decision to terminate the pregnancy, which would have interrupted her studies and delayed her medical career. Although the decision was a perfectly rational one from the woman’s perspective, Samuel’s objections are, consciously or otherwise, couched in the language of the US anti-choice movement. ‘If she knew that I had money, would she still have killed my baby?’74 he asks rhetorically, implying that his lover’s decision was a selfish one, based on a desire for wealth and career success. This is despite her advising him they could try for more children later when they had achieved financial security. Ambition and desire for wealth mark a woman as bad; maternal instincts and desire for children mark her as good, whether she is a werewolf or a human. For instance, in Anne Rice’s The Wolves of Midwinter, Wolf-Man Reuben learns his ex-girlfriend Celeste is pregnant with what will be his only human child. Yet whereas Reuben is delighted by the news, Celeste is bitter and resentful towards Reuben and agrees to waive her maternal rights in exchange for a substantial sum of money from his family. By contrast, Reuben’s new love Laura, who has become a werewolf by this point, is a loving and gentle individual who has tragically lost both her two previous children and her former husband in a murder-suicide, and who is overjoyed by the prospect of becoming a stepmother. Likewise, in Briggs’s Alpha and Omega series, Charles’s mother carried him to term with the aid of magic and died giving birth to him, returning to the theme of feminine self-sacrifice that runs throughout Briggs’s series and also in Meyer’s Twilight series. These texts reflect the current uneasy attitude towards abortion in popular culture, which means that instead of merely taking life, the female werewolf is now allowed to nurture it in some texts – another trait assigned to women by patriarchal societies. If even the infanticideprone female werewolf can be made to carry a child to term and give birth, and perhaps even raise it to adulthood, the uneasiness contemporary Western culture exhibits towards the figure of the 81

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emancipated women – who controls her fertility and reproductive ability – can be eliminated. Changing perceptions of the wild wolf may also have had an impact. The wolf was regarded as particularly murderous, even to the extent of killing its own offspring, throughout much of Western history. The Malleus Maleficarum, in elaborating on the unnaturalness of witches, explains that they violate the laws of nature by killing and consuming children. According to the authors of the text, this gruesome trait is shared by only one animal – the wolf, of course.75 Small wonder, then, that female werewolves of the nineteenth century devour children, if even wild wolves were thought to engage in infanticide and cannibalism. However, modern research into the wild wolf has helped to dispel this image to a certain extent. Barry Lopez, in his seminal work Of Wolves and Men, observes that the wild wolf is a sociable animal, and that its very survival depends on its social and familial bonds and its ability to co-operate with other wolves.76 Notably, wild wolves are also monogamous when mated, a trait that has, consciously or unconsciously, been mirrored in the presentation of relationships in contemporary lycanthropic fiction. A handful of authors have presented lycanthropes with multiple sexual partners and little interest in marriage, such as in Keri Arthur’s Riley Jensen series where the eponymous heroine always has at least two boyfriends available to sexually satisfy her. But for the most part, contemporary werewolf fiction presents werewolves as desirous of monogamous relationships that end, if not in marriage, then certainly in foreswearing all others. Vaughn’s Kitty and Briggs’s Anna both marry happily; Rice’s Reuben falls deeply in love with a woman named Laura and she with him; Vincent’s Faythe Sanders eventually settles down with her mate Marc and Kelley Armstrong’s Elena reconciles with her mate Clay. This rather conservative privileging of heterosexual relationships and the institution of marriage has been identified by Diane Negra as a popular theme of post-9/11 culture.77 Like the contemporary unease with abortion, contemporary werewolf fiction reflects early twenty-first-century narratives of prioritizing the home, marriage and family for women – even female werewolves. However, the emphasis on heterosexual relationships and marriage in narratives that centre on female lycanthropes may also represent 82

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a strategy to contain the female werewolf, most particularly her sexuality, which is often represented as wild and unrestrained. This is not necessarily a bad thing in modern lycanthropic literature: many female werewolves insist on their right to satisfy their sexual desires. Vaughn’s Kitty describes what happens when her lawyer, Ben, a man she had previously only known in a professional capacity, is turned into a werewolf – namely, vigorous and satisfactory sexual relations. Kitty mischievously informs her audience that ‘the bed got a workout. The sofa got a workout. The floor got a workout. The kitchen table – after one attempt we decided it wasn’t stable enough to withstand a workout.’78 However, Kitty and Ben end by marrying and Kitty’s sexual impulses are thus safely contained – although Vaughn gleefully subverts the stereotype of the big white wedding and has Kitty and Ben get married at a Las Vegas drivethrough chapel.79 However, it is worth noting that few female werewolves choose to marry and thus legally and socially ratify their relations with men. Kitty is unusual in doing so, though the power balance in the relationship is an equal one. Also, Ben is a novice werewolf and in the early days of the relationship Kitty tends to be in charge.80 Since the Victorian era, female werewolves have posed serious threats to ignorant husbands, and the contemporary female werewolf’s reluctance to marry may reflect the recognition that marriage would curtail certain freedoms. In some texts, female werewolves are shown actively avoiding marriage. In Andrea Cremer’s Nightshade series, a young female werewolf named Calla has been betrothed to Ren, a male werewolf from a rival pack. Calla is resigned to, rather than enthusiastic about, her arranged union. However, on the night it is due to take place, she abandons her groom and her wedding in order to save Shay, a young man who was to be sacrificed as part of the ceremony. The fact that Calla truly loves Shay and has turned him into a werewolf does factor into the decision, but Calla’s rejection of marriage and duty is a radical one for her. Female sexuality can be restrained, therefore, but has yet to be fully controlled where lycanthropy is concerned. The presence of children, human or wolf, is another potential containment strategy for female sexuality. In an examination of the mothering role and its impact on women in society, Green et al. observe that mothers 83

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are widely expected to limit their activities to those that are closely associated with their position as mother and nurturer.81 Eating people, having wild sex and spending all night prowling in wolf form may be possible to fit around raising a family, but in ideological terms they definitely do not correspond with Western societies and their ideal of the selfless, loving mother.82 Pregnancy, and by extension the family and the pack, continue to be contentious issues where the female werewolf is concerned, made all the more complicated by the fact that they not only have to deal with a werewolf social structure, but in many contemporary texts are also required to inte­ grate themselves into the wider, human society.

The Werewolf and Human Society Although the werewolf pack is an increasingly strong presence in lycanthropic fiction, werewolves and other lycanthropes are some­ times shown as being desirous of or being obliged to integrate into human society – for educational purposes, to earn a living or simply to escape the pack. In contrast to the presentation of the Freudian werewolf, the lycanthrope’s ongoing quest is now to find a way to reconcile itself with the sometimes-hostile world around them, rather than to unite two opposing sides of its personality. Unlike the Jungian interpretation of the werewolf, which views lycanthropy as a route for reconnecting with nature, in much contemporary werewolf fiction the primary concern is their integration with human society, traditionally viewed in Western culture as the polar opposite of the wilderness and nature. For some werewolves this is a purely practical decision. They seek employment in order to pay bills, solicit relationships (platonic and otherwise) with humans for companionship and adopt a human lifestyle in order to conceal their lycanthropy. Others, such as Carrie Vaughn’s Kitty Norville or Rice’s Reuben Golding, take satisfaction in forging a career. In these two cases, both work in the media, which allows them to gather and disseminate knowledge about the supernatural, and, in Reuben’s case, to offer misdirection so that his alter ego the ManWolf remains a secret. More radically, in some texts werewolves are known to the human population and seek to integrate themselves 84

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and their kind, or else subjugate humanity – although the werewolf has never sought domination over humans on a vampiric scale. Although the werewolf’s revelation of its existence has been dealt with in only a handful of texts, with the fictional werewolf mimicking the real wolf’s shyness around humans, the ways in which it has been portrayed already demonstrate considerable variation in how the werewolves reveal themselves and how the human population react to the revelation. In Percy’s Red Moon lycans, as they are known, are a clear metaphor for an ethnic minority group who are subject to suspicion and hostility from certain groups of humans, including the US government. The majority of lycans simply wish to leave peacefully. However, a significant minority function as terrorist groups perpetrating acts of violence against humans, actions which increase suspicion and hatred on the part of humanity. Lycans in turn come to resent the human population as more of their rights and freedoms are curtailed and the vicious circle continues. Carrie Vaughn and Patricia Briggs are two of the most prominent authors to have depicted the revelation of lycanthropy to humanity. Briggs’s treatment of the scenario is low-key, mostly forming a backdrop to the adventures of her lycanthropic heroines. Vaughn confronts the exposure of lycanthropy to the general public in a much more direct manner, with her heroine being abducted and forced to transform on camera. But whereas Briggs’s werewolves are often prone to violence, when Kitty is outed as a werewolf, her lycanthropic alter ego becomes her greatest strength. In the book Kitty Goes to Washington, her abductor intends to reveal to the public that Kitty is a monster. However, when he films her, Kitty-as-wolf simply curls up in a corner and refuses to do anything – even when an unfortunate man’s hand is thrust into her cage by her demented captor. But although Kitty’s exposure actually works in her favour, and by extension that of all werewolves, she is acutely aware of the need for werewolves to be irreproachable in their public behaviour, lest they be sensationalized by the press and politicians. As Kitty explains: This could be a public relations nightmare. Werewolves had stayed hidden from public sight, behind folklore, for a very long time. We’d stayed secret by policing ourselves. Then people like me started

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The Nature of the Beast blowing the whistle. The old system was falling apart. Police started getting involved, and one bad incident hitting the news would ensure that everyone saw werewolves as monsters rather than people.83

There is thus more pressure than ever on Kitty and her fellow werewolves to convince the human segment of the public that they are not monsters, and one of the ways in which this is attempted is through regulating wolfish behaviour through pack rule. Kitty becomes the alpha of her old werewolf pack in the fourth book in Vaughn’s series, entitled Kitty and the Silver Bullet, and proves to be a much more able, fairer ruler than the previous tyrannical ruler. Werewolves revealing themselves to the general public is not a regular occurrence in contemporary fiction, however. The most common scenario is for werewolves to lead a double life, keeping their lycanthropy a secret from all but their pack and a select few humans, and living and working among humans. This state of affairs typically represents the werewolf as interacting with humanity, but limits their personal involvement with humans and human affairs. For instance, in Vincent’s Faythe Sanders series, her older brother Michael is married to a human (a model, no less) who has absolutely no idea that he is a werecat. Their respective careers limit the time they spend together and allow him to maintain the secret.84 Armstrong’s Elena contemplates a similar arrangement with a human man in Bitten, though she eventually decides to return to her werewolf lover, Clay. But werewolf involvement in the human world is more or less inevitable in modern fiction. Although some werewolves in contemporary literature exhibit a desire to leave the human world behind altogether and essentially live as wild wolves, this seldom comes to pass. Humanity and the human world is sometimes presented as something precious that must be clung to. In Anne Rice’s The Wolves of Midwinter, Reuben’s mentor Felix, a werewolf many centuries old, occasionally laments the necessity of moving on every few decades, and the homes and family he has forfeited as a result of his immortality. In contrast to Rice’s werewolves, many of whom (but by no means all) desire close links with humanity and the other supernatural creatures that populate the world, several contemporary lycanthropic 86

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works present werewolves as morally superior to humans and disinclined to mingle with them. There are the works of Alice Borchardt,85 whose werewolves spend much time lamenting and despising humanity’s failings, and Cheri Scotch’s Werewolf’s Kiss trilogy, where being human is associated with desperate conformity and stultifying boredom. ‘Can you see yourself married to a pillar of the church, in a little white apron, serving cookies and tea to the altar guild ladies? . . . Do you want to fill your days with shopping and your nights with card parties?’86 the lover of a young werewolf wannabe asks scornfully. The solution for these werewolves is to abandon humanity in favour of an elite, yet isolated existence among their fellow lycanthropes, with little, if any inclination to integrate with humanity, save with a favoured few men and women. This segregation is not inevitable, but it demonstrates that for some contemporary authors and academics that lycanthropes must forever remain a breed apart. Some are stigmatized, others superior, but none particularly wish to integrate themselves with humanity and in some cases it is actively unsafe (for the werewolves) to do so. It is undeniable that in many texts werewolves, even those who have revealed their existence to humanity, maintain a certain distance from the majority of humanity, such as in Rice’s Wolf Gift Chronicles series where the lycanthropes inhabit the remote old house of Nideck’s Point. Or in Kelley Armstrong’s Women of the Otherworld series, where again the werewolves live in an isolated house with plenty of uninhabited land in-between them and the local human population. In both instances, this is to allow the werewolves to maintain the secrecy of their existence and maintain both their own safety and the safety of most humans who live nearby. Though in Rice’s series conflict arises between the werewolves of Nideck’s Point and a visiting group of lycanthropes who believe that even that limited amount of contact with humanity is dangerous and should be shunned. In her analysis of the contemporary werewolf, Chantal Bourgault Du Coudray is not overly optimistic about the prospects for the werewolf’s integration into human society – particularly where what she terms the Gothic werewolf is concerned. While werewolves that feature in works of fantasy can survive and thrive, usually owing to their close links with wilderness and the natural world, the Gothic 87

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werewolf is usually killed off or else is fated to remain divided against themselves, the unruly beast of the unconscious forever in opposition with the rational, restrained conscious human.87 Deleuze and Guattari offer a more optimistic method of viewing interactions with the world through their conception of becoming and molar and molecular energies. Munford and Waters, in their analysis of popular culture, assert that a molar energy ‘seeks to stabilize and fix form by asserting identity categories, such as class, race and sex’.88 They form a direct contrast to ‘molecular energies’, which are ‘dispersed and flowing’.89 Becomings, therefore, are always molecular in nature, and, as Deleuze and Guattari observe, ‘the vampire and the werewolf are becomings of man’.90 Far from enforcing the werewolf’s traditional isolation, becomings enable the werewolf to form affinities with the world around it. As Anna Powell comments in her analysis of Deleuze in relation to the horror film, ‘vampires, werewolves and other hybrids of horror fantasy are inspirational images of the human affinity with beasts, plants and minerals’.91 Powell goes on to elaborate how, because it opposes fixed categories and disrupts boundaries and borders, allowing one thing to become another, becoming encourages a sense of affinity with other life-forms.92 This sense of affinity and respect for others is most evident in semi-mythical works such as Anne Rice’s The Wolves of Midwinter (which introduces numerous immortal beings such as the Forest Gentry, who are ghosts able to take corporeal form) and Alice Borchardt’s The Silver Wolf (where the heroine Regeane is compassionate and morally scrupulous to a fault, even to her own detriment), reflecting Bourgault Du Coudray’s argument that in fantasy fiction werewolves develop a far more harmonious relationship with their inner wolf, an accord that helps them survive beyond the end of the novel or story in which they are featured.93 However, whatever the genre in which the con­ temporary werewolf features, a desire to live in harmony with others is the standard rather than the exception. Authors as varied as Carrie Vaughn, Yasmin Galenorn, Kelley Armstrong, Rachel Vincent and others portray their lycanthropes as desirous of harmony and friend­ ship with other species (be they human, vampire or were-animal) or at the very least simply wishing to be left in peace. But despite an increasing number of texts that show lycanthropes being accepted or even just tolerated by human society, there are 88

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nearly always tensions between humans and werewolves. Humans express not entirely unjustified concerns about wolfish violence and the fear that werewolves may prove more loyal to their pack than society as a whole, while werewolves face both persecution and prejudice in a world where their lycanthropic difference can serve as a metaphor for a different race, a different set of beliefs (political or religious) or both combined.

The Werewolf Pack in Post-9/11 Fiction The revelation that lycanthropes have been hiding in plain sight for years, forming covert networks among themselves and passing themselves off as human is one that has particular resonance for a post-9/11 world – making it surprising that so few authors to date have addressed the issue. In popular culture, there is a history of the lycanthrope representing external, foreign threats, particularly against the USA. The film Cat People (the 1942 version) depicts the threat posed by the lycanthropic Irena, a Serbian whose dangerous desires imperil the all-American, apple-pie couple Oliver and Alice, the former of whom is a self-described ‘good old Americano’. Irena’s Serbian nationality evokes thoughts of the First World War, when the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo was the trigger for a devastating conflict. Then there is the famous film The Wolf-Man (1941), which is suffused with imagery relating to the Second World War and the threats posed to innocent indi­ viduals, embodied in the affable and naïve Larry Talbot, an American engineer.94 To date, however, few contemporary werewolf texts have examined a similar threat posed by werewolves to the modern USA and its human population. Ironically, the new emphasis on the werewolf’s socialization and its assimilation into social structures might have influenced this lack of interest. Linnie Blake, in an examination of the post-9/11 horror film, has identified a prevailing trend in popular culture to focus on the everyman in the face of a terrorist threat, identifying what she terms ‘an entirely deproblematized vision of freedom-loving American individualism in opposition to the totalitarian-ness of the alien terrorist threat’.95 Being a lycanthrope is antithetical to being 89

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an everyman: werewolves have historically been positioned as the outsider, the other. Nor are they typically ‘faceless’ enough to represent terrorists, which might go some way towards account­ing for the current popularity of zombie narratives such as World War Z (2006) and the TV series The Walking Dead (2010–ongoing). As Nick Muntean and Matthew Thomas Paye argue: The label of ‘terrorist’ possess an ontological blankness strikingly similar to that of the zombie, as they are both outward physical threats to Western civilization whose inner motivations remain hidden from view.96

The fantasy that Bourgault Du Coudray has identified as being an important component of the werewolf’s survival has arguably acted as a shield from the events of 9/11. The contemporary werewolf’s concerns often remain individualistic – marriage, pregnancy, career, fighting for personal freedom – rather than concerned with world affairs, and in many lycanthropic texts these world affairs have little or no impact on the werewolves they feature. Glen Duncan’s werewolves, for instance, are too preoccupied with survival to concern themselves overmuch with terrorism. Anne Rice’s were­ wolves are sequestered away from the human world in a Gothic mansion for much of the series. Other contemporary authors represent their werewolves as interacting with, but not truly involved with, humanity. Of the few works to address the subject, Benjamin Percy’s Red Moon makes the most explicit link between lycanthropy and terrorism, with werewolves forming underground terrorist cells and waging regular attacks on the human population. Percy’s metaphors are mixed, however. The lycan attacks on aircraft and later a nuclear reactor (with apocalyptic consequences) are strongly reminiscent of the terrorist group al-Qaeda in the early twenty-first century. However, the formation of a lycan homeland, the Lupine Republic, which is subject to US occupation, is suggestive of the Middle East and the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, perhaps reflecting the conflicting ideological positions that emerged in the West following 9/11. Carrie Vaughn’s narrative about how Kitty is exposed as a werewolf on national television, thus exposing werewolves to public 90

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attention, is also a particularly post-9/11 affair. As Richard Jackson comments, ‘in addition, the day [9/11] was discursively constructed as a moment of temporal rupture. That is, it was described as a “day like no other,” the “day the world changed,” and the “beginning of a new age of terror”’.97 Vaughn also depicts the day the world changed and was forced to acknowledge the existence of werewolves, vampires and other supernatural creatures. Although the blonde, eloquent and essentially pacifistic Kitty seems unlikely to inspire terror in anyone, she is honest enough to admit that the supernatural potential for inspiring terror in humanity is there, and it is only a matter of time before it surfaces.98 Nonetheless, Kitty’s exposure ends on an optimistic note when the Congressional hearing con­ cerning werewolves and other supernatural creatures that she has been summoned to concludes In closing, it is the committee’s opinion that the victims of the diseases [vampirism and lycanthropy] have lived in American society for years, unnoticed and without posing a threat. We see no reason at all they should not continue to do so, and we urge all good people of reason not to fall into a state of hysteria.99

The state, in other words, has accepted the werewolf and trusts it to abide by its rules and laws: the werewolf is no longer a foreign threat in Vaughn’s texts.

Conclusion There are as many different types of werewolf packs as there are differing human societies and strata of societies, and all aspects of culture and the people populating it have an impact on lycanthropic subjectivity. The rise of the subjective werewolf and the receding of the beast within has allowed werewolves to form packs and to integrate themselves among humans. But greater sociability has brought ever greater challenges and dilemmas for the subjective werewolf to contend with, forcing them to cultivate multiple personas with which to confront different aspects of their lives. They form public and private personas, one to present to the world 91

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and another that must be kept secret. The werewolf in this respect remains a divided self, except in the rare instances where they reveal themselves to the world as a whole. As I discussed in Chapter 1, this is strongly reminiscent of Deleuze and Guattari’s emphasis on identity as something that dwells on the surface and how it relates to the multiplicities surrounding it. The werewolf presents different aspects of itself depending on the social situation it inhabits at any given moment, and in many instances these differ depending on context. The werewolf is becoming a subject, but not a whole, unified subject. Although several authors have begun to explore what might occur if werewolves reveal their existence to the human population, for the most part, werewolves continue to lurk in the shadows, their process of assimilation far from complete. The fantasy that Bourgault Du Coudray identifies as an important component of the werewolf’s survival in a hostile world continues to function as its refuge, allowing it to avoid addressing contemporary concerns such as national security, restrictions of civil liberties and shadowy terrorist threats. Nonetheless, there is evidence of cultural shifts in post-9/11 were­ wolf fiction in the manner in which the villains of these texts are presented. Thomas Pollard, in an examination of post-9/11 Holly­ wood productions, observes that villainous motives such as greed have become outdated and old-fashioned in popular culture.100 Instead, protagonists find themselves confronting evils that are wellorganized but often difficult to define, akin to the stateless, faceless terrorist threats so prevalent in the early twenty-first century. Accordingly, werewolves in contemporary fiction often face threats from hunters wishing to bag the ultimate trophy (Maggie Stiefvater’s Wolves of Mercy Falls series), rival lycanthropes who disagree with their ways of living and moral outlooks (Rice’s The Wolf Gift series and Vincent’s Faythe Sanders series) and, increasingly, from unscrupulous scientists who wish to harness the lycanthrope’s remarkable abilities, either for personal glory or in a misguided effort on behalf of a government agency. Mad, wicked scientists appear in texts ranging from contemporary horror and Gothic such as Rice’s The Wolf Gift, Armstrong’s Stolen and Duncan’s Talulla Rising to Young Adult narratives such as Christine Johnson’s Claire de Lune. Whatever the motives of the villain it frequently falls to 92

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the lycanthrope the text focuses on to set things right and oppose the forces of evil. Sometimes this calls for a cunning plan, violent opposition or a combination of both. The werewolf generally acts as a vigilante, outside the parameters of human law at the very least – but one notable aspect of the werewolf’s recent socialization has been its ability to abide by the rules and laws of the werewolf pack, and their willingness to accept such laws. Accordingly, the werewolf has begun embracing a new role in popular culture – that of the lycanthropic lawgiver. They might be a private detective, a police officer or even a natural enforcer of good and right, evolved to hunt down and destroy evil, all possibilities that will be explored in the next chapter.

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3 ‘Before the Law Therefore, There Cannot Be Monsters . . .’ 



Introduction

The association between the werewolf and the law in Western culture is an extensive one. In many texts, the werewolf has been subject to natural laws governing its lycanthropy: always transforming when the moon is full for instance, or being allergic to silver. And then it has also been subject to man-made or werewolf-made laws. From the infamous werewolf trials of the Medieval and Renaissance eras, with Peter Stubbe and Gilles Garnier among the most notorious, to Rudyard Kipling’s poetic ‘The Law of the Jungle’ which every wolf must abide by, the werewolf has been governed by, and had its actions restricted by, the law. Or, more commonly, the lycanthrope has broken the law in whatever text it features in, or exists completely outside the law. As the previous chapter illustrated, the werewolf typically tries to conceal its existence from the majority of humanity, and thus does not exist within the context of human law. However, one consequence of the werewolf’s forming itself into societies, into packs, is the necessity for having a law and by extension, law enforcers, in order to ensure the lycanthropes exist without undue violence or disorder. In turn, lycanthropic law also acts as a form of self-defence, to ensure the werewolves’ existence is not revealed to humanity or else to help convince a nervous human population that lycanthropes pose no physical threat to them.

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Before we proceed any further, it is necessary to provide some basic definition of what the law is and the function it performs in contemporary society. That the law is a vast entity and defies easy definition is evident. Nonetheless, one useful basic definition is ‘a body of rules prescribing external conduct and considered justiciable’.1 This does not, however, allow for variations in culture, circumstances and tradition. As David Punter observes, ‘the law is not absolute, it is a way of seeing things’.2 This is particularly true of the subjective werewolf, which often finds itself undergoing a moral renegotiation over the course of the novel or story in which it features. Punter emphasizes the contradictions evident in the law when he observes that It is necessary for the law to operate under the sign of unity: it can work only if there is a single voice of authority, which is why divisions of church and State are so endlessly problematic.3

This is one reason that the werewolf has chiefly existed outside the law prior to the late twentieth century: its wolfish aspect was always ungovernable, as least as far as human law was concerned.4 This division is one that still endures in much contemporary werewolf fiction, with werewolves often acting outside human law, though not necessarily outside the parameters of justice. Total unity where the law is concerned is an unrealistic prospect in the majority of contemporary lycanthropic fiction. The law is constantly being fractured into ever smaller pieces – human law, werewolf law, natural law – and operates on many different levels, from the rules made up by humans to the ultimate law of nature/God/a higher power, against which there is no appeal. The law in werewolf fiction is excessive in its permeation of nearly every aspect of lycan­ thropic existence. The law, as applied or defied by the werewolf, is a distinctly Gothic affair, owing to its tendency to proliferation, excess and multiplicity. As Punter comments, One of the ways in which Gothic resists the role of the law is in its addiction to the copious, the multiple, the proliferative: all that Deleuze and Guattari would place under the sign of the rhizome.5

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The werewolf is multiplied due to its very nature: it is human and wolf, human and animal, two bodies, two personalities in some instances. The werewolf both enforces and defies the law in modern literature, though it is fair to state that even when the lycanthrope functions as lawgiver, it is continually challenging the nature and the function of the law. This is seldom surprising: the law in were­ wolf fiction, as in much Gothic fiction, is outdated, archaic and inadequate, unable to make sufficient allowances for lycanthropy or to incorporate it into the body of the law. As Punter suggests, for the law to apply equally to all, everyone must be the same – a standardized body must exist.6 Allowances can be made in the law; mercy granted if a plaintiff is ill or frail or is considered a child, but this only serves to emphasize the construction of a standard­ ized body. As Punter concludes: ‘what the law cannot permit is the exceptional body; before the law therefore, there cannot be monsters’.7 This is no longer quite true in the case of the werewolf. It has begun the long and tortuous process of creating, abiding by and enforcing the law, rather than merely being excluded from it. But that the relationship between lycanthropy and the law remains a complex and uneasy one is soon made manifest. This not least because, as the preceding chapter explained, although the werewolf has begun to be assimilated into human society, in many respects it remains at a distance, from both humanity and its laws. Werewolves consequently have begun to develop their own legal systems in many texts, but again these are not always fair or even adequate in regulating lycanthropic behaviour. Although the werewolf is now a subject, its legacy from decades of being portrayed as the beast within is the continuing and confusing division of the law in relation to lycan­ thropy. In considering this relationship, we must examine human law, werewolf law, secular law, religious law and natural law. It is unsurprising, therefore, that the affiliation between the werewolf and the law is a particularly Gothic one.

The Law, the Werewolf and the Gothic Law in contemporary werewolf fiction is distinctly Gothic in its tendency towards division and multiplicity. The Gothic itself is a 97

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genre that has strong historical links with the concept of the law, and which is frequently presented as dark, archaic and corrupt. Few Gothic novels fail to make reference to the law. Dracula focuses on property law and the infamous count’s efforts to establish himself in London by purchasing real estate, to name one well-known example. In contemporary Gothic fiction and film, the law’s function is ambiguous at best. Susan Chaplin describes the law in Gothic fiction, and most particularly film and TV drama, as A contaminated, limited and even perverse space: impure, perpetually unstable and at times monstrous. In the modern world, the space of law is a Gothic space.8

This definition of the law is one that will be used throughout this chapter. The law in contemporary lycanthropic fiction is not a static, unchanging thing, but rather something that is continually altering and reshaping itself depending on circumstance. Until very recently the werewolf’s dual nature made it impossible for the lycanthrope to understand, let alone abide by, the law when in wolf form. This has begun to change, but the developing relationship between the werewolf and the law is still in its very early stages. The focus of this chapter will be on rules that are constructed by lycanthropes, for lycanthropes and also created by humans for lycan­ thropes. The purposes of these laws are manifold. Some are designed to allow werewolves to live in peace and harmony, both with others of their kind and also with any humans that may reside alongside them. In a few instances, the law is needed to promote peaceful co­­­­existence with other supernatural creatures, such as the werebirds, known as Thunderbirds, in Vincent’s Faythe Sanders series. Other laws are designed to control and oppress lycanthropes, such as in Andrea Cremer’s Nightshade series where the werewolves exist as unwitting slaves. In the scenario created by Cremer, her werewolves, known as Guardians, are subservient to the Keepers, supernatural beings who wield immense power. The Keepers refuse to allow the lycanthropes to study certain areas of history and certain philosophers, prohibited the creation of new werewolves by turning humans and control their lycanthropes by arranging suitable marriages. Similarly, in Benjamin Percy’s Red Moon all lycanthropes are registered with the government. 98

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‘Before the Law Therefore, There Cannot Be Monsters . . .’

Regardless of the purpose of the laws featured in lycanthropic texts, the werewolf, in gaining subjectivity and becoming a subject, has also become subject to the law, particularly since the werewolf abandoned its strictly isolated existence and began to become a member of society (human and werewolf). The previous chapter detailed the werewolf’s formation of lycanthropic societies and also its gradual acceptance into human society, a development made possible by lycanthropic subjectivity. The werewolf is no longer a ravening beast in many contemporary contexts, but capable of abiding by societal rules and regulations – both human and lycan­ thropic. And it is a short stretch of the imagination from the werewolf abiding by the law to the werewolf enforcing the law. As Mary Midgley observes in an examination of Rousseau (another philosopher preoccupied with notions of men and beasts), the French philosopher believed that evil was the result of humans congregating together.9 More explicitly, Arthur M. Melzer argues that according to Rousseau, a human being, existing alone and unfettered is naturally good. Once introduced to the society of other humans, however, the human being becomes slavishly dependent on others for survival. They are divided against themselves, and their natural instincts, by the requirement to appease and do business with others, and so they are corrupted by their relationships and evil is the inevitable result.10 Regardless of whether social interaction is the root of all evil, the introduction and development of the lycanthropic pack has made it necessary for the werewolf to introduce some method of governing lycanthropic behaviour, and to initiate a system of punishment should the rules be violated in some way. What these rules are will be examined later. Prior to that, the question must be asked: how did the werewolf, for so many years synonymous with the outlaw, adopt a legal framework for regulating its existence, and in some instances, become a lawgiver itself?

‘Before The Law Therefore, There Cannot be Monsters’ Traditionally, the figure of the werewolf has been synonymous with evil, the Devil and the outlaw. Barry Lopez makes clear the link between the werewolf and the criminal, emphasizing that the 99

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connection between lycanthropy and the outlaw is a centuries-old one. He states that in Medieval Europe the wolf was equated with the (human) outlaw, as both lived beyond the bounds of society.11 The werewolf, like its wolf counterpart, most definitely existed beyond the bounds of human propriety, and for the most part also existed outside human society. This link has endured well into the twenty-first century. Jacques Derrida, in his text The Beast and the Sovereign, examines the figure of the werewolf, comparing it to both a human king and an animal: So the werewolf, the ‘true’ werewolf, is indeed the one who, like the beast or the sovereign, places himself or finds himself placed ‘outside the law,’ outlaw [Eng.], above or at a distance from the normal regime of law and right.12

This is a perfectly accurate summation of the classic, ‘beast within’ werewolf. A danger to all who encounter him, all human laws are suspended as people hunt down and invariably kill him. In fairness, human law could not be applied to such a monstrous being. An example of the inadequacy of human law in relation to the lycanthrope can be found in the 2010 remake of the film The Wolf-Man. In the film, the unfortunate Laurence Talbot is incarcerated in a lunatic asylum after his first transformation in which he kills several people. A psychologist (bearing a faint resemblance to Freud) diagnoses him with various mental ailments before a rapt audience – only for Talbot to transform and kill him. The laws of science are clearly suspended in relation to Talbot, and it is superstition that triumphs. Talbot is redeemed after a fashion thanks to the knowledge and advice of Maleva, a mysterious gypsy woman with an understanding of the supernatural. He still dies at the film’s climax – though not before, in an ironic twist, biting and infecting a police officer. The fate of the stalwart Inspector Aberline, Talbot’s final victim, is not resolved at the film’s conclusion, though it is safe to assume the law he embodies will prove a poor defence against his burgeoning lycanthropy.13 Other examples of the werewolf existing outside the law abound: Suzy McKee Charnas’s short story ‘Boobs’ provides an early instance of the subjective werewolf consciously choosing to do so. A teenage 100

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girl named Kelsey, bullied for her large breasts, is told by her stepmother that boys are stronger than girls and cannot be dealt with through fighting – other methods of resisting them must be developed.14 It is never specified what these alternative methods of resistance are, but for human girls it probably involves simply trying to ignore the sexual harassment and accepting it as a woman’s fate. As I discussed in Chapter 2, this is the strategy adopted by Patricia Briggs’s unwilling werewolf Anna, although it does not prove very effective in her case. Kelsey is much more vicious: she lures the bully to a deserted park late one night and takes vengeance by kill­ ing him. This violation of both gendered expectations of her and the unspoken rules of high school marks Kelsey as an outlaw, a role she adopts with glee: the story closes with her plotting the demise of another obnoxious teenage boy.15 A later novel, Sisters Red (2011) by Jackson Pearce, depicts werewolves as soulless creatures who prey on vulnerable girls and women. Their soulless state ensures that they are beyond reasoning with and that human law (arresting them, making them stand trial and imprisoning them) would be ineffective in dealing with them. The only option for the humans who are aware of their existence is to hunt down and kill them, in a vigilante-style crusade. Despite their outlaw status, in Medieval and Early Renaissance Europe ‘real’ werewolves stood trial for their crimes, with names like Peter Stubbe and Gilles Garnier remaining notorious to this day. In the realms of fiction, however, werewolves remained outlaws, in terms of both human law and natural law. As I explored in Chapter 2, the unnatural status of female werewolves in particular was emphasized in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, with female lycanthropes often posing a direct threat to children and domesticity.16 Werewolves were quite simply disruptive, no matter what context they appeared in or how they were portrayed. At a minimum, they posed a threat to the social status quo – and frequently violated both human and natural law. More often, however, the werewolf simply stood outside the law, as it was written by humans. The rules of humanity did not apply to them, and neither did the human devices of trial and punishment. Hence why werewolves were simply killed off with impunity in the majority of stories in which they appeared. David Punter, in an examination 101

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of the law in Gothic literature, explains the incompatibility of the monster within the law thus: To take the matter the other way round, the existence of a monster therefore poses the utmost threat to the law; and our readerly pleasure in the situation of the monster has its origins, I suggest, in our apprehension of the dismantling, if only for a certain time, of the discourse of the law.17

The werewolf has certainly provided that pleasure in the centuries up until the 1980s, running amok in countless Gothic tales and horror films. No human law could be applied to them, and a vicarious thrill in watching their rampages was certainly a possibility for audiences, until the lycanthrope in question met their certain demise. Of course, what Punter has identified is the dismantling of human law by the monstrous body, the werewolf among them. The dif­ ficulties the werewolf presents towards human law and why they exist are summed up succinctly by Carrie Vaughn in her first novel featuring Kitty Norville: We’ve got a werewolf, vampire, whatever. He’s killed someone for no good reason. What should happen? If it were a normal person, he’d get arrested, go on trial and probably go to jail for a really long time . . . Now, let’s take the werewolf. Can we put a werewolf in jail for a really long time? What are they going to do with him when the full moon comes along? Or the vampire – do you realize how impractical it would be to sentence a vampire to life in prison?18

Kitty, intelligent and discerning, has identified just a few of the issues that confront the werewolf in relation to human law. What, after all, can be done when the werewolf is compelled to transform? A crowded prison would be the worst possible environment, as Kitty observes. Human punishments are at best ineffective and at worst pointless when inflicted upon supernatural creatures such as the vampire and the werewolf. For this reason, the subjective werewolf has also had to contend with lycanthropic law in contemporary fiction. Fictional societies, 102

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of all species, have always had rules and regulations. Perhaps the most relevant example in this instance is Kipling’s ‘The Law of the Jungle’. It applies to all the animals of the jungle, but perhaps its most devoted adherents are Mowgli’s foster family, the Seeonee wolf pack, as out of the entire jungle the wolves are its most social animals. When the wolves reject the law and their leader Akela in a climactic disagreement about Mowgli’s presence in the pack and the jungle itself, the consequences are severe: the pack degenerates into chaos, with no leader, and scavenges and hunts at will. When Mowgli finally returns to the old pack meeting place, many of the wolves are injured, mangy or missing, and some call for Akela and Mowgli to lead them again as they are sick of living without the law – as outlaws. Mowgli does not oblige them, however, and the fate of the lawless wolf pack is never revealed in Kipling’s stories. It is reasonable to assume that their futures are bleak, for without the law the wolves have no social cohesion and thus are forced to live against their very natures. The appearance of the pack in lycanthropic fiction in the late 1980s and early 1990s ensured that the rule of law was transferred from wolves to werewolves. Society necessitates the introduction of a social code, rules to live by in order to promote survival. For lycanthropes, this social code often bears a distinct resemblance to Kipling’s Law of the Jungle: prohibitions against killing humans are common, largely to prevent attention being drawn to the werewolf pack. In Annette Curtis Klause’s Blood and Chocolate, for example, the killing of other werewolves is sanctioned in specific circumstances, such as during the struggle to become pack leader or when a were­ wolf has committed a serious crime according to werewolf law. The killing of humans is strictly forbidden, however, and with good reason. When a group of young werewolves kill two human girls at the start of the novel, they alert the local human population to their existence; consequently, the pack’s home is burned down and they are driven out of town. Other common rules include secrecy concerning lycanthropy, obeying the leader of the pack and hunting in specific areas and at specific times. Curiously, despite the importance of the law in relation to lycan­ thropy, there has been very little sustained analysis of the werewolf’s relationship with the law within the realm of literary criticism. 103

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Although critics such as Stypczynski have written at length on the werewolf’s potential as simultaneous enforcer and disrupter of the social status quo, examination of the werewolf as outlaw, or even lawgiver, is rare.19 Yet in contemporary fiction the werewolf is displaying an increasingly close, complex relationship with the law. In the last chapter, it was demonstrated that werewolves are often subject to two societies simultaneously – human and lycan­ thropic. This also frequently means that werewolves are subject to two sets of laws, which often leads to considerable difficulties for individual lycanthropes or even the pack as a whole. A humorous example can be found in Keri Arthur’s Beneath a Rising Moon (2008), when it is revealed that werewolves are subject to the same drinkdriving laws as humans, despite differences in werewolf biology meaning that the legal limit in humans is nowhere near tipsy for lycanthropes.20 Being subject to the law, werewolves are also increas­ ingly responsible for enforcing it, both on humans and fellow were­ wolves. Or, more specifically, werewolves have appeared in recent fiction as vigilantes, private eyes, spies and even police officers. Although they do not always follow the law, they are increasingly responsible for administering justice and doing what is right, as will be demonstrated by some of the texts this chapter explores.

The Individual, Society and the Law, or Rules for Lycanthropic Living That evil proliferates wherever conscious beings congregate appears to be an unfortunate side effect of the monster’s increasing sociability. Vampires are invariably more wicked when they join forces: the Twilight series’ Volturi, for instance. Zombies, meanwhile, are dangerous when they assemble in large numbers – individual zombies are not much danger, but a mob will prove hazardous for humans owing to sheer force of numbers. Likewise, the classic, solitary werewolf could not truly be described as evil, despite its unfortunate actions when transformed, as it could not be held accountable for its actions. The subjective werewolf, by contrast, is fully aware of itself and its exploits. While this has made it possible for the werewolf to exist as part of a social unit, it also ensures that in 104

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the event of the werewolf’s violating a social code some form of retribution must exist, firstly as a deterrent and secondly as a means of administering justice. However, it also raises the spectre of an unjust or cruel social system that victimizes the werewolf and which must be struggled against if justice (which is not necessarily the same thing as the law) is to be administered. In Alice Borchardt’s The Silver Wolf, set in Ancient Rome, lycanthropic heroine Regeane is abused and tormented by her sadistic uncle Gundabald. When the Pope himself intervenes and considers the prospect of removing her from her uncle’s guardianship, he hesitates, as ‘the men in her family are her legal and traditional guardians’. His friend, Antonius, urges the Pope to exercise common sense rather than abiding by the letter of the law: ‘there are times when, dealing with you, I feel I’m facing a talking law book’.21 Antonius points out that if Regeane’s future husband finds her living in poverty, he is likely to believe the marriage was offered as a cruel joke and might ally himself with Rome’s enemies in vengeance.22 Antonius’s advocating practicality over the law is a warning Regeane herself would have done well to heed: she is moralistic and righteous to the point of jeopardizing her own life later in the novel, in refusing to have Gundabald assassinated. He repays her mercy by accusing her of witchcraft and later tries to kill her. But Regeane is saved, in true Cinderella fashion, by another werewolf named Maeniel, her future mate, who has no such scruples and dispatches Gundabald violently. The reason for Regeane’s virtue in this context is unclear: it does nobody any good, least of all herself. Moreover, Gundabald’s eventual death undermines Regeane’s moral high ground considerably. She is not remotely troubled either by his death or by its painful manner, suggesting that she was not morally opposed to his demise, only that she disliked the idea of having to assume responsibility for it. But what is clear in Borchardt’s novel is that the saintly, rather passive Regeane is forced into acts of conspiracy, deception and violence owing to the fact that she is a member of the Frankish royal family, and that she is therefore hopelessly enmeshed in politics, military manoeuvring and matters of dynasty and heritage. Regeane, despite her dual nature, is very much entangled in human society and must therefore confront and hopefully survive the evil that men do. It is all very well to be virtuous, but not to the point of 105

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impracticality. Contemporary werewolves, like their counterparts the wild wolves such as those found in The Jungle Books, are pre­ occupied with survival, which often involves lying, stealing, fighting and particularly killing. Borchardt’s werewolves survive beyond the end of the novel by withdrawing from humanity altogether and living out their lives in an almost-impregnable fortress in the Alps. However, in the age of the internet and mass surveillance, avoiding humans entirely is an unrealistic prospect for most werewolves – nor do many of them wish to. Nonetheless, there are numerous moral difficulties inherent in the werewolf’s integration into both human and lycanthropic society, and packs in many works of fiction show a marked tendency to segregate themselves from humans as much as possible. Anne Rice’s Wolves of Midwinter series, Kelley Armstrong’s Women of the Otherworld series and Rachel Vincent’s Faythe Sanders series all feature lycanthropes living apart from humans in grand mansions, away from highly populated areas. On one level this is purely practical, as it allows them to transform and hunt without fear of discovery. However, it also serves to keep the werewolves apart from human society and the moral and legal difficulties living with humans may pose. In an examination of the television series True Blood (2008–2014), based on Charlaine Harris’s Southern Vampire Mysteries books, William P. MacNeill argues that No wonder that for Sookie [a telepath], just like Bill [a vampire], community is the enemy because its collective voice of jouissance – not just of lust, but of racism, homophobia, misanthropy and so on – invades her, forever compromising her psychic privacy, under­ mining her inner self’s integrity.23

Although werewolves are seldom psychic, at least not to Sookie’s extent,24 they face similar problems when living with a pack of fellow lycanthropes, where laws are often archaic and arbitrary (particularly towards females) or amongst humans who are often prejudiced and fearful. Withdrawing from human society to protect their ‘inner self’s integrity’ is not always a viable possibility for werewolves, so some form of accord with their community has to be reached. A renegotiation of morality is often necessary for 106

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lycanthropes: humans who are turned into werewolves or werecats find themselves having to accept the necessity of killing to survive, for example. Those who are born lycanthropes find themselves having to adjust to living amongst humans and making concessions in order to live peaceably among them. The new links between the werewolf and the law are therefore a direct result of the werewolf’s new tendency to live in packs or try and integrate into human society. If the werewolf remains wild and solitary, then it remains outside the law and in many cases can be killed off with impunity, as in The Wolf-Man or An American Werewolf in London (1981). However, living together, whether with wolves, humans or werewolves, requires rules, a system of judgement and, if necessary, a system of punishment – particularly now that the werewolf has acquired subjectivity, and thus a self that can be tried and held accountable for its actions. The werewolf must abide by either religious or secular law, and it is the latter we will examine first, in the context of contemporary lycanthropic fiction.

Werewolves Within and Without the Law In his analysis of the law and popular culture, Richard K. Sherwin makes the observation that the law has been comprehended using written texts and the written word.25 This is not a useful approach in dealing with the issue of lycanthropy and the law, however, particularly when focusing on werewolf rather than human law. Werewolves seldom have a written law; nor do their packs often have a specialized peacekeeping force or system of justice. Rachel Vincent’s Faythe Sanders series is a notable exception in this regard: every pride has enforcers to protect it and punish trespassers, and the ruling council of alphas also meets regularly to try serious lawbreakers and administer punishments if necessary.26 Werewolves typically tend to abide by an unwritten code of conduct, with their peers judging and punishing offences, or possibly delegating the responsibility of such to an alpha. However, Sherwin also notes that the law is everywhere, making a persuasive argument for viewing the law as an active, continually evolving thing.27 For werewolves in contemporary fiction, this is quite accurate: more than one text 107

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in recent years has demonstrated how their developing subjectivity has prompted an ever more complex, continually evolving relation­ ship with the law and justice. One of the earliest books to feature a subjective werewolf, Robert R. McCammon’s The Wolf’s Hour (1989), anticipates the formation of the werewolf pack and the need for governance (both external and self-governance) when depicting the hero’s childhood transformation into a werewolf and his education under his pack leader, Wiktor. Though the werewolves featured in McCammon’s text have no written or even unspoken law, relying almost entirely on Wiktor for guidance, the importance of being able to exercise self-control is emphasized continually, with Wiktor describing the loss of self-control as abhorrent for both humans and wolves. An inability to restrain oneself and act rationally, to abide by what rules there are for the pack, could prove disastrous, as indeed it does when a berserker, a werewolf who kills simply for the love of killing, targets the pack. One pack member is killed and another maimed, and rules for the pack’s safety have to be enforced and abided by if they are to survive, e.g. no one goes out alone, all hunting is done in pairs and so forth. It is this willingness to abide by the rules that proves the pack’s salvation, as the berserker is killed by the hero Mikhail/Michael after he goes after Michael’s hunting partner. It is also this training in how to follow orders and rules that later allows Michael to rejoin human society, working as an under­ cover operative for the Allies in the Second World War. Whilst not strictly a role as lawgiver, as Michael is at the centre of a war and therefore the normal rule of human law is suspended, McCammon is amongst the first authors to depict the werewolf administering justice, with Michael targeting traitors, torturers and all manner of nefarious people whilst on undercover assignments – not to mention a big game hunter, whom he naturally despises.28 Michael’s position in the werewolf pack is nonetheless an unusual one, with McCammon depicting him as the primus inter pares, the first among equals. His will to survive is exceptional, as he survives the brutal transformation into a werewolf aged only eight years old, and some of the other werewolves exhibit jealousy towards him as Wiktor favours him and educates him. Michael is also the only member of the pack who manages to become a father: werewolf babies in McCammon’s novel are typically born dead or die shortly 108

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after birth when they begin to transform. Michael’s son Petyr sur­ vives both ordeals however, implying he has inherited his father’s exceptional nature. Owing to his primus inter pares status, Michael is in some ways a literary descendent of Kipling’s Mowgli, who has a special relationship with the Law of the Jungle. Jennifer Sattaur, in an examination of Mowgli’s relationship with the law, maintains he has a unique position with regards to it. Not only must he learn the law in its entirety in order to survive, his superior knowledge of the rules and regulations of the jungle allows him to master the animals and bend them to his will.29 Mikhail/Michael’s status to the law is somewhat more ambiguous owing to the fact that his werewolf pack has no law as such, but his mastery of himself and of numerous fields of knowledge (including languages, anatomy and drama) enables him to master natural and human law and later rise above it. His inherent superiority to the malevolent berserker is demonstrated when the much smaller and weaker Michael defeats it in combat and his later victories over Nazi agents and Allied traitors suggests a superior grasp of justice and fairness, if not the law. Owing to the book’s settings – revolutionary Russia and later Europe during the Second World War – it is impossible for human law to be a fixed, unmoving thing, and in many instances it is suspended altogether. Nonetheless, Michael despises the Nazis’ savagery and lends his support to the Allied cause, suggesting he is naturally aware of or has been educated to be aware of justice and rightness. McCammon’s lycanthropic hero is by no means the only were­ wolf in popular culture to administer justice rather than strictly enforcing the law. Michael is not a vigilante in the conventional sense, given that most of his actions take place in the wild, during the anarchy of Russia after the fall of the Tsar and during the Second World War and thus he operates almost exclusively outside the conventional rule of law. But the majority of contemporary were­ wolves find themselves in (reasonably) peaceful and stable human societies, where the prospect of vigilante justice is a more troublesome one – though not an infrequent one. Cheri Scotch’s The Werewolf’s Kiss foreshadows the lycanthrope’s increasingly popular role as unofficial harbinger of justice when she depicts her werewolves consciously choosing which humans to hunt down and kill. One 109

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experienced werewolf explains that lycanthropes never feel guilt over killing – killing comes naturally to them and they cannot restrain themselves. They can, however, select whom they kill and many take advantage of this free will to dispatch evildoers.30 This is demonstrated at the opening of the novel, with police at a gruesome crime scene where the victim has literally been torn apart. The police are not disturbed by the murder, despite its brutality, as the victim is a known child abuser whose latest victim is still in a coma. The police were forced to let him go through lack of evidence. The werewolf population in New Orleans, where the majority of the novel is set, have no need of evidence or due process. The man is guilty; therefore he dies. The theme of the werewolf as supernatural dispatcher of justice is one that has appeared recently in Rice’s Wolf Gift Chronicles and over a decade earlier in Sparkle Hayter’s Naked Brunch. Rice and Hayter’s texts depict the werewolf as a form of supernatural vigilante – judge, jury and most definitely executioner. They differ from Scotch’s novel in that while Scotch’s werewolves do occasionally make mistakes and kill an innocent human, Rice and Hayter’s were­ wolves are infallible when it comes to doling out much-deserved punishment. The conceit in both texts is that werewolves are able to sense evil. Hayter’s wolves can smell people’s souls and identify wicked individuals, while Rice’s lycanthropes can sense evil in humans and select their victims accordingly. In both texts, it is emphasized that this is the werewolf’s purpose in life: to exact retribution on the evil and corrupt. Anne Rice’s werewolves are outlaws in that they exist outside (and, it is implied, above) human law, answering to a higher power. This has the serendipitous effect of removing the possibility of killing an innocent human, and dispenses with the burden of guilt the werewolf has always been subject to in portrayals of the beast within. Rice’s hero Reuben, following one killing, reflects that ‘he was guilty of killing. He could not deny it and he could not feel remorse.’31 The choice of words in Reuben’s reflection is intriguing: instead of the potentially sug­ gestive murder, the much more neutral killing is employed, reflecting his lack of moral disturbance over his acts of lycanthropic vigilantism. Hayter takes a slightly more prosaic view, implying that were­ wolves have evolved to hunt down evildoers and that should they 110

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wish to, their condition can be controlled using medicine and by physically restraining themselves. Nonetheless, both sets of were­ wolves perform the same function, with some truly nefarious individuals falling victim to them – among them, kidnappers, child abusers, brothel owners, drug cartel bosses and corrupt business­ men who steal millions, damaging the lives of others irreparably in the process. It is worth noting that the werewolves target either those who engage in violent crime, those who exploit other humans in a harmful manner or else are representatives of corrupt business practices. Small-time criminals such as pickpockets, users of banned substances and opportunistic burglars seldom fall victim to were­ wolves. Presumably they simply are not evil enough to warrant attention. Given the lycanthropic predisposition for targeting violent, murder­ ­ous individuals, it seems surprising that corrupt businessmen are targeted for extermination, such as at the climax of Naked Brunch, when a particularly appalling CEO is torn to shreds. However, the killing of bankers and heads of multinationals will have particular resonance for an audience following the 2008 global recession. Also, both Rice and Hayter make it clear that even though people may not actually carry out murders with their own hands, they must be forced to pay for creating the circumstances in which people suffer harm. One of the central characters of Rice’s series, Father James (Jim) Golding, Catholic priest and brother to Man-Wolf Reuben, is an intensely conflicted man. He is described rather pityingly as ‘a priest who longs with all his heart to believe in God, but does not’.32 Despite this shortcoming, Jim is deeply troubled by Reuben’s dispatching of evildoers when in werewolf form. Perhaps owing to his difficulties with his faith, when a fellow priest is murdered by a gang of drug runners, Jim, who knows the identity of the murderers, goes to Reuben and tells him the story, knowing full well Reuben and his cohorts will exact their own brand of retribution. Jim pays his own price for enabling the murders, however, and decides to leave the priesthood, despite Reuben’s protestations that the drug runners deserved their fate. Reuben, by contrast, faces no such reckoning. Reuben, as a Man-Wolf, does not face the religious chastisement Jim is subject to, nor is he subject to human law. Rice’s lycanthropes are not 111

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without all restraint, however. They exist to punish evil, and when they select an innocent victim, retribution inevitably results. In The Wolf-Gift, it transpires Reuben was bitten and turned into a lycan­ thrope by accident, by a creature known as Marrok. Marrok reappears later in the story, furious that Reuben has survived, and attempts to kill both Reuben and his girlfriend, Laura, a human. Reuben bests him with ease and Marrok is killed – but no one is surprised by this outcome. As Reuben’s mentor Felix points out upon hearing the story, Reuben and Laura were both innocent of any crime and thus Marrok’s actions were against the unspoken code of the Morphen­ kind. A similar scenario is enacted in The Wolves of Midwinter, when a group of rival Morphenkinder attack Reuben’s human father Phil. The instigators, Fiona and Helena, are punished in gruesome fashion by the forest spirits, who hurl them onto a bonfire. By the conclusion of the second novel, it has become apparent that whilst all the characters operate under different sets of laws – religious, human, lycanthropic – all of them face punishment if they transgress them. This is an important addition to the Morphenkinders’ existence, as their infallible and unerring instincts for evil raise the frightening prospect of moral insensibility. The appropriately titled novel Rules for Werewolves (2015) makes a crucial distinction between those who make and debate the law and those who enforce it. Two pack members, when discussing their de facto leader Malcolm and his desire for revenge on a man who tried to run him over, conclude that ‘Malcolm’s not a lawyer, he’s a cop. He’s not gonna try to persuade the Peugeot guy about what the law means. Malcolm’s gonna enforce the law as he understands it.’33 Kirk Lynn, the author, emphasizes that the law, or rules, for his motley collection of werewolves is an ever-evolving thing that changes depending on their circumstances and on what the werewolves themselves agree upon. Lynn’s approach in depicting lycanthropic law as the product of debate and circumstances, despite its obvious practicality, is in fact a radical one compared to the presentation of the law in the majority of werewolf fiction. McCammon, Scotch, Hayter and Rice all present the complex concepts of good and evil as immutable and unchangeable and the werewolves as the loyal protectors of good and punishers of evil. Some authors highlight this to a greater 112

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extent than others, but the basic theme – of lycanthropes as infallible administrators of justice – is the same. Werewolves in these texts obey their own internal laws, those of which lycanthropy has given them an innate knowledge. They continually violate human laws, but this seldom troubles them. This attitude is mitigated by the fact that human law is very often portrayed as ineffective or corrupt in contemporary texts. There is the example of Scotch’s child abuser who is sheltered from punishment by lack of evidence. Or in Rice’s The Wolf Gift, when an entire busload of elementary schoolchildren are kidnapped until the Man-Wolf locates them and dispatches the kidnappers. Punter’s comments about our pleasure in the temporary dismantling of the law are applicable here. Human law is flung aside, disregarded, in favour of a much more satisfying resolution, the confirmation that evil will not escape punishment. Even more gratifying for the audience horrified by the wickedness of the villains, the evildoers, is the knowledge that they will meet a painful (deserved) demise, and will be unable to perpetrate any more harm, instead of slipping through the net of a capricious, uncertain legal system. But are Punter’s comments about the pleasure to be taken from the dismantling of the law truly applicable to the contemporary werewolf? Far from enjoying the undoing of the law, the ultimate pleasure in the law as enforced by the werewolf may be in its infallibility. For an audience, vicarious pleasure might be found in the werewolf’s violence towards evildoers because of the re­ assuring knowledge that werewolves, unlike human legal systems, do not make mistakes, or at least not to the same extent. No one who has committed a crime escapes, and no innocent individuals are punished. And should the odd unfortunate guiltless human be killed, lycan­thropes still make far fewer errors of justice than the human legal system. Their dedication to enforcing the law is absolute: there will be no retirement for them, no holidays taken or time off. As one lycanthrope comments in The Werewolf’s Kiss: We must kill; it’s our nature . . . But we have human intelligence, human complexity. With it comes responsibility. And that responsibility is to choose our kills carefully. There are people who are evil . . .

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The Nature of the Beast And those people are the werewolf’s kills. Killing one of these is a noble act . . . It exalts a werewolf, it confirms our purpose.34

The concept of purpose or destiny is one that recurs frequently in relation to the lycanthropic lawgiver. The notion that the werewolf is a supernatural enforcer of justice is one that conveniently side­steps a number of moral and ethical issues and allows the werewolf to eliminate criminals without succumbing to guilt or self-doubt. This is also a possible concession to the werewolf’s still-uncertain and still-developing identity and sense of self. For decades, the werewolf has not possessed a sufficient sense of self to entertain any doubts concerning it, so a cast-iron role to inhabit, a secure knowledge of their reason for existing conveniently provides an identity for the werewolf to inhabit. This emphasis on a solid sense of self is one that is common to the detective genre that emerged in the twentieth century. As Gill Plain asserts in her examination of paradigms found in mystery stories, in post-First World War detective fiction, a genre that saw a tremendous rise in popularity in the 1920s in Britain and America, the individual was of paramount importance to the plot. The detective genre focused on solitary deaths that could always be explained or lone, independent detectives.35 The werewolf, in the midst of attaining subjectivity, can likewise be validated by the role of lawgiver, which, although not always straightforward, at least gives them a purpose. Unlike the classic werewolf, whose violent tendencies were undisciplined and without any real focus. Punter’s comments about the dismantling of the law and the audience’s vicarious pleasure in it are certainly applicable to the classic, beast within werewolf, which was typically killed off after it had had its fill of rampaging and killing. What is evident in the majority of texts analysed here is that while human laws – against murder, violence and theft, to name but a few – may be violated with impunity, in fact the law is not being wholly disassembled. The werewolves in the texts by Rice, Scotch and Hayter are all servants of a higher power, an infallible natural (or supernatural) justice system, that gives them a solid foundation on which to construct an otherwise fluid, uncertain lycanthropic subjectivity. The pleasure of the audience comes from the violation of human rules and laws whilst simultaneously knowing justice is being served 114

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without undue fussing with trials, procedures and appeals. The lycanthrope in these texts is not a violator of the law, but a represen­ tative of a law that is truly immutable, eternal and beyond appeal. Instead of representing and instigating rebellion, the overturning of the law, even for a brief period, the werewolf has become the symbol of moral certainty and inescapable punishment. It is perhaps for this reason that werewolves such as those depicted by Anne Rice and Sparkle Hayter are infallible when it comes to selecting their kills from the evil among the human populace. McCammon and Scotch’s werewolves are fallible to some extent in selecting their victims as they rely on their own judgement about who lives and who dies. They seldom waste time on feeling guilt over a mistake, however, and every kill still reaffirms their purpose in existing. As Punter comments, ‘one way of trying to deal with violence, then, is to exile it beyond the human species’.36 The indiscriminate violence innate to the classic werewolf has always been represented as beyond humanity, but so too is the more focused violence of the new, subjective werewolf. Human law, at least in theory, does not rely on violence to punish, with the exception of capital punishment. In presenting werewolves as brutal enforcers of natural justice, lycanthropes are shown to be capable of doing what human law is incapable of doing: namely, inflicting as much pain on offenders as they have inflicted upon others, such as the child abuser in Scotch’s The Werewolf’s Kiss. This is hinted at in Rice’s The Wolves of Midwinter, when head werewolf Felix informs his protégé Reuben that humans who have divined their secret will often come to them when they have suffered an injustice and cannot get retribution within the bounds of human law. Rice’s werewolves enact spectacularly violent revenge on evildoers, often ending by consuming them. It is satisfying for both the werewolves and the audience, who are reassured that evil is being wiped out and is not given the luxury of a quick and painless demise. At first glance, the werewolf as representative of the ultimate law, the protection of good and the punishment of evil, seems contra­dictory. The werewolf’s literary career up until the late twentieth century has placed the lycanthrope firmly in the category of outlaw, the antithesis of the lawgiver. The werewolf existed out­ side both the law and the society that produced the law, and its very 115

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ungovernableness absolved society from taking accountability for its existence. It was a comforting notion: if the blame for its violence and wrongdoing rests with the werewolf, it cannot lie with social institutions or society in general. As Earl F. Bargainnier comments on the fiction of Agatha Christie and detective fiction in general, the sympathies of the audience must be on the side of the police and/or the detective, and by extension society. Society must therefore be worth protecting and preserving; the lawbreakers cannot be allowed to run amok.37 The same applied to the classic werewolf. Though seldom unsympathetic, particularly if they were an unwilling lycanthrope, they could not be allow to rampage unchecked, and were invariably killed off in order to preserve human society. By serving as an emblem of evil or disorder, much like the detective story’s criminal, the classic beast within became the means by which society proves its goodness and its worthiness, an assertion also made by Stypczynski in his examination of the contemporary werewolf. He elaborates in Jungian terms that the werewolf allows human society to maintain the status quo by ‘releasing some of the pressure created by the collective shadow’.38 The werewolf functioned and still functions as scapegoat and pressure valve, embodying all the evils of society and allowing humans to experience them vicariously before being eliminated. However, the early years of the new millennium saw numerous upheavals in and surrounding previously stable, reliable institutions of Western democracies. In the United Kingdom, notable revelations such as the MPs’ expenses scandal in the late 2000s and the Leveson Inquiry into journalistic malpractice shook public faith in the government and the press, while the 2008 recession caused worldwide outrage at the recklessness of unregulated financial institutions. Despite these seismic shifts in public perceptions of authorities such as government and the press, few responsible for the crises have been called to account for their mistakes and misdeeds. Unsurprisingly, the notion of a supernatural vigilante with an unfailing ability to mete out justice where it is due an appealing one for contemporary audiences. The werewolf is no longer necessarily serving as scapegoat for society’s ills, but becoming the means of ensuring harsh but deserved punishment. The werewolf is no longer constantly pre­ occupied with dismantling the law or standing outside it as it has 116

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done during its long history as the ultimate outlaw. However, the werewolf is not necessarily contained or censured by the law. The United States in particular has always had a strong theme of vigilantism in its popular culture; the cowboy, the private eye, the superhero, and now the werewolf. This development is all the more remarkable considering that throughout the first half of the twentieth century, the werewolf in popular culture was positioned as the antithesis of the detective and the lawgiver. Brian J. Frost has noted that horror stories fell sharply out of favour with the reading public after the First World War, a decline he attributes to the genre’s lack of originality and also the dramatic increase in the popularity of crime and detective stories.39 Likewise, Gill Plain, in her analysis of twentieth-century detective fiction, observes a dramatic rise in the genre’s popularity post-First World War, at the same time the werewolf in fiction was suffering a distinct decline. She asserts that In the excesses of death that characterise a world at war, the individual corpse is obliterated; it becomes impossible to mourn for each and every loss. But in detective fiction the reader enters a fantastical world in which the meticulous investigation of a single detail is not only possible, it is central to the narrative. Both exact cause and ultimate responsibility can be attributed for each single newly significant death. Someone is to blame, and the wartime absence of explanation is superseded by detective fiction’s excess of possible solutions.40

The appeal of the murder mystery after the uncountable loss of life in the First World War was that rational thought processes could be followed and someone could be held accountable for each and every death. Horror, by contrast, dwelt largely on the supernatural, magic and other things that were either inexplicable by, or offensive to, nature; Frankenstein’s Monster, Dracula and, especially for the purposes of this chapter, the werewolf. Lycanthropy accordingly fell sharply out of favour with the reading public during the 1920s and 1930s, save in the pages of the pulp magazine.41 The werewolf, with its lack of subjectivity and accountability, was counter to the zeitgeist and accordingly decreased in popularity. Although Frost also observes that horror writers increasingly turned to the crime 117

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and mystery genre for inspiration during the 1920s and 1930s, the werewolf was never the detective or the lawgiver in these tales, but was either the mystery to be solved or the antagonist. Crime and mystery stories continue to be popular in the early years of the twenty-first century, particularly on television and film (at least three English-language versions of Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes alone have been filmed since 2009).42 But notably, the werewolf in fiction has continued to thrive. Although frequently conflated with the mystery and crime genres just as it was in the 1930s, the crucial difference is now that the werewolf has adopted the role of lawgiver – and the fact that it has the ability to exist and operate outside human law may be a crucial factor in this develop­ ment. Whereas the detective, no matter how roguish and un­ conventional, is ultimately bound by the law, the werewolf in many instances faces no such restrictions. Or rather, although human law and even lycanthropic law is potentially corrupt and fallible, the werewolf is the enforcer of a natural law that is beyond perversion, manipulation, or appeal, enforcing a justice that is truly just.

The Ultimate Power The concept of the law as eternal, immutable and beyond appeal is one that consistently appears in contemporary werewolf texts. It is, however, an idea that fails to take account of the fact that the law is always shaped by culture and circumstance. The were­wolf lawgivers in the majority of contemporary texts obey some natural force for justice, one that is above or beyond human law. It is comfortingly straightforward at first glance. The werewolves have excellent instincts for evil, which they then destroy, either through conscious choice or because they are compelled to. Rice and Hayter’s werewolves are the most prominent examples of infallible lawgivers in contemporary lycanthropic fiction. They enact the roles of cops as defined by Kirk Lynn, and it is never made clear who wrote the laws they obey. It is strongly implied in both texts that the werewolf’s natural/supernatural role is that of lawgiver, evolved to hunt down and eliminate evil. A similar scenario is depicted in Meyer’s Twilight series, in which young men from the 118

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Quileute tribe transform into werewolves whenever there are vampires in the vicinity, as werewolves are the only creatures strong enough to keep vampires in check. However, far from being infallible in their dispensing of justice, Meyer’s wolves are nearly always on the verge of violence. There is a disturbing suggestion of domestic abuse in one book, when it is revealed leader of the pack Sam Uley lost his temper and permanently scarred his girlfriend Emily in consequence.43 Such lack of self-control is the ultimate sin in a series that has become famous for its message of abstinence and self-denial. Moreover, werewolves, members of the Quileute tribe, are all Native American and as such are problematically presented as embodying the stereotype of the Noble Savage. Kristian Jensen argues that Meyer has conflated her werewolves with the conception of the Noble Savage: simple, uncivilized, at one with nature and essentially innocent and benevolent.44 Roman Bartosch and Celestine Caruso formulate a similar argument in their examination of the sexual dynamics in Twilight, with the werewolves embodying a threatening, animalistic but vital and lively sexuality that is conflated with their ethnicity.45 Although the wild wolf has served as a symbol of renewal and the warrior among Native American tribes such as the Makah and the Pawnee, the werewolf carries much more negative connotations of savagery and bestiality.46 Critics such as Natalie Wilson have argued that this depiction as lycanthropy as a genetic imperative that is specific to the Quileute reduces the Native Americans in the series to aggressive and angry brutes.47 Michelle Boyer, in an examination of the wolf and Native Americans in popular film, suggests that merging werewolf and American Indian identities has the impact of negating Native American identity entirely. She argues that in popular Western films such as Dances with Wolves (1990) both the wolves and the Native Americans are depicted as vanishing from the frontier, conveniently removing themselves and conceding the land to colonizing forces.48 Although Twilight does not entirely remove its werewolves/ Native Americans from the audience’s view, they are liminal beings. Jacob and the other young Quileutes do not attend mainstream high school, they are economically disadvantaged and they live apart from the townspeople of Forks, where the series is set. More­ over, although they do not vanish entirely, Meyer’s depiction 119

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effectively removes their subjectivity. Individual personalities count for little: all the werewolves are violent, hot-tempered and uncivilized, even including the lone female werewolf Leah Clearwater and the heroine’s would-be lover Jacob. Although Jacob stands out by allying himself with the vampires by the conclusion of the series, this effectively removes his traditional lycanthropic role as guard against vampiric predation. Whether the Quileute werewolves discover a new lawgiving role alongside the Cullen vampires is not explored within the series. That the werewolves in the Twilight series are morally upstanding and beneficent is true for the most part. However, they are also essentially wild and, as the stereotype suggests, savage. Lycanthropy in Meyer’s series is equated with physical strength, connections to the wilderness and, crucially, the working class. The low incomes and lack of education of the Quileutes, and by extension the were­ wolves, is continually contrasted with the material wealth and consumerist tendencies of the Cullens. Just as in Victorian times the working class represented a threat to the moral health of whole nations, the werewolves of the Twilight series are presented as hired muscle, useful but brutal and liable to become uncontrollable. This is in contrast to the patrician Cullens, most particularly their head, Carlisle. Whilst his adopted children often exhibit selfish or immature tendencies – Edward himself is one of the worst offenders, despite Bella’s idealization of him – Carlisle, a doctor, is perhaps the one morally irreproachable character in the series. Wholly committed to drinking only the blood of animals and refraining from killing humans, Carlisle leads by example and refuses to pass judgement on those vampires who choose to hunt humans. ‘That’s why it took me ten years to defy Carlisle – I could read his perfect sincerity [through telepathy]’, Edward explains to Bella, when speaking of his rebellious phase of drinking human blood.49 Carlisle’s perfect goodness and unselfishness present impossible standards to attain and none of his adopted family quite live up to his example, but Carlisle’s status as head of the Cullen family allows them to bask in his glory and marks them out as the moral standard by which all other characters in the series are measured. Although the majority of the lycanthropes in the Twilight series are good-hearted, the savagery of the werewolves, which they appear unable to master 120

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to any significant degree, marks them out as violent, unstable and inferior to the supremely self-contained vampires. So are vampires superior to werewolves when it comes to enforcing and obeying the law? Not necessarily, even in Meyer’s Twilight series. The action of the final book in the series, Breaking Dawn, is triggered by the belief that the Cullens have broken one of the inalienable laws that bind all vampires. Bella and Edward’s daughter Renesmee is believed to be an ‘immortal child’, a child turned into a vampire, which is strictly forbidden. This proves to be an erroneous assumption, but the mere suspicion is enough to authorize a full-scale invasion of Cullen territory by the Volturi, the vampire ruling council. The importance of obeying the law is emphasized, as vampire children are uncontrollable and unable to reign in their desire for blood.

True Blue Wolf: The Werewolf as Police Officer Despite the lycanthrope’s liminal status, in recent years several texts have depicted the werewolf as police officer, a true blue enforcer of the law. W. D. Gagliani’s Wolf Trap and its sequels focus on the appropriately named Nick Lupo, a man infected with lycanthropy in childhood who grows up to be a police officer and takes down a serial killer using his wolfish alter ego. There is also the Canadian horror film Wolf Cop (2014), in which the even more appropriately named Lou Garou, a small-town policeman, is turned into a lycan­ thrope after an occult ceremony. Formerly an incompetent officer who spent most of his time in his favourite bar, becoming a werewolf provides a tremendous boost to Garou’s abilities as a policeman and serves to raise the town’s opinion of him as lawgiver. Becoming a werewolf means Lou breaks the law he is meant to uphold, but conversely allows him to do what is considered ‘right’, according to the standards of the film. The same contradiction is in­­­herent in Nick Lupo. The plot of The Wolf Trap focuses on a serial killer targeting women. The novel’s villain, Martin, despite his murder­ous nature, is a rather pathetic figure who is clearly deeply psychologically traumatized. It is revealed through flashbacks that Nick accidentally killed Martin’s sister Caroline in a lycanthropic episode. Martin has learned of Nick’s lycanthropy, and wants what 121

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he perceives as justice for his sister – to kill Lupo, as he will never stand trial in a court of law. Martin’s desire for revenge is perfectly understandable and even sympathetic. Nick did wrong, escaped punishment (unless his crippling guilt is taken into account) and has been walking free ever since. In a narrative written prior to the werewolf’s development of subjectivity, Martin probably would have been the hero, Nick the villain.50 But Gagliani inverts this narrative by making Martin into a psychotic manipulator with a lipstick fetish, Nick Lupo into a dedicated police officer who genuinely wants to protect and serve. By the climax of the novel, their roles have reversed themselves. Nick, at odds with his wolfish half for years, embraces it in order to bring down the serial killer. Whereas Martin has lost all grip on reality and when he confronts Nick is plastered in female make-up in a manner reminiscent of Buffalo Bill in Jonathan Demme’s The Silence of the Lambs (1991). Trans­gressing gender boundaries, in a mirroring of Nick’s trans­ gressing of the boundary between animal and human, Martin poses an unresolvable threat to Nick and his loved ones at the climax of the novel and must be eliminated, ironically in the same manner his sister was. His fate may be rough justice, but it is certainly justice. In this instance the law cannot move fast enough to subdue the serial killer, nor can it comprehend and punish Nick’s own crimes, and so justice must resist the law and enact itself. Resisting and changing unjust laws form an important aspect of many contemporary lycanthropic texts. The werewolf, for many years synonymous with the outcast, with wild creatures who existed outside society, has begun to be assimilated into werewolf and human societies, as we saw in the last chapter. However, the werewolf still has a rebellious aura about it (in contrast to the vampire, now almost a celebrity in many popular culture texts) and in many instances revolts against injustice or unfairness. Even Hollywood has acknow­ ledged this aspect of the werewolf’s history: the film Underworld: Rise of the Lycans (2009) depicts how the werewolves were originally slaves of a vampire ruling class, before successfully rebelling against their servitude. Other texts feature werewolves stand­ing up against practitioners of black magic (Scotch’s The Werewolf’s Kiss), mad scientists (in Rice and Armstrong’s respective series) and in some cases waging war on a hostile human population (Benjamin Percy’s 122

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Red Moon). However, the werewolf’s rebellious tendencies are not always presented in a positive light, as evidenced by a new trend in werewolf fiction that depicts the werewolf as terrorist.

Werewolves and the Law in Post-9/11 Fiction Considering the profound impact 9/11 has had upon popular culture, it seems surprising the themes of paranoia, terrorism, corruption in government and divided loyalties have not been explored more extensively in lycanthropic fiction. It is understandable that the human population is alarmed to find themselves infiltrated by werewolves with the ability to ‘pass’ as human, just as terrorists have learned to pass themselves off as ordinary, law-abiding citizens. Similar fears were expressed about ‘foreign’ populations living in America during the Second World War, some of which surface in the 1941 version of The Wolf-Man. Its screenwriter, Curt Siodmak, was a German Jew who had immigrated to America in 1937. He explicitly identified himself with his lycanthropic creation, with his most compelling statement being, simply ‘I am the Wolf Man’.51 His reasoning behind this assertion was that by being a Jew in Hitler’s Germany, like the lycanthropic Larry Talbot he was forced into a fate he did not want.52 Anti-Semitic portrayals of Jews as corrupt and monstrous were par for the course in Nazi Germany. Likewise, Siodmak’s creation, Larry Talbot, is turned into a monster against his will, and eventually exterminated. However, the situation in the United States was also problematic. Anti-Semitism was an un­ fortunate reality at the time, and during the 1930s there were wide­ spread anxieties about Jewish loyalties to America. The fear that Jews would be more loyal to their religion than their country was expressed frequently.53 The same fear has been expressed concerning werewolves (and other supernatural creatures) in Carrie Vaughn’s Kitty Norville series and, mostly particularly, in Benjamin Percy’s Red Moon. And just as certain nationalities and ethnic groups were subject to internment in America and Britain during the Second World War, one of the themes of post-9/11 fantasy that features werewolves and other supernatural creatures is how to apply the law in a climate of fear and suspicion. 123

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Vaughn offers a more sustained and complex engagement with the issues of citizenship and the US Constitution as applied to supernatural beings, whilst Percy is more concerned with the dayto-day struggle for survival faced by the majority of his characters. Percy’s novel is hardly unconcerned with politics and terrorism, however. Both humans and lycans are presented with differing political beliefs and attitudes towards one another. The presentation of the lycans in Percy’s novel varies considerably: some are presented as simply wishing to be left in peace and who suffer because of anti-lycan prejudices amongst the human population. Conversely, other lycans actively wish to harm humanity, living in hidden terrorist training camps and waging a covert war on humans. They succeed in apocalyptic fashion when they crash a plane into a nuclear reactor, killing hundreds of thousands of people and making a vast swathe of North America uninhabitable. The fear and hatred humans harbour towards lycans is shown to be understandable and, in some instances, quite justifiable, such as following a lycan attack on a commercial airplane flight that leaves all but one human passenger dead, or the lycan attack on a health resort that once again results in dozens of casualties. Conversely, some lycans are presented sympathetically, such as Claire, who loses her parents to a covert, government-sanctioned crackdown on known members (and former members) of lycan protest groups. But the real threat that emanates from Percy’s werewolves is that anyone, anyone at all, can become one. Lycanthropy, as in Hollywood films such as The Wolf-Man, can be passed on through bites and scratches, like an infectious disease. The most notable instance in Red Moon is when a presidential candidate, Chase Williams, is deliberately infected with lycanthropy by a lycan resistance cell who object to his calls for lycan registration and laws that will limit their employment opportunities. In the novel, the problematic status of lycans under US law has a long history. For example, the parents of one of the central characters, Claire, had been members of a group known as the Lycan Resistance in the 1960s. The group’s aims were to end segregation of public transport, schools, hotels and other institutions and to end American occupation of the Lupine Republic.54 There are glaringly obvious parallels with the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, but they are far from the only 124

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parallels Percy establishes between his lycanthropes and other world events and minority groups. The Lupine Republic, with its strong links to the American military, is highly suggestive of Israel and the conflict in the West Bank, while the attacks on civilian aircraft and other targets are clearly analogous to those carried out on 9/11 and by groups such as al-Qaeda. The werewolf, in Percy’s novel, becomes emblematic not only of the terrorist – standing outside the law, conscienceless and killing at random – but of every rebellious force that exists within and without society. They represent not specific terrorist, ethnic or civil rights groups, but any organization that promotes civil disorder, whether fundamentally peaceable or extremely violent. Jessie Kalvado, in an examination of supernatural creatures in the post-9/11 world, also identifies this nebulous quality, in both the creatures themselves and in the Bush Administration’s ‘War on Terror’. He argues that in the War on Terror, the enemy can remain completely anonymous. As a consequence, the enemy is not just foreign or weird but almost ghostly, amorphous and can be shaped into any form.55 While Percy’s lycanthropes are far from non-corporeal, with the author lingering over descriptions of the bloody injuries given and received by them, they are similarly nameless, amorphous and endless different fears and anxieties can be projected onto them. Judith Halberstam, in her seminal work Skin Shows: Gothic Horror and the Technology of Monsters (1995), argues that defining characteristics such as class and ethnicity are subsumed by the monster’s body, which epitomizes multifactorial otherness.56 Bourgault Du Coudray makes the same argument regarding Victorian fiction, observing that The werewolf, like other monsters, embodied a composite Otherness which gave expression to anxieties about working-class degeneracy, aristocratic decadence, racial atavism, women’s corporeality and sexuality, and the human relationship to the animal world.57

Likewise, Percy’s werewolves embody a ‘composite Otherness’, which represents different concerns than those listed by Bourgault Du Coudray. Nonetheless, his werewolves perform the same func­ tion. His werewolves are simultaneously a misunderstood, persecuted minority group and a malevolent, destructive and ungovernable 125

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terrorist threat. The lycanthropic ability to pass themselves off as human, allowing them to remain nameless and amorphous, is crucial here. Because the lycanthrope has an exceptionally effective method of disguising themselves, whatever threats they represent remain shadowy and indistinct, allowing the human population to shape perceptions of the werewolf according to circumstance and their own inclinations. However, this ability to disguise themselves, as well as the lycan­ thrope’s increasing acceptance into society and its new position of power and semi-respectability as enforcer of justice in many texts, has another interesting implication for the concept of the werewolfas-terrorist. Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock, in an examination of the monster in post-9/11 culture, suggests that The terrorist, like the serial killer, presents no obvious external markers of his monstrosity . . . Vision is not enough to separate out the monsters from the rank and file of humanity. We no longer recognize a monster when we see one.58

It is a small leap, Weinstock elaborates, to imagine monsters every­ where, that everyone is potentially a monster. Monstrosity is no longer based solely or even primarily on appearance, and thus any­ one could behave monstrously in post-9/11 narratives. The difficulty of ascertaining precisely who and what is the monster is a central theme to both Vaughn’s and Percy’s texts. Sometimes it is the werewolf, a mad or murderous lycanthrope. But all too often it is the human in the texts who is the monster, such as the Quiet Man in Percy’s text, who kills the heroine’s parents. Or even Senator Duke in Kitty Goes to Washington, who at times is an almost laughable figure in his religious bigotry but is no less dangerous for that.

Methods of Punishment in Werewolf Texts Wherever the law exists, punishment necessarily follows an offence, and lycanthropes in popular fiction have demonstrated a marked preference for capital punishment. Exile from the safety of the pack is another common punishment for severe transgressions, as is 126

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(permanent) injury. In Vincent’s Faythe Sanders series, removing a werecat’s claws/fingernails is a brutal but effective punishment that is inflicted upon Manx, a female werecat, because she killed several male werecats.59 As a cat she remains able to hunt and bring down prey, but owing to the disfigurement can never go out in public without donning gloves when in human form. But death remains the most common penalty in lycanthropic fiction for lawbreakers. On one level this is unsurprising: popular support for the death penalty in the USA reached an all-time high in the mid-1990s. In 1994, according to one article, public approval of capital punishment for murder stood at 80 per cent, and the number of executions rose to a post-war high in 1999.60 In most texts to feature a werewolf society, it is a purely practical system – the werewolves have no prisons or parole system, so inflicting death or physical injury are the most effective forms of deterrent or retribution. In some texts, werewolves are either immortal or exceptionally long-lived, so a life sentence would be impractical. In many representations of the werewolf, they all have accelerated healing abilities, so even corporal punishment would be ineffective. In the paranormal romance Howling Moon (2007), a female werewolf has committed a grave transgression by attacking a human. The alpha of the pack considers having her beaten as punishment, but owing to the speed with which she heals, he considers it too light a chastisement. Interestingly, his aim is to get the transgressor, Tania, to reflect on what she has done wrong and take responsibility for it. Long-term humiliation is the punishment he decides on, and accordingly Tania, usually a high-ranking werewolf within the pack, is named Omega and forced to work as a waitress for low pay instead of her usual respected position as pack doctor. Personal responsibility is something were­ wolves must bear in mind, as there are greater lawgivers than humans or even other werewolves to consider in some texts. Punishment may therefore be self-inflicted. Kristopher Reisz’s Unleashed (2010) depicts a group of teenage werewolves in Birming­ ham, Alabama, who discover how to transform themselves into wolves with the aid of a specific mushroom that they roast and then consume. The majority of the werewolves are outcasts as humans, existing on the fringes of society and sneered at by their classmates. They find empowerment as wolves, marking out their territory and 127

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taking revenge on those who terrorized them. However, lycanthropy encourages increasingly violent, dangerous behaviour from the people who experience it. Teen wolves Daniel, Misty and their compatriots initially find their thrills from exploring the city and marking their territory, but later they set fire to their school, a con­ flagration they narrowly escape. Later, the werewolves plan to attack a high school party, and injure and possibly even kill the schoolmates who spurned them and mocked them. Daniel, having belatedly come to his senses, thwarts the attack and no one gets hurt, but the increasingly poor judgement, risk-taking and social alienation he and his fellow werewolves experience all leave their mark. One member of the pack, Eric, furious at being denied vengeance, disappears and is still missing at the novel’s conclusion. Although the werewolves of Reisz’s novel have escaped punishment from the police, their teachers and other representatives of rules, institutions and law, there is still a price to be paid for their misdeeds.

Of Wolves and Nuns: The Werewolf and Religious Law The links between Christianity and lycanthropy are surprisingly strong and ancient. The wolf is a recurring motif in books such as the notorious witch-hunting text Malleus Maleficarum (first published in 1486), where its cruelty and savagery are emphasized. Adam Douglas observes that in thirteenth-century Europe the wolf became associated with the Devil, after the rise of the image of Christ the Lamb of God.61 Although the possibility of physical transformation was discounted by theologians such as St Augustine, people could still fall victim to beliefs and hallucinations brought on by the Devil, and believe themselves transformed into wolves.62 The con­ nections between werewolves and religion are not confined solely to Christianity. In the BBC version of Being Human, hapless werewolf George is Jewish and wears his Star of David pendant throughout the series. He is not an observant Jew, however, as his housemates learn when they spy him eating bacon sandwiches. George explains he distanced himself from his faith upon becoming a werewolf, noting dryly that it is hard to find a major religion that does not disapprove of it. Despite this outward scepticism, George’s faith 128

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proves a strength in several episodes in the series, particularly in the penultimate episode of the first series, when he fends off a vampire with his Star of David. He is bewildered by this, as his vampire friend Mitchell is unaffected by the symbol of his faith, but another vampire explains that George’s affection for Mitchell allows the vampire to tolerate the pendant’s close proximity. Religious law is often used to temper the werewolf’s wildness. In fictional cases of children, typically girls, who have been raised by wolves, the task of civilizing them (which amounts to teaching them to walk on two legs, wear clothes and make small talk in most cases) is nearly always given to nuns. Examples of this can be found in a range of texts, including Jill Paton Walsh’s Knowledge of Angels (1994), Angela Carter’s ‘Wolf-Alice’ and Karen Russell’s short story ‘St Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves’ (2006). It seems a peculiar move to socialize wolf-girls among women who have withdrawn from mainstream society for a life of prayer and con­ templation, but it helps to illustrate the close links between religion and lycanthropy, a connection that has existed for centuries and which is still ongoing, even as Western society becomes increasingly secular. Examples of religious belief can still be found in contemporary werewolf fiction. In Rice’s The Wolf Gift series, the hero Reuben’s brother, Jim, is a Catholic priest. Reuben takes advantage of Jim’s vows to admit his lycanthropic status in confession, and Jim’s ordained status ensures he offers a very different perspective on Reuben’s lycanthropic existence and his killing of evil men and women. Whereas Reuben believes the werewolves are exacting justice, Jim remonstrates, arguing that You killed them, Reuben. You killed them in their sins! You termin­ ated their destiny on this earth. You snatched from them any chance for repentance, for redemption. You took that from them. You took it all, Reuben. You snuffed out forever the years of repatriation they might have lived! You took life itself from them and you took it from their descendants, and yes, even from their victims, you took what their amends might have been.63

Reuben acknowledges his brother’s point, but is unable to summon any regret for killing the evil people he has encountered. Reuben 129

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lacks his brother’s credulity and religious faith, or at least his willing­ ness to follow Catholic teachings on morality. Moreover, his human moral compass is unsuited to his new existence as a lycanthrope. Reuben has to negotiate a new morality – one that is flexible enough to accommodate his killing of evildoers, but sufficiently strict to ensure he balances his killing with good, by removing wicked and cruel people from the world. It is a delicate balance, one that Reuben, despite his unerring instinct for evil, is still struggling to maintain by the close of The Wolves of Midwinter.

Conclusion That werewolves have different moral standpoints from humans has been illustrated by several examples in this chapter. Being a werewolf and the possessor of lycanthropic morals and a wolfish understanding of justice not only affects the subjectivity of the werewolf in question, but also impacts upon its relation to human, lycanthropic and religious law. The werewolf’s relationship to ideas and principles, as I discussed in Chapter 1, can have a profound impact upon its status as subject. The werewolf is subject to both secular and religious law, to human and lycanthropic law, and must adapt itself accordingly. The werewolf’s subjectivity will adapt itself, depending on which form of law it is subject to. Brian McHale’s commentary on the ontological nature of postmodern fiction in the Introduction raised similar issues: the idea that different selves will be required dependent on the differing worlds the subject encounters.64 The werewolf’s relationship with the law is both long-standing and complex, and in many ways this chapter has only begun to scratch the surface of the interactions between the werewolf and the many variations in the rules and regulations that govern it. Living completely outside man-made law, as a wild creature, is an option for the werewolf, but one that is becoming increasingly rare in contemporary popular culture. Despite the werewolf’s frequent status in contemporary fiction as a creature that exists outside the vagaries and fripperies of human law and delivers its own brand of natural, rough justice, it is increasingly rare for were­ wolves to remain in the wilderness. A recent trend in werewolf 130

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fiction that is still gathering pace is depicting the werewolf as living in the big city rather than surrounded by nature. And, of course, violent crime always increases in urban environments, a phenomenon the next chapter will analyse.

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 Werewolves in the City The werewolf in contemporary literature is often interpreted as a conduit between humanity and a lost wilderness, a means to reconnect humans with nature. Bourgault Du Coudray reflects that by the late twentieth century ‘the werewolf’s easy converse with its environment, and the richness of its sensual and spiritual existence, had come to seem desirable’.1 Stypczynski makes a similar assertion, suggesting that when the shape-shifter appears in literature they provide their readers with a sense of affinity with nature.2 Similarly, Barbara Creed links the werewolf with women, nature and death.3 This affection for and affinity with nature is not without precedent in Gothic literature. The work of Ann Radcliffe in particular depicts nature as a moral force that can benefit characters who form a close con­ nection with it.4 However, nature in Gothic fiction is equally likely to be presented as a cruel avenging force or as being supremely indifferent to the sufferings and striving of humankind.5 The were­ wolf’s relationship with nature is one that has varied considerably throughout its literary and cinematic history, depending on the text being examined. This is inevitable: nature is a very difficult concept to define and depictions of it vary greatly; indeed, Raymond Williams has affirmed that it is one of the most complicated words in the English language.6 He identifies three distinct strands of thought in

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Western culture regarding nature. The first is that nature refers to the innate character or essence of something, the second being a force that drives and steers the world (and humans). The third definition has the most bearing on this discussion: nature as the ‘material world itself, taken as including or not including human beings’.7 Timothy Clark offers a similar, simplified definition of nature: Firstly, nature names the totality of the material universe. It embraces everything, barring the allegedly supernatural . . . Secondly, there is nature understood as the other of culture, that which arises of itself without human agency. It may be reverenced as wilderness or pristine animality, or feared as the bestial and cruelly inhuman . . . Lastly, there is nature in the sense of a defining characteristic, as in ‘the nature of politics,’ ‘human nature,’ or ‘the nature of a problem.’8

Clark’s first and second definitions of nature are of most relevance to this chapter, which explores not only the popular trend of the werewolf as ambassador for nature, but also the parallel trend of werewolves moving into urban areas and inhabiting the city in particular. It is also worth noting that the Latin roots of the word nature are connected with the notion of being born or arising from something else.9 This is one reason werewolves are frequently described as unnatural, with numerous werewolves in contemporary popular culture being transformed through a bite or a curse, such as the ur-example of Larry Talbot in The Wolf-Man or his modern counterpart Ethan Chandler in the television series Penny Dreadful (2014–2016). However, as Chapter 3 demonstrated, an increasing number of werewolves are being presented as lycanthropes from birth, such as in Talulla Rising. The werewolf under this definition is no longer necessarily an unnatural being, a development that will be examined in more detail later in this chapter. Raymond Williams, in his brief definition, highlights both the positive and negative aspects of nature that have also been explored in Gothic literature. He identifies the rise of nature as a perceived source of goodness and innocence since the eighteenth century. Eithne Henson identifies the same trend in nineteenth-century literature, specifically in works by George Eliot and Charlotte 134

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Brontë. The innocence of the countryside and its inhabitants is contrasted favourably against the corruption engendered by city living.10 However, Williams also mentions the ruthless ‘laws of survival and extinction’ that govern life on earth.11 This pitiless attitude is reflected in some of the lycanthropic texts examined in Chapter 3, such as Patricia Briggs’s Alpha and Omega series, where lycanthropes are inherently violent, and in novels such as David Wellington’s Frostbite, where lycanthropes are merciless haters and killers of all humans when in wolf form. Despite these novels’ exploration of the harsh side of nature, the development of the werewolf as ambassador for nature in popular fiction is based around the benign concept of nature, and arguably has its origins in the changing public opinions regarding the wild wolf. As I discussed in Chapter 2, the shift towards a more positive perception of the wild wolf occurred between the 1930s and 1970s, just prior to the evolution of ecocriticism, though examining whether these developments are interlinked would take more space than is available here.12 A straightforward definition of ecocriticism would be that it is the analysis of the relationship between literature and the natural world, as Cheryll Glotfelty comments.13 Ecocriticism evolved and began to gain popularity among critics in the early 1970s, with such essays as Williams’s seminal The Country and the City (1973) placing environmental issues at the centre of literary analysis. It has been subdivided into categories such as ecofeminism and ecoGothic since the 1970s, with Bourgault Du Coudray utilizing ecofeminism to examine the female werewolf in particular.14 Instead of being unnatural, an abomination, the werewolf has now become nature’s emissary in a significant number of popular culture texts. Examples of this include Skyla Dawn Cameron’s River, which reverses the lycanthropic transformation and has a wild wolf being turned into a human. Named River by social services, the werewolf at the centre of the story eventually comes to realize she has a purpose in the human world, which is of course to reconnect humanity with some of its lost wildness. In another instance, Whitley Strieber’s 1991 novel The Wild depicts a man’s gradual transformation into a wolf, leaving behind the consumerism and hollowness of modern life for a purer, simpler existence as a wild animal, a plot that closely mirrors that of the 1994 film Wolf, which concludes with the hero’s 135

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permanent retreat into the wilderness to live as the wolf he has transformed into.15 The film Wolfen (1981), which is based on a novel of the same name (also written by Strieber), presents lycan­ thropes as ecoterrorists, prowling through New York and killing off the humans who are planning a new construction project that will destroy their territory.16 Even in texts that do not conclude with a wholesale retreat into nature, scepticism and disdain towards mankind’s rapaciousness and disregard for the natural world are frequently expressed. Borchardt’s The Silver Wolf and its sequels pour scorn on humanity for its pillaging of the natural world, while David Wellington’s Frostbite presents his lycanthropes struggling to survive in an ever-contracting, polluted wilderness. It is this tendency towards depicting humans as ignorant, corrupt and greedy that informs many texts depicting a return (or retreat) to nature, with authors such as Borchardt and Cheri Scotch using the werewolf to condemn humanity’s wicked, selfish actions. That the wolf is serving as ambassador for nature in contemporary popular culture is unsurprising. Barry Lopez observes that wolves have always been intimately linked with the wilderness in human per­ ception. He asserts that to rejoice in one was to rejoice in the other, and that if humans turned against the wilderness, they also turned against the wolf.17 And in the early twenty-first century, wilderness is being celebrated to a significant degree. So-called ‘new nature writing’ has gained tremendous popularity in the UK in particular, with an explosion of publishing about animals, plant life and even the landscape.18 Small wonder, then, that the wolf (and werewolf) is currently being celebrated and its role in popular culture undergoing a re-evaluation. Chantal Bourgault Du Coudray identifies this move­ ment in her analysis of the werewolf and the wilderness. She explains that there is a contemporary trend in popular fiction for portraying the werewolf’s reconnection with nature and the wolf’s innate wild­ ness, citing authors such as Tanith Lee and Nancy Collins as examples. Bourgault Du Coudray makes significant use of Jungian theory in her analysis of this return to nature – unsurprising, since Jung himself was preoccupied with origins, predominantly evolutionary origins that could offer an explanation for mankind’s instincts and impulses.19 This Jungian interpretation of the werewolf offers a distinct contrast to Freudian theory, which views human instinct – and, by 136

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extension, nature – as something to be dominated and tamed if possible. Donna Haraway argues that sex is equated with both danger and nature, according to Freud’s system, which was based on repression.20 The progress of civilization relegated mankind’s bestial impulses to the unconscious, the unruly impulses of which Freud was always endeavouring to master. Kelly Oliver offers just one example of this when she observes that, in the case of the Wolf-Man, Freud was determined to tame the wolves that featured in his patient’s famous dream. The white wolves staring in at the Wolf-Man through his bedroom window were turned into domestic dogs mating or even humans having animal-like intercourse.21 The gaze was reversed from the wolves gazing in at the Wolf-Man to the Wolf-Man staring out at the wolves. The potential threat and danger of the wolves was explained away and they became zoo animals, there to be gazed at by humans. Deleuze and Guattari also adopt this viewpoint, commenting that ‘Freud obviously knows nothing about the fascination exerted by wolves and the meaning of their silent call, the call to become-wolf.’ 22 How much more reassuring it is to believe, Deleuze and Guattari go on to speculate, that the dream has inverted the spectacle and the child is in fact watching the wolves dispassionately – and is certainly in no danger of turning into one. Nature can be subjugated (repressed?) according to Freud. Haraway goes so far as to suggest that mankind’s study of nature, the natural sciences and anthropology in particular, is founded upon the principle of humans dominating nature.23 However, as I have demonstrated, the perception of the wolf and the wilderness has changed in recent years and now humankind, the vast majority of which lives in urban areas, is anxious not to lose touch with the wilderness. A desire to return to what is perceived as the purity and simplicity, and even the savagery of nature is expressed through the popularity of the new nature writing genre. In lycanthropic fiction it is personified by casting the werewolf as representative and protector of the environment. Werewolves in some texts do indeed survive by eschewing humanity and all its attendant violence and prejudice, by returning to nature. However, this approach is not without its difficulties. Foremost among these is that nature, far from being natural, is in many respects a human construct. Michael Lewis suggests that nature is simultaneously a 137

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human creation, dependent on whatever culture the human viewing it belongs to, and a real, independent thing that exists outside of human perception.24 However, for the purposes of pop culture analysis, it is the concept of nature as a human construct in which we are interested. As I have examined, various interpretations and definitions of nature exist, but Bourgault Du Coudray observes that in recent fiction the werewolf’s connection with nature is presented as an enviable relationship.25 This desirable affiliation is predicated upon nature as a benign, beautiful entity – remote, untouched by human­ kind.26 Catherine Parry, in an examination of the English countryside in literature, argues that this is countered by more humdrum depict­ ions of nature in recent literature. More prosaic definitions depict nature as the natural, physical world, e.g. plants, animals, rocks and soil, or a more scientific approach defines it as the planetary ecosystems that support all life on Earth.27 However, the concept of the werewolf as conduit for reconnecting humanity with a lost nature is very much based on an idealized view of the wilderness and the animal kingdom. In the conclusion to her monograph, Bourgault Du Coudray comments on the pleasures that are to be found in returning to nature, dwelling on its beauty and the intimacy to be found in the wolf pack. Although none of the other recent criticism on the literary and cinematic werewolf explores the relationship between the werewolf and nature to the same degree as Bourgault Du Coudray’s monograph, the themes of nature as a positive entity besieged by an uncaring humanity in need of protection are still referenced.28 But it is important to remember that this is only one method of presenting nature in contemporary culture. The increasingly popular genre of ecohorror presents nature as malevolent and hostile towards humanity, definitely not as a benign presence with which humans might wish to reconnect. More popular in film than in fiction, its most basic definition is nature running amok and attempting to revenge itself on an interfering, uncaring human populace. Famous examples of this genre include the film Jaws (1975) and The Ghost and the Darkness (1995), both unusual in that neither shows humans interfering with nature prior to the animal attacks. Wolfen is an early example of this genre, with Native American lycanthropes exacting 138

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revenge on greedy, unscrupulous developers. Yet in contemporary popular culture it is not just the werewolf who battles humanity for control of nature. Dawn Keetley, in an examination of animals in the horror film, observes that in recent years wild wolves have become much more common in film than they were in pre-millen­ nium movies, a development that has mirrored the re-introduction of the wild wolf into Yellowstone Park, its appearance in California and serious discussion in the UK regarding the re-introduction of wolves into remote areas of Scotland.29 The wolves presented on film nearly always pose a threat to humans, hunting them and eating them, as in the horror film Frozen (2010), in which a wolf pack devours a hapless skier, and even in the animated Disney film of the same name (2013), which shows wolves pursuing the plucky princess through the snowy landscape. Intriguingly, at least as far as this chapter is concerned, Keetley identifies the cinematic struggles between humans and wolves as a battle for territory, over land, hunting grounds and just somewhere to live. She also asserts that the battle has been far from one-sided, with both humans and wolves fighting viciously to gain the ascendancy.30 In contemporary lycan­ thropic fiction, a similar struggle, albeit a more subtle one, is taking place, as werewolves attempt to carve out a niche for themselves. Not in the midst of the wilderness, however; this struggle is taking place on the mean streets of the big city and in the quiet residential neighbourhoods of suburbia.

The Beast in the Urban Jungle Although the representation of the werewolf as protector of the environment is a popular trend, there is another recent movement in werewolf fiction that is growing in prevalence – and which is the precise opposite of the werewolf as conduit to nature. The werewolf in much contemporary fiction is beginning to move away from nature into urban environments, both the suburbs and the inner city. As with nature, definitions of both suburbia and the city vary considerably depending on the context, but for the purposes of this chapter, the suburb is a low-density residential area (a small amount of people in a large space) comprised of medium-to-high139

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income residents and the culture of which places a high emphasis on family, material wealth and conventionality. The city, by contrast, is high-density (a large amount of people in a small space), juxta­ poses dazzling wealth with extreme poverty and is filled with varied individuals, from celebrities to outcasts to criminals. These defin­ itions are by no means absolute, of course, particularly as the suburbs typically exist on the fringes of the city (or the city exists in the midst of the suburbs). The border between the city and the suburbs is not a definite one, but one that is always shifting, always permeable, and ever-evolving. But I argue that in the same way that nature and civilization have been constructed as opposites in criticism and popular culture, so have the city and the suburbs. This is an ideological divide rather than a factual one, but nonetheless powerful. Suburbia is peaceful, respectable, well-off and boring, while the city is frenetic, crimeridden, both poverty-stricken and wealthy and full of glamour and excitement. Gabriella Gahlia Modan, in an examination of the city as opposed to the suburbs, also observes that the suburbs are equated with solidarity and neighbourliness while the city is associated with individualism and independence.31 This does contradict other critics, who assert that the suburbs are centred round showing off individual success and achievement.32 Nonetheless, it emphasizes that in the suburbs, anonymity simply isn’t a possibility for the majority of residents, a problematic proposition for a suburban lycanthrope. The divide between the city and the suburbs is also gendered according to Modan, with the former constructed as a masculine space and the latter as feminine space.33 With the advent of the werewolf pack in lycanthropic fiction, the suburbs theoretically ought to be a welcoming environment for the werewolf, founded as it is on a strong sense of community. The subjective werewolf, with its newly acquired feminine characteristics of communication and negotiation, should fit in well in the suburbs.34 There is even a history of monsters in suburbia, one that stretches back to the 1950s and 1960s.35 Unlike the aristocratic vampire, which still exhibits a preference for grandiose mansions, the werewolf would seem to be the logical suburban resident. However, the werewolf seldom (if ever) thrives in the suburbs, the reasons for which will 140

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be explored later. The city is a more welcoming environment for werewolves, offering the benefits of anonymity, the possibility of ever-changing identities and shifting boundaries that recollect the contemporary werewolf’s ever-evolving subjectivity. The city’s shifting boundaries are a result of constant entrances and exits by its inhabitants, made possible by a complex network of roads, railways, waterways and subways that allow people to become temporary, transient. This is one of the central themes of Kirk Lynn’s werewolf novel Rules for Werewolves, in which his lycanthropic protagonists attempt to escape the uniformly dreary LA suburbs by constantly moving and never settling for too long in one place. Their peripatetic existences on the very fringes of society are strongly implied to lead to their eventual transformations. The werewolves have escaped normality (defined in the novel as drab, uneventful, conventional suburban existences) and become werewolves by being among other werewolves, who have rejected conventional human existences. When a werewolf changes for the first time, a ritual is observed: everyone else in the pack writes down everything they remember about the changing individual, and what the changed individual wants to be like when they emerge. Their continually changing environment, the freedom their nomadic existence imposes, and the cumulative effect of so many unstable identities, makes such a transformation possible. Lynn’s werewolves, therefore, are in a continual state of becoming, not only in terms of their identities but also as regards their sur­ roundings. They are just passing through the suburbs and other urban areas, always on their way to somewhere else, forever passing through exits and entrances. This is a theme that is explored more subtly in other werewolf texts, but which nonetheless appears repeatedly. There is a melancholy strain in Anne Rice’s Wolf Gift Chronicles, with the older werewolves acutely aware that sooner or later they must leave their homes and families behind to live out their immortal lives elsewhere. Glen Duncan’s werewolves also lead nomadic existences, partly to avoid discovery by the human population but also to evade the hunters who are aware of them and prize them as trophies. By contrast, Rules for Werewolves presents this unsettled existence as a cause for celebration. The final chapter of the novel lists the constantly rewritten rules that the werewolves 141

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have devised for themselves, and being able to move on at a moment’s notice, being able to run, to flee and to continually move and adapt is emphasized repeatedly. As one character muses towards the climax of the novel, that is precisely what people used to do – simply pack up and head off to who-knows-where.36 This continual shedding of oneself, together with one’s old life, is made possible by the myriad possibilities of the urban environment. When a werewolf retreats into the wilderness, the wilderness (despite its beauty and freedom) is often represented as a homogenous entity with little detail offered about its richness and variety. It is simply ‘the wilderness’ and texts that feature the werewolf returning to it for good often end with their werewolf’s retreat into nature. The film Wolf and Strieber’s The Wild offer two of the most prominent examples of this tendency. The city or the town, by contrast, offer limitless possibilities in terms of constructing a new identity. Suburbia is more problematic in this regard, founded as it is on a culture of conventionality; as Lynn’s novel demonstrates, however, it is always possible to up and leave. In some instances, the monster might even be assimilated into the suburbs . . . or conversely it might be destroyed by them. It all depends on the urban environment, and the lycan­ thrope itself. Despite the importance of the urban environment in fashioning the identities of its residents, according to Deleuze and Guattari, the town in itself is unremarkable, existing only as part of a circuit; numerous towns and cities, all connected by roads. A town is never isolated because it is fundamentally part of a network, always in contact with other towns and cities.37 Rather like the subjective werewolf, an essential component of whose ever-evolving identity is their relationship to a pack and other werewolves. The city, constantly in flux, offers a myriad of possibilities in relation to identity – people are always coming to the city from somewhere else, or leaving the city behind. This instability is not confined to the surroundings: in the vastness of the city, it has become very easy to invent a new self, just as Lynn’s werewolves cease being human and acquire the ability to shape-shift.38 In sharp contrast to the small villages of the past, where everyone knew everyone, in the city, anonymity is ensured. It has always been particularly straightforward for werewolves to invent a new self, as all they have 142

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to do is shape-shift into a wolf, or back into a human. In recent years, however, re-invention of the self has become a much more complex affair for the werewolf. Identity has become unstable owing to the sheer numbers of individuals present in a small space. Nick Mansfield’s observation that the subject is always linked to something outside of it, including the society of other individuals, is particularly apt here.39 With the society and residents of the city changing on a daily basis, the werewolf’s own identity varies considerably. Carrie Vaughn’s Kitty Norville, who lives and works in Denver, is, by turns, radio DJ, leader of a werewolf pack, owner of a restaurant and loving/exasperated wife to her husband and mate, Ben. Similarly, Anne Rice’s Reuben Golding, by turns a journalist and the avenging Man-Wolf on the streets of San Francisco, feels the division between his human and lycanthropic personas ever more keenly as the series progresses. However, it is important to remember that this is not a regression to the old split-personality mode of presenting the werewolf in popular culture. Whilst the werewolf adopts different identities depending on whether they are presenting themselves as a human or in wolfish form, the division between these different modes of being is never an absolute one when dealing with the subjective werewolf. The werewolf’s being infuses and influences its thoughts and actions regardless of what form it currently takes. Importantly, the werewolf can also be influenced by its surroundings and the subjects it surrounds itself with and adapt its identity accordingly. This can vary from struggling to escape the monotony of the suburbs by adopting a self-consciously monstrous persona, or concealing all aspects of wolfishness to pass themselves off as completely human. For the urban werewolf, however, identity is never a static affair, but something that is constantly in flux. The city, therefore, is the only suitable environment for the new, subjective werewolf. This is especially true of the werewolf who is bent on establishing a career, a relationship and a family, or whatever else they perceive as normal. Kelley Armstrong’s lycanthrope Elena perceives normality as consisting of a white picket fence and a family. Likewise, in the British version of the TV series Being Human, werewolf George considers normality as consisting of a job, a wife and a family, preferably a large one.40 Recent werewolf fiction has increasingly 143

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presented werewolves as desirous of acceptance into mainstream human society. Of course, certain aspects of werewolf existence are still unacceptable in mainstream society, and whilst in a small community concealing monthly nocturnal prowling may prove difficult, it is another matter in the big city. In Patricia Briggs’s ‘Alpha and Omega’, which is set in Chicago, reluctant werewolf Anna points out that her alpha, who has been on a killing spree, could easily conceal forty or more deaths in the Chicago area, if he took care to space out the killings (both in time and distance) and not leave any trace.41 By contrast, in Annette Curtis Klause’s YA novel Blood and Chocolate, when a werewolf kills a girl and is caught in the act by a horrified by-stander, the werewolf pack is burnt out of their home by vengeful locals. Being a werewolf can be more easily concealed in the city streets than it can out in the countryside. Being a werewolf also involves a certain amount of lawbreaking, as I analysed in the previous chapter, and the city has a long-standing association with crime, gangs and corruption.42 Admittedly, the suburbs pose yet another difficulty in this regard, as the suburban ideal, in both Britain and the USA, has typically included a low crime rate. This stereotype has been challenged in recent years, with TV series such as the British production Nightmare in Suburbia (2008–2014) examining crimes every bit as lurid and disturbing as those found in the inner city. By contrast, Bernice M. Murphy, in an examination of what she terms Suburban Gothic, argues that external threats are of less concern than the next-door neighbours and one’s own family. Peril in suburbia emanates from the home rather than the streets.43 An example of this can be found in Ginger Snaps, where bored teenager Ginger is bitten by a werewolf and rapidly becomes a deadly threat towards her timid sister Brigitte. Despite these internal dangers the suburbs are frequently portrayed as dull, static and unchanging in popular culture, none of which reflects Deleuze and Guattari’s theories about the town and urban space as one that is constantly shifting and altering due to constant exits and entrances by its population. Small wonder, then, that the subjective werewolf, with its constantly evolving and changing identity, cannot assimilate into the suburbs – at least not in popular culture produced since the 1980s. But even prior to this, the werewolf had little to no presence in suburbia. The suburbs that this chapter 144

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is concerned with first appeared in the 1950s in the USA, profoundly altering the social landscape.44 They were quickly followed by fiction and television series set among the affluence and conformity of suburbia, such as Ozzie and Harriet (1952–1966), John Updike’s Rabbit series and the short fiction of John Cheever. While the suburbs exploded in both reality and fiction, the 1950s were a bleak time for the fictional werewolf. Brian J. Frost observes that werewolf literature was stuck in a post-war slump through the 1950s, and although the werewolf enjoyed a slight revival during the 1960s, when the counterculture was at its height, it never gained a foothold in the suburbs.45 The very presence of the suburbs drives the werewolf away. But why should they have this effect – particularly when the city has proven to be a conducive environment for the modern lycanthrope?

Werewolves in Disturbia – The Ginger Snaps Film Trilogy Being a liminal space, a hybrid of the city and the countryside, the suburbs have always been suitable environments for liminal monsters, creatures whose very existences disrupt boundaries. Suburbs have existed ever since the city first came into being, with John R. Stilgoe noting that the word ‘suburb’ was even used by Chaucer in The Canterbury Tales, which was written in the fourteenth century.46 Raymond Williams notes that since the seventeenth century the term ‘suburb’ has been used to indicate the outlying areas of a city.47 But the suburb with which this chapter is concerned is the image of the suburb that emerged in America after the Second World War and which has been a pop culture obsession ever since. During the 1950s and 1960s, the number of people living in suburbs in the USA increased exponentially, until by 1970 suburbs contained more American citizens than cities or farms.48 This radical shift in living styles and demographics is at odds with the popular image of 1950s America as a time of stability and prosperity. The hallmarks of the fictional American suburb of the 1950s are material affluence, a happy family life that, invariably, depicts the husband as bread­ winner and the wife as homemaker, a sense of safety and tranquillity and (outward) respectability and conformity.49 The suburbs, the 145

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in-between space between the city and the country, proved con­ tentious almost as soon as they emerged in post-war America. Anxieties were expressed that the suburbs were destroying traditional family structures, with fathers absent all day at work and the presence of women dominating the household.50 Such fears found expression in the proliferation of television shows in the 1950s and 1960s that depicted freaks and monsters invading the suburbs, according to Laura Morowitz.51 It is a small mental leap to imagine suburbia actively generating monsters. Bernice M. Murphy, in her study of suburban American Gothic, suggests that in pop culture suburbia all inhabitants are concealing dark secrets under a façade of normalcy, as exemplified in popular TV shows such as Desperate Housewives (2004–2012) and Weeds (2005–2012).52 The suburbs would therefore appear to be perfect territory for the werewolf, concealing as it does its wolfish nature under a veil of humanity. The emphasis in suburbia is on order, conformity and material wealth. Deviance of any kind is discouraged, raising the spectre of a community populated entirely by robots or brainwashed slaves, as depicted in The Stepford Wives (1972). By the 1980s, the suburbs were producing fully-fledged monsters. Films such as A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) depicted such horrors as the child-murdering Freddy Krueger. The actor who played Krueger, Robert Englund, explicitly described the razor-fingered creature as the nightmare in suburbia, while Jane Caputi describes Krueger as the ultimate nuclear father, killing off the next generation.53 Ever since the suburbs came into being, people have been attempting to discover freakishness amidst the stifling conformity. From tele­ vision series such as The Addams Family and The Munsters to the photographs of Diane Arbus, the unusual and uncanny has long been resident in suburbia. Yet for some reason it has taken until the twenty-first century for the werewolf to begin moving into the suburbs, and even at the time of writing few texts feature the werewolf remaining in suburbia for any substantial length of time. One of the most prominent in this regard is the Ginger Snaps film trilogy, which is quite explicit about where its monstrous werewolf originates from. ‘Does the monster come from the infinite darkness?’ ‘No, it’s from the suburbs’, runs an amusing exchange in Ginger Snaps: Unleashed. But there are 146

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worse fates than becoming a werewolf, according to Ginger. From the perspective of the original film and its sequel (the prequel is set in colonial Canada and the setting is a beleaguered fort in a harsh and unforgiving wilderness), nothing is quite as horrific as normalcy. The first film in the Ginger Snaps franchise focused on the Fitzgerald sisters, who even prior to Ginger’s transformation into a lycanthrope, were self-styled death-obsessed outcasts in their bland, conformist Canadian suburb. The suburbs are so insipid, their inhabitants so drone-like, that even the film’s opening, which features a woman running screaming into the street because the family dog has been massacred by a mysterious beast, fails to evoke any fear or surprise among their residents. For Ginger and Brigitte, conforming is quite literally a fate worse than death, with the sisters having made a pact to be ‘out by sixteen or dead in the scene’. The sisters are nothing if not self-conscious in their freakishness, wearing the skulls of animals as jewellery and photographing them­ selves dying in gruesome ways for a school project. Another key scene shows Ginger reacting in horror at the commencement of menarche. Her disgust is not due to the physical symptoms of her period, but the fact that she is made normal by the classically female bodily function. ‘You kill yourself to be different, your own body screws you!’ she snarls. In contrast to the werewolves examined in the previous chapter, who evoke fear due to their ability to pass them­selves off as conventional humans, the Fitzgerald sisters construct their monstrosity through their style of dress and their deathobsession. Arguably, even this mode of rebellion is distinctly middle class (suburban). Amy C. Wilkins observes that white middle-class youth (the demographic group most likely to live in the suburbs in both the USA and Europe) rebel against the safe, boring and stifling connotations of their race and class by embracing freakishness. Wilkins identifies the embrace of Goth subculture as a solution to the dilemmas facing these disaffected teenagers.54 In fact, it is being infected with lycanthropy that normalizes Ginger to a certain extent. She begins dressing in conventionally sexy clothing, dating boys and doing drugs, all actions that have the potential to win approval from her peers. But it transpires that what appears to be a typical teenage interest in sex and the opposite gender was actually an error on Ginger’s part, in which she mistook 147

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her cravings for blood and violence for sexual desire, or at the very least failed to realize that the two were interlinked. ‘It’s like touching yourself, every move right on the fucking dot’, she enthuses to a horrified Brigitte. Ginger’s monstrous sexuality and cravings for blood are beyond the bounds of acceptability in suburbia and unsurprisingly the film concludes with her death. It is more surprising to learn that her demise comes at the hands of Brigitte, who proves unwilling to embrace lycanthropy in the same way as Ginger. Bailey Downs, the suburban setting for the film, is depicted from the outset as drab, unremarkable and only half-finished, according to a sign that promises further development. Ernest Mathijs describes Bailey Downs as a place stuck in transition, which will never be completed or achieve a permanent form.55 In this respect, its eternal state of being built and constructed, suburbia evokes Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of becoming, that of continually evolving identity. Ginger’s death is therefore an aberration: if an environment embraces becoming, continual change, why can it not expand to accommodate the werewolf? However, in exploring the concept of space, Deleuze and Guattari make an important distinction between what they term smooth and striated space. They associate the former with a nomadic way of life, a fluid way of being in which orientation and landmarks are in continuous variation. Striated space, by contrast, is composed of limits, and has a limiting effect on their inhabitants. It is composed of boundaries (walls, fences etc.) and acts to restrict or contain smooth space.56 Suburbia is very much a striated space, occupied by sedentary peoples. Although Deleuze and Guattari pay little attention to the inhabitants of striated space, the potential for enclosure and restriction in such a space is enormous. A werewolf, a liminal being who blurs boundaries and crosses borders with ease, is hardly likely to be welcome in the suburbs, the ultimate striated space. Ginger refuses to accept the limits of her confined suburban existence, and soon the suburbs are unable to contain or accept her. Her options are limited to the promise she and Brigitte made to each other as children, to escape or die, and Ginger ends up dead. The city, under this definition, is also a striated space – arguably to an even greater degree than the suburbs, as it contains more walls, fences and enclosures within a smaller space and some cities are arguably subject to more planning and design than the suburbs. Yet 148

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the city in much contemporary fiction is a much more conducive environment for the werewolf, with numerous contemporary texts depicting the werewolf as surviving and even thriving on the city streets. However, the cultural perception of the city has always differed drastically from that of suburbia. Whereas suburbia has been depicted as drab, dull and uniform, the city has been viewed as the pinnacle of wealth, creativity and energy. Or conversely, the city is where the worst elements of society, such as criminality, greed and dispassion, congregate.57 What the city seldom is in popular culture is boring and conformist, and as Joachim Von der Thüsen suggests, the city as represented in film and literature is a reflection of its inhabitants’ desire for mobility and adventure.58 For this reason, it is a far more accepting environment for the contemporary were­ wolf, and a space that can accommodate its ever-evolving identity.

Defining Space in Suburbia As we have seen in contemporary lycanthropic fiction and film, whilst life in the city is not without its challenges, the suburbs present an overwhelmingly hostile and unwelcoming environment for the werewolf. In Ginger Snaps, the eponymous werewolf dies in the basement of her family’s suburban residence. In Rules for Werewolves, the werewolves eventually abandon the suburbs in favour of founding their own community, independent of human society. In Annette Curtis Klause’s YA novel Blood and Chocolate the werewolf pack flee to the suburbs after being driven out of their country home, but by the close of the novel leave suburbia behind after a series of violent incidents between the pack and the human population. Toby Barlow’s Sharp Teeth is set both in LA and its out­­lying suburbs, and although the hero and heroine of the tale are set to live happily ever after by its conclusion, the white picket fence and suburban home ideal are beyond their reach. The novel concludes with them masquerading as stray dogs on the beaches of LA, hunting cats for food. Popular TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997–2003) showed sympathetic werewolf Oz leaving suburban Sunnydale in the fourth series after giving into his beastly impulses and having sex with a female werewolf, hurting his (human) girlfriend 149

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Willow terribly. Any texts that feature werewolves in suburbia typically depicts them staying for a short time and then leaving, either due to an unfortunate (usually violent) incident or simply because they cannot find acceptance or even tolerance in suburbia. The reason for this animosity between werewolves and the human denizens of suburbia, and even suburbia itself, is unclear; as the last section explored, however, the suburbs are not only a striated space as defined by Deleuze and Guattari, but are subject to numerous other restrictions that limit and regulate the lives of its inhabitants. One major restriction concerning the suburbs is that of prescribed gender norms. Since their first appearance in the 1950s, the suburbs have been considered a feminine space. Fathers would leave for their jobs early in the morning and return late at night, leaving the house and the family under the control of women. Accordingly, Scott Donaldson described the suburbs as dominated by women in The Suburban Myth.59 Other critics have depicted women as prisoners in suburbia, cooped up in comfortable homes leading passive and trivial existences, but nonetheless spending far more time there than men.60 In contrast, for centuries the werewolf in written and printed literature was encoded as male. Small surprise, then, that this quintessentially masculine monster has made no inroads into suburbia. Ginger Snaps is a notable exception in this regard, but it is important to note that the films are invested heavily in their female characters, relegating most male characters to supporting roles. In focusing on the Fitzgerald sisters, their mother and their enemy Trina Sinclair, Ginger Snaps adheres to cultural perceptions of the suburbs as an essentially feminine space (rather like nature). Sam, the local drug dealer who is the only prominent male character in the film, does not live in the suburbs, instead preferring to inhabit his greenhouse/cannabis farm.61 Of the other male characters in the film, the sisters’ father is a colourless, dull man who hardly appears and the other is a teenage boy who lusts after Ginger, gets infected with lycanthropy and then reprieved when Brigitte injects him with a cure meant for Ginger, at which point he disappears from the narrative, having served his purpose. Small wonder that a masculine monster such as the werewolf cannot thrive in a space that is encoded as feminine. The argument could be made that as Ginger is a female werewolf she ought to be 150

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an exception to this rule, but even the female werewolf exhibits characteristics that are traditionally viewed as masculine: hirsuteness, voracious sexual appetite, aggression. Ginger, in short, is not likely to settle down and become a good suburban housewife. She also poses a distinct threat to more conventional femininity. Both girls hold their cake-baking, arty mother in contempt, and it is worth noting that Ginger’s one female victim in the film is Trina Sinclair. Pretty and popular, Trina is the polar opposite to the Fitzgerald sisters and is rewarded by her school and community’s approbation. However she meets an unfortunate, albeit accidental, end after Ginger drags her into their house and torments her. In an act not without its irony, the sisters bury her in their old Wendy house – a façade of perfect traditional femininity covering a gruesome reality. However, the threat posed by Ginger to both suburban ideals and the people around her is not necessarily the reason she is unable to exist in the suburbs. Fiction that is preoccupied with uncovering the dark heart of suburbia, and the ugliness that lurks beneath the outward respectability abounds. Peyton Place (1956) and the US TV series Desperate Housewives are just two examples of this trope, with the majority of secrets in both texts being concealed by women. Roger G. Panetta asserts that the surfaces, the façades of the suburbs convey the greatest meanings. They provide cover, a disguise to allow people to move unopposed through society.62 Inner darkness: outward respectability. For the werewolf, whose greatest threat (real or imagined) to humanity is the ability to pass as human and live among humanity without restraint, the suburbs are a logical choice of residence. The difficulty with Ginger, and other werewolves in suburbia such as those depicted by Kirk Lynn, Annette Curtis Klause and Cheri Scotch, is that they either cannot or will not conceal what they are. As Ginger snarls to a terrified Brigitte ‘You think I want to go back to being nobody?’ Similarly, the werewolves depicted by Lynn, Klause and Scotch reject the safe, respectable (dull) existences offered by suburbia, although their stories end more happily than Ginger’s when they manage to escape to the wilderness or the big city. Suburbia offers only a very limited subjectivity to aspire to, a subjectivity that does not outlaw difference so much as insidiously discourage it. Those who deviate from the 151

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norm are either forced out, or in extreme circumstances are elimin­ ated altogether. The werewolf is unable to conform for obvious reasons, but there are other, subtler reasons behind its lack of acceptance. The emphasis in suburban culture has traditionally been on individual happiness and achievement. Everyone strives to ‘keep up with the Joneses’. Whilst the werewolf traditionally has been a solitary monster, the new subjective werewolf is often focused on forming a pack and a family. These packs are seldom based on the traditional nuclear family model of mother, father and children: all manner of werewolves, and even humans, might be included in the pack. This inclusive ethos may conflict with the suburban ethos of individuality and prevent the werewolf from settling in suburbia. If nothing else, the werewolf brings the hippie communes of the 1960s to mind, which were also a backlash against the mores of suburbia. Conversely, the werewolf’s incompatibility with the nuclear family, the bedrock of suburbia, may have hindered its acceptance into the commuter belt environment. Traditionally, the suburbs were (and still are) believed to be a favourable environment in which to raise a family, better for children.63 As demonstrated in Chapter 2, the werewolf has a long history of hunting and killing infants in popular culture. It is possible that the lycanthrope’s traditional hostility towards children influenced its lack of accept­ ance in suburbia. Although werewolves in contemporary stories are increasingly family-orientated, with lycanthropes such as Glen Duncan’s Talulla and Kelley Armstrong’s Elena producing off­ spring and having large extended packs, the concept of family is still problematic in relation to the werewolf. Plus snacking on a neighbour’s brats, or their family pet during the full moon, no matter how annoying they are, is not the best way of making friends. Ginger Fitzgerald’s earliest kill as a lycanthrope involves shred­ding the neighbour’s dog into pieces, though luckily nobody suspects that Ginger is the culprit.64 It seems that the werewolf, the most liminal of monsters, cannot yet reach an accommodation with the liminal space of suburbia. And if they do not wish to return to nature, there is only one option left for the lycanthrope – the big city.

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The Werewolf in the Urban Jungle The cities featured in werewolf fiction tend to be those most frequently represented in popular culture – notably, New York, Los Angeles and London – but any number of cities worldwide have appeared in contemporary lycanthropic texts. Kristopher Reisz’s Unleashed is set in the rundown, post-industrial ruins of Birmingham, Alabama, Yasmin Galenorn’s Otherworld series in Seattle. New Orleans, with its historical associations with super­ stition, voodoo and magic, is another popular setting for supernatural tales such as Scotch’s The Werewolf’s Kiss, some books in Charlaine Harris’s Southern Vampire Mysteries series and Faith Hunter’s Jane Yellowrock series. London is another frequent setting for werewolf books and films – not for nothing is An American Werewolf in London one of the best-known werewolf films. Wolfen is set in New York. For the first two seasons the British TV series Being Human was set in the more prosaic Bristol, though its main characters were seldom seen in the city and tended to exist in the suburbs and in the forest surrounding it. Any association with nature present in the TV series was purely practical, however: werewolves George and Nina always took care to transform in places where they would not encounter humans and where their only victims would be deer or rabbits. Thomas Tessier, in his 1979 novel The Nightwalker, focused on the original American werewolf in London: a quiet Vietnam veteran named Bobby Ives. But he also focused on the city backdrop, stating in an Afterword that he intended London itself to be a character.65 Carrie Vaughn’s Kitty Norville is set for the most part in Denver, though the series also features novels set in Las Vegas and London. The third book in the series, Kitty Takes a Holiday, does feature the eponymous heroine attempting to return to nature by renting a cabin in a remote area (she even takes Thoreau’s classic text Walden; or, Life in the Woods with her as reading material). But Kitty’s holiday is just that – a temporary suspension of her real life, which is firmly rooted in Denver. Likewise, although some modern texts do feature werewolves returning permanently to nature, another equally popular trend depicts lycanthropic visits to the wild as temporary getaways for the werewolf in question. Like their transformations, for were­ wolves such as Kitty, Rice’s Reuben Golding, Keri Arthur’s Riley 153

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Jensen, MacInerney’s Sophie Garou and Maggie Stiefvater’s Sam and Grace in her Wolves of Mercy Falls series, a return to nature is a transient affair. Or at least, the werewolf in question desires only a temporary sojourn in the wilderness. The horror and sadness of Stiefvater’s series especially stems from the fact that for her were­ wolves, trans­formation into their wolfish selves eventually becomes permanent. But the contemporary werewolf’s move towards the city is too pronounced a trend to be neglected. On one level, the werewolf’s move into the cities and suburbia can be viewed as purely practical: true, isolated wilderness is becoming increasingly rare in both America and Europe. In David Wellington’s Frostbite his werewolves sequester themselves in the Canadian wilderness, but observe that it is getting harder and harder to find remote spaces where they will be safe from humans (and vice versa). It therefore makes sense for the werewolf to begin migrating into the cities, along with humanity. But there are other reasons behind the werewolf’s adoption of the urban lifestyle. Before going any further, a more detailed definition of what the city actually is will be required. Practically, the city is a man-made construct with a high population density. However, with the city blurring into the suburbs and vice versa, it is no longer possible to define the city solely in terms of fixed, geographical boundaries. The city is not only a physical entity, but is subject to cultural perceptions and definitions also. In his analysis of Los Angeles, Rob Sullivan suggests that the city resists all definitive definitions.66 The city is no less striated in its space than the suburbs – it is perhaps even more so. Despite this, it imposes fewer restrictions upon the werewolf. Deleuze and Guattari interpret the city as constantly changing, always fluctuating and never stable in its being. Such a continually evolving environment mirrors the werewolf’s development in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century, its gradual evolution from a ravening beast into a subjective being capable of participating in society and upholding its laws. Yet the werewolf is still finding its place in the city and working out how to live alongside humans. The city is another concept that is difficult to define, but Williams identifies ‘the modern city of millions . . . generally if indefinitely distinguished from several kinds of city – cathedral city . . . characteristic of earlier 154

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periods and types of settlement’.67 He also observes that this modern conception of the city, as a distinct space with a different way of life than in rural areas, only came into being in the nineteenth century.68 C. Chant offers a similar delineation of the city as an urban, highly-populated space, but which was also made by humans for human purposes.69 As with suburbia, the werewolf is an inter­ loper, but one that thanks to the city’s anonymity, is managing to infiltrate the city streets. The city, often constructed as nature’s polar opposite, also has a cultural opposite in perceptions of the suburbs. In contemporary werewolf fiction, suburbia is nearly always presented as a bland, homogenous environment that offers little by way of excitement or intellectual stimulation. The city, by contrast, is typically presented as a hazardous space, hostile and frequently corrupt, the site of criminality. There is also a much greater degree of violence than that found in the suburbs. The werewolf, which for centuries has been representative of mankind’s aggressive, violent impulses – even the subjective werewolf – is often forced to brawl in order to protect themselves or others, and is therefore less stigmatized within the city than in suburbia. Whereas an act of violence in suburbia, e.g. Ginger’s killing the neighbour’s dog, will attract attention unless very carefully concealed (and is nearly always uncovered eventually in most popular culture texts), such an incident might be noticed in the city, but would raise few eyebrows. The city offers something of great value to the werewolf: the possibility of anonymity. In contrast to the suburbs or the small town, where there is always someone watching the comings and goings of the neighbourhood and it is harder to remain hidden, city life is more impersonal and there is a greater tolerance for stigmatized individuals, e.g. people who are homosexual tend to congregate in cities rather than small towns. In the previous chapter we saw how the werewolf’s ability to pass as human prompted fears from the human population: in the city, it becomes the werewolf’s strength, as the werewolf is able to conceal itself effortlessly among the masses. As Jeffrey Weinstock comments, ‘the invisibility of the monster allows it to infiltrate the city, the countryside, even the intimate domestic space of the home’.70 The werewolf may not be quite able to infiltrate the home 155

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just yet. A little eccentricity is quite acceptable in the city, however, and while suburban neighbours may have taken note of someone always being away from home on the night of the full moon, buying an endless supply of raw meat and having neighbourhood pets going missing, such activity is less likely to be remarked upon in the city, where anonymity is standard and odd behaviour less likely to be remarked upon. No longer banished to the wilderness because of its evident beastliness, the werewolf is capable of passing itself off as a fully-fledged human, often renting a home, holding down a job and suffering romantic tribulations. In other words, living a life typical of any human, excepting the odd jaunt on all fours when the moon is full. In Karen MacInerney’s Tales of an Urban Werewolf series, the city setting is of such paramount importance that it is included in the series title. Accordingly, its titular werewolf, Sophie Garou, is an ambitious career woman in Austin, Texas for whom lycanthropy is often an annoying and embarrassing condition that interferes with important business rather than a dreaded curse, a spiritual experience or a conduit to improved harmony with nature. When she was a child, Sophie was unable to exert much control over her lycanthropy, and she and her mother lived a peri­ patetic existence, moving to a new town every time Sophie betrayed her werewolf heritage. In a wryly humorous moment, Sophie recalls how as a child she would change forms when shocked or startled, and scared a classmate senseless when the boy put a frog down her neck. Yet Sophie cannot lead a nomadic life is she is to progress in her career in a prestigious accounting firm. As a subjective werewolf, who finally gains some mastery over her lycanthropy, it is safe for Sophie to inhabit the city, have friends and even a human boyfriend as she can reign in her more beastly impulses and contrive excuses for when things go awry. The advent of urbanization since the nineteenth century has arguably hastened the dawning of subjectivity for the werewolf. When living in the wilderness, isolation is a viable mode of existence for the werewolf. But if the werewolf wishes to survive in the metropolis, violent rampages in the manner of An American Werewolf in London are not conducive to their survival. The subjective werewolf is the only kind of werewolf suited to life in the big city. Although she cannot always prevent her transformations, Sophie 156

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manages her condition with a plentiful supply of razors, regular doses of wolfsbane, which suppresses her transformations, and avoiding social com­mitments on the night of the full moon, a combination she has been perfecting since childhood. Self-control and the ability to regulate her wolfish impulses is vital to Sophie’s keeping her lycanthropy secret and her progression in her chosen career – but she cannot maintain control all the time, and this is where the advantages of living in the city make themselves felt. Although she still works hard to keep her secret, Sophie’s more suspicious activities (such as wandering home dressed in a plastic bin bag after an unplanned shape-shifting session) manage to go unremarked in the city, when they almost certainly would have attracted attention in the suburbs. Films such as Ginger Snaps, set in the uniformly drab Canadian suburbs, and recent novels such as Rules for Werewolves, set in the equally conformist and consumerist LA suburbs, explore the contrast between the sometimes violent and always rebellious werewolves and their more conventional surroundings. But it is important to note that these werewolves do their rampaging amongst comfortable, affluent surroundings. Werewolves in the city, meanwhile, often find themselves fighting for survival in a ‘dog-eat-dog’ world. A number of contemporary texts, such as Reisz’s Unleashed and Barlow’s Sharp Teeth, feature werewolves staking out territory in American cities. Notably, both of these novels are set in run-down, economically disadvantaged neighbourhoods, and feature such settings as cavern­ ous warehouses, derelict industrial furnaces and abandoned factories. Reisz in particular does not stint on describing the city’s ugliness: ‘ . . . factory-town fiefdoms, smokestacks stabbing a fume-blackened sky, dynamite buried in the roads to keep out union organizers’.71 The references to civil unrest and unionization suggest the oppres­ sion faced by the poorer strata of society, the contempt of the rich for the poor and the exploitation faced by the factory workers of Birmingham. Its working-class residents, including its werewolves, therefore have more important things to worry about than the image they present to their neighbours, and the werewolf is permitted to focus on survival rather than merely fitting in. Paradoxically, despite the struggles they may face, werewolves stand a much greater chance of thriving in the city than in its outskirts. The city is an environment 157

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where survival is always the top priority and the opinion of others is a secondary concern – suitable for a predatory animal such as the wolf (or werewolf). Accordingly, these working-class werewolves have little time to devote to rebelling against the status quo or existential angst and are focused on staying alive, vanquishing their enemies or defending their territory. The suburban werewolf’s conflict with its surroundings and the cultural mores of suburbia is a reflection of the fact that it has the time and leisure to devote to rebelling. A poor lycanthrope in the crime-ridden big city may not have the same luxury. The city does have an advantage over the wilderness in that it offers the werewolf easy prey. Hunting opportunities abound within the city, and whereas the werewolf’s prey out in the wilderness typically consists of herbivores such as deer or rabbits, the urban werewolf nearly always targets humans when on the prowl. The reasons behind this vary depending on the werewolf. Keri Arthur’s Riley Jensen series posits that werewolves target humans because they are easy prey compared to wild animals. Anne Rice and Sparkle Hayter’s werewolves pursue only wicked humans, in order to fulfil their destinies as lycanthropes. Glen Duncan’s werewolves go after humans because they taste good, their souls as well as their bodies fulfilling the lycanthrope. Regardless of the reason, the subjective werewolf is able to pick and choose their prey, in contrast to the classic werewolf which simply mauls whatever it can get its claws on. If a lycanthrope’s preferred prey is human beings, then it makes sense for the werewolf to begin inhabiting a territory where humans abound. The downfall of suburbia in this regard is that it is difficult to conceal anything out of the ordinary, whereas in the vastness of the city it is easier to conceal the aftermath of a night’s hunting. In the suburbs of Ginger Snaps a single death begins to attract unwelcome attention. Ironically, it has become easier for the werewolf to conceal itself in the city, which was built by humans for humans, than out in the suburbs or even the countryside. The savagery of the city has much in common with the ferocity of nature itself, and werewolves have begun to make themselves very much at home in the urban streets.

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Nature and the City – A Hybrid Space? Traditionally, civilization and nature have been constructed as polar opposites. Nature in this sense is perceived as being the material world, without a human presence, as in Williams’s definition.72 Although civilization is another difficult term to define, Williams emphasizes that it is a state that must be strived for and attained, rather than simply existing as the material world of nature does.73 A simple method of contrasting nature and civilization – and the city – would be that the former simply exists, the latter must be constructed. However, there is an increasing body of work among urban planners that argues the city and nature are closely linked, rather than being polar opposites. Lisa Benton-Short and John Rennie Short, for example, suggest that the city is an ecological system, defined by landscape.74 Timothy Beatley argues that a greater understanding of nature has the potential to revolutionize the way in which urban areas are conceived and designed.75 The city was once part of nature; Kaika and Swyngedouw argue that the city is nature transformed by human society and human labour, that it is a hybrid of nature and culture, the environment and society.76 The contemporary werewolf’s increasingly prominent tendency to mark the city as its territory and use it as a hunting ground suggest, at the very least, a parallel between the city and nature. The city and nature are combining to become a strange hybrid, with the city taking on many characteristics of the wilderness. They exhibit similar ‘survival-of-the-fittest’ environments, death is commonplace and fights over resources and territory occur on a regular basis. Sharp Teeth, set in Los Angeles, takes the concept of the city as a hybrid of the metropolitan and the natural to even greater extremes by depicting its lycanthropic packs as street gangs. LA is an apt choice for portraying a city that combines the natural and the urban worlds. J. Scott Bryson asserts that images of nature and the wilderness suffuses the city’s fiction, and it is emphasized in LA fiction that nature remains strange and chaotic, refusing to be tamed by humanity.77 Barlow’s novel is written in free verse, with an extract from the opening laid out thus:

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The absence of any rhyme scheme or poetic structure is suggestive of the unconstrained, wild existences of its werewolves. It is also surely no coincidence that the varied line lengths on the page resemble the werewolf’s jagged teeth. Barlow represents LA in much the same manner, as a wild, feral urban space. The novel emphasizes its disordered and violent characteristics, particularly where the lycanthropes are concerned. In one darkly humorous moment, Barlow describes how one werewolf decimated a fast-food restaurant, consuming humans and fried chicken alike: The smell hit, the change happened and the whole place had to go. Chicken, customers, biscuits and gravy. Lark says control is everything. There’s no percentage in hating your nature, it’s just in the blood.79

Violence is innate to Barlow’s werewolves, according to this pass­age – it’s in their blood, a line strongly suggestive of the biological determinism outlined in Chapter 1. However, the previous line emphasizes that the control of such impulses is encouraged, and must be a priority for the werewolves if they are to survive the city. How­ ever, their aggressive propensities are less visible in LA, a city notorious for high crime rates and violence which has even been described as a war zone.80 The lycanthropes, in keeping with numerous other werewolves in contemporary fiction, have adapted by leaving the wilderness behind and moving into the city. Or rather, they have forsaken one wild, untamed space for another. Despite the best efforts of humanity to impose order, to created striated space by building walls, fences, roads and other boundaries, the city remains a maelstrom. The construction of the space the werewolves inhabit as a wild, untamed area in Sharp Teeth and other werewolf texts is ironically 160

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made possible by the fact that the werewolves have moved into the city, which is teeming with both human and lycanthropic inhabitants. According to J. Patrick Williams, space and how it is constructed is influenced by social expectations about its inhabitants, and how they should behave.81 The subjectivity of the residents – or rather, their perceived subjectivity – can literally shape the urban environment. Traditional expectations of the werewolf is that they will run amok and savage numerous unfortunate victims. Wild wolves are regarded in a similar suspicious manner, as are street gangs, which Barlow’s werewolves function as in his novel. Both wolves and gang members are perceived as dangerous entities that must be contained. Barlow’s lycanthropes are doubly wild and threatening. The author separates them from human gangs in his depiction, and they do not correspond entirely to the structure and ethos of notorious LA gangs such as the Bloods and the Crips. This is owing to the fact that gangs were largely perceived as youth and racial issues in the USA during the 1990s (and presumably after this period also).82 Barlow does not dwell on the issue of race (although several of his characters are Hispanic) and although the ages of his werewolves are not discussed, their life experience suggest they have reached adulthood rather than being teenagers. Regardless, Barlow’s characters do not fit the mould assigned to typical gang members and hence the space they inhabit in the city is even more wild and uncivilized than that occupied by human gangs. Barlow’s werewolves/gang members take the city for their hunting grounds, and humans for their prey. In order to survive, they have had to adapt – not by leaving their essential wildness behind, but by bringing it with them into the city. However, categorizing the werewolf in Sharp Teeth as representative of nature would not be wholly accurate either. Barlow spends little time in his text on descriptions of nature, nor do his werewolves long for a life out in the wilderness. The new subjective werewolf in contemporary fiction, living, fighting and dying in the city, often has little or no connection with nature in its purest form, e.g. forests, mountains, no human presence. Although the contemporary werewolf is not unaware of nature, with parks and other wild spaces offering safe and exciting spaces in which to transform into their wolfish forms, 161

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they demonstrate little interest in nature in general. Communing and reconnecting with nature is a function reserved for a select few werewolves in modern fiction, such as in Skyla Dawn Cameron’s River. River was a wolf prior to becoming human, however, and it is strongly implied in texts such as Strieber’s The Wild that were­ wolves who re-engage with nature do so because being human is too difficult, or because the werewolf in question is somehow inadequate when it comes to fulfilling the roles human society has assigned them. The city may be nature transformed, but it is a fairly drastic transformation. This does not mean Barlow’s werewolves are unnatural, however. Barlow never explains the origins of his werewolves, but he never implies they were created through unnatural means, such as a deal with the Devil. Throughout much of its history in written and printed fiction, the werewolf has been depicted as decidedly un­ natural. Morton provides a useful analysis of the distinction between natural and unnatural: Nature is . . . natural . . . It means that the concept Nature is normative, which is a philosophical term for something that establishes difference between the normal and the abnormal, often with ethical overtones. For something to be natural, it must not be unnatural.83

The Medieval werewolf was often believed to be suffering from delusions prompted by the Devil, who stood in opposition to all that was created by God and therefore was considered unnatural.84 The female werewolf, especially in Victorian fiction, was represented as an abnormal, uncanny being that posed a particular threat to men and children. Her lack of maternal instinct was a deviation from what was considered normal for women and therefore marked the female werewolf as unnatural.85 Andrea Cremer’s Nightshade series continues this tradition, with her werewolves learning, devastatingly, that they are the result of unspeakable experimentation and violation of the laws of nature by a race of beings known as the Keepers. Any affinity with nature they have formed is not the result of their own innate spirits, but what has developed gradually during the time they spend as wolves. A connection with nature has to be earned, rather than being present from the beginning. 162

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The contemporary werewolf is not devoid of wildness, and certainly does not seek to establish an existence that is entirely separate from nature. Rather, its hybridity, its merging of human and wolf, extends to nature and the man-made construction of the city, combining them both into its existence. Such a development also mirrors the contemporary werewolf’s continually evolving subject­ivity: it is not confined to one or the other, but can exist in both the city and nature. Suburbia has not merged with nature in the same manner, but then it has always existed as a liminal space between the city and the countryside. The transition of the werewolf into the city has not been an easy one, however, not least because of how the city has been constructed in popular culture. Whereas the wilderness is typically viewed as pure, unspoiled and beautiful, the city has been depicted as dark, threatening and corrupt, particularly in Gothic novels. Ever since the rapid growth of cities during the Industrial Revolution, texts such as The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Thomas De Quincey’s Confessions of an English Opium Eater (1821) present the city as labyrinthine, complex and filled with danger for the unwary. But the werewolf is no innocent waif cast adrift on the mean streets . . . or is it?

Purity vs Corruption: the City and Degeneracy Where does the newly subjective werewolf fit into the contemporary urban jungle? That the city is the site of corruption, degeneration and immorality is self-evident in many modern lycanthropic texts, with texts consciously or unconsciously following the plot of Little Red Riding Hood, depicting a naïve protagonist at the mercy of urban monsters. The YA novel Sisters Red by Jackson Pearce consciously references this tale, but turns the tables on the wolves. The story focuses on Scarlett and Rosie, the sisters of the title, who became werewolf hunters after Scarlett lost an eye and their grand­ mother was killed in a werewolf attack. The novel follows the sisters and their friend Silas from their family home in a small, cosy town to the mean streets of Atlanta, where werewolf packs are gathering to add new members to their ranks. The novel’s narration switches from Scarlett to Rosie, offering differing, dual perspectives on the 163

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city and its inhabitants. For Scarlett, right from her earliest impressions of the city, its perils and dangers are thrown into sharp relief. She describes feeling the presence of werewolves, known as Fenris in the novel, all around, and is contemptuous towards the frivolous humans she spies who are in complete ignorance of the hazards that surround them. For Rosie, by contrast, the city represents a multitude of possibilities, and the temptation of a life that is not devoted solely to the hunting and killing of the Fenris. The city, like the Fenris they hunt, is a two-faced entity for the sisters: danger masked by a layer of glamour and excitement. McMahonColeman and Weaver observe that the text makes ample use of American Gothic in its plot and settings.86 The city is configured as a Gothic space, with the flat the sisters rent situated on a light­less street in an old, antiquated building. Pearce increases the sense of danger by likening the sisters’ arrival in Atlanta to being consumed by the city, with the girls and Silas being ‘swallowed by steel mouths.’87 The threat of consumption echoes the danger posed by the Fenris. Although Pearce configures the threat of the Fenris primarily as sexual, the fear of being eaten, either by the city or by wolves, echoes the fairy tale of Red Riding Hood, whose heroine is quite literally gobbled up by the wolf when she strays off the path. Pearce consciously invokes the fairy tale in her text by having Scarlett and Rosie dress in red cloaks; when Rosie is abducted by Fenris, they attract her attention by cautioning ‘you have to be careful not to step off the path, miss.’88 Scarlett’s worst fears are soon realized: the city offers almost unlimited opportunity for the Fenris to indulge their depraved desires for murder, rape and violence. Not only is it easier for them to blend in, but there is also an abundance of pretty teenage girls, their preferred prey. Scarlett scornfully refers to these girls as dragon­ flies who flutter along, oblivious to the danger they attract.89 The Fenris are able to congregate unmolested in the city, lurking in abandoned buildings and picking off humans at leisure. They soon prove to be much more at home in the metropolis than either Scarlett, Rosie or their friend Silas. For instance, after an altercation at a bowling alley, the wolves are able to vanish into the night and the sisters are unable to track them down, an incident that disturbs Scarlett. The most ardent hunter of the trio, Scarlett finds hunting 164

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in the city a challenge. The Fenris have less prey to choose from in small towns and are easier to track down. The size of the city ensures that the wolves can easily avoid the three hunters. Despite the higher population of Fenris in the city, the metropolis facilitates their reign of terror by providing them with anonymity and a much larger hunting territory. Scarlett’s apprehension about the city (which borders on para­ noia) is shown to be justified when the naïve Rosie is kidnapped by the Fenris off the street. The city’s role in precipitating degener­ ation is confirmed when the Fenris reveal the motive behind Rosie’s abduction. Only the seventh son of a seventh son can be turned into a Fenris, a process that involves them losing their soul and becoming a vicious, amoral beast. Silas is revealed to be the seventh son of his family, and the true target of the Fenris. Though Rosie and Scarlett triumph and Silas is spared becoming a monster, the role of the city is largely a negative one in the novel. It is the city’s unknowability in Sisters Red that is the source of much of its danger. Rosie reflects at one point when Scarlett goes missing, that were they in their hometown she would know exactly where to find her sister. In the city, however, she finds herself at a loss. Likewise, Silas was protected by his family from the Fenris in their cosy little hometown, where their knowledge of the Fenris allows them to escape the werewolves when they come, but once he is alone in the big city he is vulnerable to attack. The city allows the Fenris to flourish unchecked and add to their ranks with near-impunity, and only Scarlett and Rosie’s determination and resourcefulness thwart them.

The Female Werewolf and the City In their analysis of Sisters Red, McMahon-Coleman and Weaver observe that ‘the novel’s use of American Gothic reinforces the peril of the lone female in a hostile landscape’.90 The motif of the innocent, rather gullible girl adrift in the vicious, corrupt city is a popular one in contemporary werewolf fiction, featuring in texts such as Sparkle Hayter’s Naked Brunch and Alice Borchardt’s The Silver Wolf. The former is set in a nameless big city, the latter in 165

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Rome during the decline of the Roman Empire, but both depict the city as a moral cesspool in which their rather passive heroines, despite their lycanthropy and finely developed senses of morality, struggle to survive. Hayter’s novel focuses on werewolf Annie Engel, who is presented by the author as the last nice girl in a nasty, corrupt city. Annie’s niceness, however, largely consists of being a pushover, and she gets taken advantage of by selfish friends, her ambitious fiancé (who soon leaves her for another woman), con artists and all and sundry. The scrupulously moral Regeane, heroine of The Silver Wolf, is similarly helpless in the face of evil and corruption. Despite possessing supernatural power, Regeane lacks the ruthlessness necessary to survive in the city, as shown in her near-fatal mistake of refusing to have her uncle, her deadliest enemy, assassinated. He returns to accuse of her witchcraft, and she escapes being burnt at the stake by the narrowest of margins. The only way Annie and Regeane can survive is to leave the city altogether, the former for a retreat in India and the latter for a fortress in the Alps. In the classic romance narrative, they are rescued by a male werewolf with whom they develop a romantic relationship. The male werewolves in these texts contrast markedly with the good girls, Annie and Regeane. They are sufficiently fierce and proactive enough to successfully navigate the perilous environment of the city, suggesting yet again the equation of the feminine with nature – and, by association, virtue and naivety – and the masculine with civilization and the city. Or rather, it is characteristics that are traditionally thought of as masculine that are associated with the metropolis. In The Silver Wolf, ruthlessness, political acumen and the desire for wealth and power are vital to survival in Ancient Rome, and it is men who typically display these characteristics. An exception is Regeane’s mentor, Lucilla, mistress to the pope and a wealthy and a powerful woman in her own right. Lucilla, sexually active, deceitful and merciless, is a ‘bad’ woman by the standards of Borchardt’s Rome, and, unlike the men, is punished accordingly. She is brutally tortured and disfigured by her enemies at the climax of the novel, unlike the consistently ‘good’ Regeane, who displays traditionally feminine traits such as mercy, self-sacrifice and submissiveness and is rewarded with marriage, wealth and status – a werewolf version of Cinderella. 166

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Hayter’s novel is more ambiguous in terms of goodness and badness. The author makes few distinctions between male and female when it comes to moral standing. Good and evil are divided equally between the genders and people are seldom wholly one or the other. Even the good characters, werewolf Annie and her love interest, Jim, have committed their share of misdeeds. But the type of goodness presented differs between Annie and Jim. Annie, like Regeane, is passive and self-sacrificing, though she does make a conscious effort at being a good person. Jim, by contrast, is cunning and proactive, easily persuading Annie to join him in the life of a werewolf and taking considerable risks to outwit their enemies. Also like Regeane, it is doubtful Annie would have survived long without the intervention of a male love interest. Elizabeth Wilson, in an examination of gender in the city, argues that women in the city are presented, in age-old fashion, as whores and fallen women, but also as good women in need of rescue, and in some instances may be depicted as genuinely heroic.91 Annie and Regeane cor­ respond to this analysis: they are good women in mortal danger, the latter more than the former. Annie eventually comes to embrace life as a werewolf and her role in killing evildoers, whereas Regeane remains squeamish about taking human life.92 Regeane, despite her lycanthropy, which her mentor Lucilla admires as immense power, worth of envy, is feminine to the core. Not coincidentally, Regeane’s connection with nature is much stronger than Annie’s. Regeane is continually associated with the night, the moon, darkness, storms and images of snow and mountains. Her femininity is based upon her strong association with nature and also her innocence (naivety is perhaps a more accurate term), her distaste for violence and her strong submissive tendencies. It is also worth noting that whereas Hayter’s Annie Engel enjoys an active sex life post-transformation, Regeane, despite her oft-emphasized desire to experience sex, remains a virgin throughout the novel. She is ‘virtuous womanhood’ personified, particularly as Borchardt uses Regeane’s mentor Lucilla, a morally flexible courtesan, as foil to her innocent heroine and ends by having Lucilla tortured nearly to death. Temptress and whore, Lucilla violates the gender norms of the city by unapologetically wielding wealth and power, and by employing her sexuality as an asset, almost as a weapon. 167

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Lucilla is punished because she is a ‘bad’ woman. As Amy C. Wilkins observes, when women are bad, society considers them unfeminine.93 The paradox of Lucilla’s situation is that to survive in the city, she must embrace the masculine characteristics that eventually lead to her chastisement. The perfectly feminine Regeane escapes such punishment, despite the best efforts of her enemies to burn her at the stake or shoot her with a crossbow, but the city is an unhospitable place for a good woman, and so the story concludes with her leaving Rome to live in the mountains, her spiritual home. The city, in both The Silver Wolf and Naked Brunch, is quite clearly coded as a masculine space, an association that is reflected in wider cultural perceptions of the city. The city, most particularly its workplaces and public spaces, has been viewed as the domain of men since the rise of industrialization in the nineteenth century; by contrast, the domestic sphere (including suburbia, the liminal space) is configured as feminine.94 The female werewolf has begun to move into the city, as evidenced by texts focused on career women such as Carrie Vaughn’s Kitty Norville and Karen MacInerney’s Sophie Garou, but the city remains a masculine space. The female werewolf’s possession of characteristics traditionally viewed as masculine, such as aggression and the ability to fight, might actually be of assistance when it comes to living and thriving in the metropolis. But the city is still typically coded as masculine in Western popular culture, suburbia and nature as feminine. Nature is equated with innocence and purity in The Silver Wolf, and also in other contemporary werewolf texts such as Skyla Dawn Cameron’s River. Nature is perceived as such in Tom Fletcher’s The Leaping (2012) and the plot of the story focuses on the revelation that corruption and degeneracy exists out in the countryside and not just in the city. But in many contemporary werewolf texts, nature is viewed as a place where an uncorrupted, unspoiled existence can be led and harmony with other living things can be established. The popular perception of nature as feminine has arguably in­ fluenced its idealized presentation. Femininity, as I have argued in this chapter, is equated with characteristics such as self-sacrifice, passivity and gentleness. These qualities are also found in cultural perceptions of nature. Mother Nature, for instance, or the Garden of Eden, which presents mankind in a state of grace and at one with 168

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all living things. Nature, like the woman in the city, is a virtuous entity that must be protected in a number of contemporary werewolf texts such as Skyla Dawn Cameron’s River and Nancy A. Collins’s Wild Blood. The werewolves themselves are often ill-tempered and violent in Cameron’s and Collins’s texts, but the beauty of what they protect is emphasized and implies their aggressive ways are justified in the context of their greater purpose. In River, it is explicitly stated that River’s destiny is to reawaken fighting spirit in humans and to remind them of their wild origins and connection with nature. Equating the werewolf with (feminine) nature, therefore, suggests moral superiority on the part of the werewolf. Borchardt, for instance, repeatedly emphasizes the moral supremacy of her werewolf heroine Regeane and hero Maeniel to the humans they encounter. ‘As cowards you are without rival, as killers without peer’, is the superior werewolf Maeniel’s opinion of humanity.95 Not all Borchardt’s werewolves are so noble, however – Maeniel’s second-in-command Gavin is lecherous, reckless and hot-tempered. But Gavin, despite his propensity for mischief, is not cruel, greedy, wicked or desirous of power. The contemporary subjective werewolf has its flaws, but is seldom presented as truly evil unless the author intends to use the werewolf as villain in the text. In the case of the lycanthropic ecowarrior, being a werewolf is often presented as being somehow ‘better’ than being human. In an examination of children and their relation to nature in Western literature, Sidney I. Dobrin and Kenneth B. Kidd observe that since the Victorian era, children have been believed to have a privileged relationship to nature and accordingly were pure and innocent in comparison to adults.96 Although the werewolf’s relationship with nature is shorter and arguably less strong than that of the child in Western popular culture, the same associations are apparent. It is worth noting that of the three examples named here, River and Skinner Cade, the hero of Wild Blood, are both in their teens. Regeane’s age is never clarified, but it is strongly implied she is still a teenager at the start of the novel, as she reflects on a recent growth spurt. The werewolf as untainted, almost child-like delegate of nature is a dramatic inversion of the long-standing representation of the werewolf as representative of mankind’s beastly, degenerate side. 169

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Nature is not always equated with innocence, however. In texts such as The Wolf Trial by Neil Mackay, a small provincial town is shown to be just as threatening and corrupt as any large city. The story focuses on the trial of Peter Stumpf, an undoubted serial killer and possible werewolf, in sixteenth-century Germany. Stumpf, an educated, wealthy and well-travelled man, is depraved and quite possibly psychotic – but his neighbours are shown to be no more upstanding than he is. One particularly barbaric deed carried out by the local lawgivers is to use a child who escaped Stumpf as bait to lure out the werewolf, which results in not only Stumpf’s capture but also the death of the child. Although the residents of the town support themselves by hunting, agriculture and rearing livestock and thus have a close connection to nature, far removed from the social and political turmoil Mackay depicts in the cities of the era, they are not correspondingly innocent and gentle, or even passive. Despite the popular perception of the countryside and nature as innocent, the wilderness in contemporary lycanthropic fiction is not necessarily a pristine, unspoiled space, but is subject to the same degree of corruption as the city. As Lehan suggests, being in the midst of nature does not guarantee moral purity – if humans (or werewolves) are present then the land can be corrupted.97 In Vaughn’s Kitty Takes a Holiday, for instance, Kitty goes to stay in a remote cabin in the wilderness in order to have a little peace and quiet after the upheavals of the previous two books in the series. She expressly states her desire to get away from it all and ponder some deep philosophical questions. But her stay is far from peaceful: she finds herself harassed by locals and under attack from a malevolent black witch, a skinwalker. The harassment from the local people stems largely from ignorance: scared at having a werewolf in their midst, they leave roadkill outside Kitty’s cabin and barricade them­ selves in their homes on full moon nights. They are left feeling foolish when Kitty points out that she has turned into a wolf on non-full moon nights and has not harmed anyone. But genuine malevolence is behind the actions of the skinwalker, the villain of the novel who has used black magic to shape-shift. It is revealed that a member of a local family was turned into a werewolf when he visited the city of Phoenix. Anxious that the solitary werewolf should have a pack, Miriam (the skinwalker) killed 170

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their sister in a ritual sacrifice and used the power she gained to turn herself into a wolf. Her motives, as suggested by the murder of their sister, were far from selfless. Seeing her brother’s lack of control, Miriam chose to become a skinwalker rather than a werewolf like Kitty as she wanted the power of lycanthropy without the associated weaknesses. Of course, it could be argued that the source of all the trouble was indeed the city, as that is where Miriam’s brother John was first infected with lycanthropy. But the fact remains that both Miriam, John and their family originate from the wilderness and desert, and it is where their family have practised skinwalker magic for generations. In a chilling aside, a relative of Miriam’s informs Kitty of how easy it is to conceal a body out in the desert, ensuring it will never be found. Far from being pristine, the wilder­ ness has become a site of concealment for evil deeds. Corruption, therefore, is not intrinsic to a particular space, but is the product of a malevolent subjectivity – human or lycanthropic.

Conclusion: Subjectivity in the City As this chapter has demonstrated, the contemporary lycanthrope’s strong links to the metropolis cannot be denied. In some texts, such as Carrie Vaughn’s Kitty series, the city’s cosmopolitan, inclusive tendencies are emphasized, with werewolves living peacefully alongside humans and other supernatural creatures. In the majority of lycanthropic fiction, however, divisions and tensions between lycanthropes, humans and other supernatural creatures are examined. Yasmin Galenorn’s Otherworld explores tensions between the super­ natural denizens of Seattle and the prejudiced segment of the population – who are often, but not always human. One book, narrated by werecat Delilah, explores what forms prejudice takes and the effects it has on the city residents. These range from the merely nasty, such as Delilah’s car having an offensive slogan painted on it, to the truly reprehensible, such as the bombing of a community centre for supernatural beings, which results in several fatalities. It comes as a severe shock to the supernatural community to learn that coyote shape-shifters were behind the bombing, instead of prejudiced humans as many initially assumed. It serves to reinforce the message 171

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that hatred and violence can come from anywhere and are not intrinsic to any one race or group. This is in contrast to books such as Meyer’s Twilight series, where, disturbingly, violence is presented as innate to lycanthropes – although most of the Twilight series is set in the small town of Forks and its surrounding forest rather than in a big city.98 Whatever the werewolf’s native habitat, however, their subjectivity is invariably influenced by social structures and the other beings the lycanthropes are surrounded by. Werewolves engage with the city as hunting spaces, as hideaways and as territory to be staked out and defended. The werewolf’s subjectivity is one that cannot be easily contained, and for that reason the werewolf seldom thrives in what Deleuze and Guattari term striated space, which is composed of limits and boundaries. For this reason the werewolf cannot reside easily in suburbia, with its clearly demarcated boundaries such as lawns, picket fences and pavements. The city is equally striated, divided by streets, buildings, but has the advantage over the suburbs that with its greater population and more diverse settings, its boundaries are not as fixed and immutable as in suburbia. They exist, just as they do in the suburbs: people still own property, clearly delineated spaces such as parks, libraries and restaurants still have designated functions. But the city offers more public spaces that (in principle) belong to everyone rather than the individual. And inevitably, boundaries are in constant flux in the city, as with a huge population and less space, what space is available must be shared and used for multiple purposes. This can be seen in the 2009 film Blood and Chocolate, where the buildings of Bucharest provide artistic inspiration for one character, form a gymnastic assault course for another and, during the film’s climax, serve as sanctuary for the lead characters. In the ever-shifting cityscape, being surrounded by the same people day after day is a near-impossibility and the werewolf’s subjectivity is accordingly fluid, with the werewolf presenting different facets of itself depending on the circumstances it encounters. In small towns and suburbia, the cliché of everyone knowing everyone has become a truism precisely because it is based in fact, or at the very least is plausible. Although the werewolf in the city may have a family and a steady job, thus enabling some degree of stability where their identity is concerned, their identity will still 172

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be in constant flux. Career woman Elena Michaels in Armstrong’s Bitten presents a very different persona to her boyfriend Michael than to her ex-lover Clay, for instance – for the former, she makes a conscious effort to be sweet, even-tempered and understanding. It is an effort Elena eventually abandons, as she realizes it will be unsustainable. For Elena, the multiple identities required by city life become too exhausting, and she retires to the small town with her pack, where she can embrace a single self – or rather, a double one, counting her wolfish alter ego. Elena may be grumpy and short-tempered, but in the countryside she can be true to herself. Suburbia, by contrast, offers no such sanctuary for the urban werewolf. The suburban environment, predicated on conformity, has the unsettling effect of negating individual identity and reducing its inhabitants to a homogenous mass, as in Ginger Snaps. Ironically, this is not possible with the contemporary werewolf. After decades in which the werewolf’s subjectivity was subsumed beneath the persona of a ravening beast at least once a month, suburbia thus far has proved incapable of containing or sublimating the werewolf’s beastliness. The werewolf must be exiled from suburbia or else killed off to maintain the status quo. But even in the city, which offers the werewolf far more freedom, accommodating lycanthropic subjectivity can prove problematic. There is a tendency among even the contemporary werewolf to split themselves between the city and the wild, depending on the time of the month. Carrie Vaughn’s Kitty Norville works in Denver as a radio personality, driving into the wilderness on full moon nights so as to avoid humans and hunt in peace. Kelley Armstrong’s Elena Michaels, when working as a journalist in Toronto, heads for the city parks when she needs to transform and the same holds true for numerous other contemporary werewolves. Borchardt’s werewolves leave Ancient Rome and head for the Campagna, Anne Rice’s werewolves prowl the forests and jungles of the world whenever it is necessary to keep a low profile and the same applies to Karen MacInerney’s Sophie Garou. One self for the wild, and one for the city. While werewolves in texts written for adults appear to have few problems sustaining this style of existence, being both human and wolf poses a few problems for teenagers, who are already uncertain about their 173

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place in the world. In fact, in numerous Young Adult texts that feature lycanthropy, the renunciation of lycanthropy has become a rite of passage into adulthood, for reasons which will be explored in the following chapter.

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5 Growing Pains: Lycanthropy in Contemporary Young Adult Fiction  Introduction Despite the werewolf’s comparatively short history in printed fiction and even shorter history in film, lycanthropy is already a well-worn metaphor for adolescence. Teen werewolves appear as early as 1957 in the film I Was a Teenage Werewolf, and again a year later in How to Make a Monster (1958). The same association was later explored in humorous fashion in the film Teen Wolf (1985) and its sequel, Teen Wolf Too (1987). The similarities between the classic werewolf and the stereotypes attributed to teenagers are obvious: both involve violent mood swings, strange new urges and hair growth. With girls, ‘that time of the month’ commences, a connection rendered explicitly in Ginger Snaps, in which Ginger’s transformation into a werewolf parallels her menstruation, which also follows a lunar cycle. The werewolf has been associated with adolescence since soon after the notion of ‘teenagers’ came into being, and it is an association that shows no signs of diminishing. The concept of the teenager came into being in American popular consciousness in the 1940s, with a teenager being defined as a welloff youth whose focus was on fun, leisure and the fulfilment of their own wishes and desires.1 Consumerism formed the basis of this definition. From a marketing perspective, the American teen­ ager of the twentieth century could be either gender, and was aged

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between 14 and 18. The British teenager was older, aged 16–21 and was more likely to be from the working class. David Simonelli argues that from a cultural perspective, the American teenager was bored and carefree, the British teenager more likely to be frustrated with their future prospects and impending adult­hood.2 In both the United Kingdom and the USA, however, the teenager was presented as eager for adventure and new experiences. There was a negative aspect to this new focus on teenagers: in the USA in particular, fears of juvenile delinquency were widespread during the 1950s.3 It is unsurprising that teenagers were becoming monsters in popular culture. I Was a Teenage Werewolf followed shortly after depictions of adolescent angst such as Rebel Without a Cause (1955). The werewolf proved an apt metaphor for teenage rage and rebellion, and continues to be used as such in film and fiction. Unsurprisingly, given its history, the werewolf has become a popular character in the rapidly expanding genre of Young Adult fiction. Young Adult fiction is itself a fairly youthful category of literature. Publishing houses began to market books for teenagers in the 1960s.4 Joseph Crawford, in an analysis of the vampire in supernatural romance, identifies YA fiction as a rapidly expanding market, particularly in the USA, during the 1980s and 1990s.5 Walter Hogan has observed that Young Adult fiction is the only standard category of literature that is based upon the age range of the potential audience, typically encompassing ages 12 to 18.6 Hogan’s definition refers to the UK market; YA fiction in the USA encompasses ages 14 to 25.7 It therefore incorporates all genres of fiction, including Gothic, fantasy and horror, and since the turn of the millennium werewolves have been popular subjects of YA novels, together with other supernatural beings such as vampires and angels. Although settings and characters vary considerably between novels and book series, YA werewolf novels nearly always focus on a romance between teenage protagonists, and not infrequently a love triangle featuring a girl drawn to two different boys that is resolved at the climax of the story. Although numerous texts examined in this monograph feature teenage werewolves, such as Kirk Lynn’s Rules For Werewolves and Nancy A. Collins’s Wild Blood, it is not the intention of this chapter to focus on teenage werewolves who appear in books targeted at an adult readership. Rather, the focus 176

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will be on fiction specifically written for young adults, accord­ing to the UK and US definitions. Any films or TV series mentioned will also be those specifically aimed at a YA audience, e.g. they will have been adapted from YA fiction or, as the case of Wolfblood, screened on TV channels aimed at children and teenagers. Hannah Priest has observed that, although the Gothic as a genre does not necessitate the inclusion of the supernatural, the presence of supernatural creatures is a useful mechanism in identifying a YA text as Gothic.8 Werewolves, of course, count as supernatural creatures, but I would argue that their presence alone does not mark the YA texts analysed in this chapter as Gothic. The majority of texts examined here are by American authors, so Charles L. Crow’s definition of American Gothic as ‘simply, the imaginative expression of the fears and forbidden desires of Americans’ could also be applied.9 However, the popularity of the texts throughout the English-speaking world (and beyond) suggest that the fears and desires expressed in these stories are not purely American. But Chris Baldick’s definition of the Gothic is one that still resounds through­ out these tales. The past frequently intrudes on the present in many of the texts this chapter will examine, e.g. the lycanthropic attack on the heroine of Maggie Stiefvater’s Shiver when she is still a child, and her being left in a scorching hot car for hours by her neglectful father not long afterwards both have a dramatic impact on later events.10 However, Gothic in YA werewolf fiction draws on the Gothic romance tradition for inspiration rather than American Gothic. Romance is another highly complex term, difficult to define, but for the purposes of this analysis it refers to the Romantic Move­ ment (although, as Raymond Williams notes, this term did not come into general usage until the 1880s).11 The emphasis of the Romantic Movement, as briefly outlined by Williams, is on free, unfettered imagination and on powerful feeling.12 The following analyses refer more loosely to the popular understanding of the term, which includes ‘freedom’, ‘nature’ and ‘romance’ but, of course, cannot cater to the more complex ideological, political and philosophical ramifications of Romanticism. The Gothic Romantic, according to P. D. Bailey, has several prominent tropes that should be considered: 177

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The Nature of the Beast The most visible of these Gothic Romantic characteristics are a predominance of oracles and/or oracular mode; the depiction of Nature as sentient and capable of direct, personal intervention in human life; an investment in the concepts of liberty, equality, brother­ hood and sisterhood, and an emphasis on the revolutionary power of the mind to participate in the creation of ‘reality.’13

Of these characteristics, the most prominent in contemporary YA werewolf fiction is the belief in liberty and equality, and the emphasis on powerful feeling. Rebellion and resisting injustice are central themes in texts such as Andrea Cremer’s Nightshade series, Jennifer Lynn Barnes’s Raised by Wolves series and Christopher Reisz’s Unleashed. Oracles, figures of wisdom and prophecy, also feature prominently, from pack leader Beck in The Wolves of Mercy Falls to Callum in Raised by Wolves (who is capable of seeing the future) to the abundance of supernatural creatures in Cremer’s Nightshade series. Admittedly, few of the texts analysed in this chapter display much interest in nature as a whole. When it is featured in YA fiction, the relationship between the lycanthrope and nature is frequently antagonistic. In Andrea Cremer’s Nightshade series, which focuses on an epic supernatural battle between the forces of good and evil, werewolves (known as Guardians) were the result of nature being warped and misused by the evil Keepers. The Guardians ‘were created by years of experimentation with the laws of the natural world . . . But the creation, the creatures, they are abomin­ ations against nature itself.’14 As I discussed in Chapter 4, the con­ temporary werewolf is starting to distance itself from nature and move into urban environments. The majority of texts examined in this chapter are set in small-town America, with woodland and forests often forming a backdrop for teenage lycanthropes to roam through. However, in these novels nature remains in the background and is seldom engaged with, or it is something to be overcome, as in Stiefvater’s Wolves of Mercy Falls series. Nonetheless, YA werewolf fiction demonstrates an affinity with the romantic Gothic tradition, particularly in its emphasis on liberty and equality. The adolescent struggle to attain a sense of self, knowledge of the subject’s place in the world, is given added 178

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resonance and complexity in YA werewolf novels, in that the young lycanthrope must contend with two differing identities, human and wolf, and frequently has to choose between them. Moreover, conflict in YA werewolf fiction is more commonly external than internal: young lycanthropes often have to evade those who wish to destroy them, struggle against repressive families or even resist societal injustice before they gain a concrete, stable sense of self, all of which will be examined in this chapter. Examples of the beast within are exceptionally rare in YA fiction: the adolescent lycanthrope retains their conscious mind regardless of the form they assume. There are exceptions, as with everything concerning the werewolf, but the majority of YA fiction simply assumes that its werewolves possess the potential for subjectivity whether they are in human form or wolfish. The concept of subject­ ivity as possessing agency also has some bearing on the werewolf in YA fiction. The definition of subjectivity as a movement between that which we control and which controls us has particular resonance for the teenage lycanthrope.15 Impulsiveness, recklessness and lack of self-control are typical lycanthropic characteristics and are associ­ ated with immaturity in YA texts such as Twilight. Control over oneself is linked with adulthood and therefore with greater power and agency, and is something to strive for in texts such as Stiefvater’s Shiver, where the werewolves’ transformations are triggered by the temperature of their surroundings. It is important to remember that the examination of subjectivity and the young werewolf’s efforts to attain it are recurrently viewed through the prism of gender in numerous contemporary texts. The majority of authors examined in this chapter are women, and their protagonists are almost always teenage girls. YA werewolf fiction is a confluence of three comparatively recent developments in relation to the werewolf in popular culture: the appearance of the female werewolf in printed fiction, the concept of the teenager and the development of YA fiction as a distinct genre of writing.16 Its radical potential is considerable, in that it offers the chance for its authors to examine gender roles, the development of teenage identities and their efforts to find a place in the world – and perhaps even change it. The werewolf, as demonstrated by films such as Ginger Snaps, exemplifies the adolescent predilection for rebellion, 179

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a refusal to accept the status quo and the rules imposed by adults. Kristopher Reisz’s Unleashed – a rare example of a male author writing about teen werewolves – is an excellent example of this. Set in the rundown districts of Birmingham, Alabama, it focuses on a group of working-class, socially marginalized misfits, led by the rebellious Misty, who discover how to turn themselves into wolves by consuming mysterious mushrooms. While rebellion is expected of Misty and her friends, who are stigmatized as trouble­makers at their school, their activities attract Daniel Morning, the local golden boy who is destined for an Ivy League university. Chafing under the weight of expectation, Daniel rejects the future his parents have planned for him to run wild through the streets of Birmingham as a wolf. Cremer’s Nightshade series takes teenage rebellion even further, with the character of alpha wolf Calla rebelling against her entire society and everything she has been taught about her life as a werewolf. Yet for all its revolutionary potential, the werewolf in YA fiction has often erred in the other direction, with many texts embracing a central tenet about learning to assimilate into human society. This is most often depicted by adolescents leaving lycanthropy behind as they assume adulthood. In novels ranging from Maggie Stiefvater’s The Wolves of Mercy Falls series to Reisz’s Unleashed to Kate Thompson’s Shifters series, young lycanthropes are shown as losing the ability to shape-shift as they enter adulthood. This is frequently (though not always) a conscious choice. Although they may be offered the chance to retain their shape-shifting abilities, a significant number of young lycanthropes decide not to do so. In the conclusion to Stiefvater’s series, the heroine Grace makes the decision to take a very risky cure for her lycanthropy, acknowledging that although she does love being a wolf, she has a greater love for her human identity.17 Whether or not Grace succeeds in purging the urge to transform is left unresolved within the narrative. It is true that Grace arguably does not fit this pattern of losing her shapeshifting abilities: she is still a werewolf at the end of the narrative. Nonetheless, her intent to become fully human – no matter how great the danger – is stated explicitly. Likewise, Sam’s desire to remain human and the torments he suffers as a wolf are explored in depth in Shiver. 180

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Being a werewolf in these texts is a childish thing that must be discarded if the teen werewolves ever wish to grow up and join mainstream society. In Stiefvater’s Forever, Grace acknowledges she will never be able to travel abroad or attend college unless she is confident of remaining human. As demonstrated in Chapter 4, werewolves are desperately unsuited to environments that demand conformity, whether they live in the suburbs or wish to grow up and leave behind the Neverland of childhood. This is possibly an echo of the ultimately conservative horror film, which nearly always ensures that the rampaging lycanthrope is killed off by the time the credits roll and that normality can resume. In order to become responsible, to grow up, and fulfil their ambitions, teenagers cannot turn themselves into wolves and go running off whenever they feel like it. Self-control and discipline are presented as desirable characteristics to be perfected in many of the books examined in this chapter. Precisely why this is the case will be explored later. It is vital to recall that generalization is impossible when analysing the contemporary werewolf. There are numerous werewolves for whom lycanthropy manifests as they approach maturity – Christine Johnson’s Claire in Claire de Lune and Sylvie in Cheri Scotch’s The Werewolf’s Kiss, for instance. For these werewolves, lycanthropy represents a new stage in their lives, with new adventures and responsibilities, and not infrequently coincides with (or even triggers) sexual awakening. The UK TV series Wolfblood (2012–2017) adopts a similar narrative, with teenage werewolves Maddy and Rhydian undergoing their first transformations as they approach adulthood. A number of texts also depict werewolves who have been shapeshifters since birth or since they were very young: Annette Curtis Klause’s Blood and Chocolate and L. J. Smith’s Night World series for example. Growing up as a werewolf comes with its own set of difficulties, however, including the perennial teenage worry about fitting in and being accepted, a theme that dominates much lycan­ thropic YA fiction. Similar to werewolf fiction targeted at adults examined in the previous chapters, issues of identity and forging a subjective self are central to YA werewolf fiction. This in itself is unsurprising, as YA fiction often focuses on the coming-of-age of its protagonists and their evolution of new, more stable and often better selves. But whereas lycanthropy in adult fiction allows the 181

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werewolves in question to resist conforming and to challenge the status quo, particularly when it is unfair or corrupt, the same desire for rebellion is often curiously muted in YA werewolf fiction. It is by no means absent, with young female werewolves in particular exhibiting a rebellious streak and defying parents and other authority figures in order to do what they consider right or lead the life they wish to lead. But curiously, numerous teen werewolves in YA fiction want nothing so much as a quiet life. The desire for social acceptance and approbation is stronger than the call of the wild in many YA werewolf texts. Supernatural creatures, most famously the vampires of Meyer’s Twilight series, abound in YA texts. This makes it all the more peculiar that with the evident popularity of lycanthropes and other monsters, lycanthropy should become a nuisance to be discarded rather than an ability to be embraced as the protagonists mature and enter the world of adults. This chapter will explore the possible reasons behind the abandonment of shape-shifting in many con­ temporary YA texts. Whilst the term Young Adult will be applied exclusively to the genre of literature examined in this chapter, the terms adolescent and teenager will be used interchangeably when analyzing the characters that populate the texts examined here.

Teenage Werewolves and the Issue of Identity At the centre of nearly all young adult literature are the questions ‘who am I? What will I become as I mature into adulthood?’ The plot of YA texts typically follows the protagonists as they embark upon a quest to discover answers to these questions. The quest for an identity is often subsumed or shunted aside by other, seemingly more important events that take place over the course of the narrative, but such narratives nearly always end with the hero/heroine adopting an adult identity and leaving behind childhood and childish things. Not infrequently, the narratives close with a quick glimpse of the future, showing their characters marrying, having children of their own and setting the whole cycle in motion again, e.g. Harry Potter and The Hunger Games. 182

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For young werewolves the question of identity is complicated by their lycanthropy. Bouncing back and forth between human and wolf, frequently having to conceal their shape-shifting nature from friends, teachers, and everyone else they are connected with, being a werewolf frequently involves concealment and no small amount of deception. The inability to be their true selves is a source of frustration expressed by a number of young werewolves. ‘I’m sick of lying all the time’, bemoans Maddy, a young lycanthrope in the TV series Wolfblood. Other young werewolves accept con­ cealment as a necessary evil, vital to the survival of their pack and family. But regardless, the teenage werewolf is often required to develop two personas – one that is acceptable to humans and wider society and one that embraces their wolfish self. Subjectivity is also governed by the forces at work on the subject, such as the other subjects (people) with which they surround themselves, but also the demands of their genetic inheritance. Bill Hughes has observed that in contemporary fiction ‘werewolves embody determinism more than other paranormal characters, biology inescapably dictating their identity’.18 This is particularly true of the teenage werewolves in Maggie Stiefvater’s The Wolves of Mercy Falls series, with Stiefvater’s lycanthropes fated to transform permanently into wolves after an indeterminate period. This biological imperative governs every action Stiefvater’s werewolves make, at least when they are in human form and capable of reasoning about it. One painful exchange occurs between the pack leader Beck and another wolf, who queries why he is bothering with teaching the younger wolves when owing to their lycanthropy they will never be able to pursue careers, even if they remain human past their teens.19 Inevitably, being a werewolf negates the teenage werewolf in question ever being fully accepted by their friends, boyfriends/ girlfriends, schoolmates and neighbours. Although an exceptional human may still love and respect them after the revelation that they are a werewolf, such as when human boy Shay falls for were­ wolf Calla in Cremer’s Nightshade, for their own safety and the safety of their family and fellow werewolves their lycanthropy must usually remain a secret. Inevitably, some teenage werewolves struggle with this necessity. The teenage years are widely regarded by commentators as when adolescents begin rebelling against family 183

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ties and start seeking acceptance and approval from amongst their peers.20 But a werewolf can never truly be one of the ‘in-crowd’, hence the importance of having a pack and somewhere to belong for the young werewolf. There are varying representations of the pack in YA fiction, just as in fiction marketed towards adults. Jennifer Lynn Barnes depicts several werewolf packs in her Raised by Wolves series, which focuses on a human girl named Bryn who was orphaned and who is being raised by werewolves. The traditional werewolf pack in Barnes’s work is male-dominated, as male werewolves vastly outnumber females, and its members are violent, kept in control by a powerful leader. Counter to this, the villain of the first book, a rogue werewolf, has formed his own pack after discovering how to turn human children into werewolves, and forms a pack full of adolescents – boys and girls – that he dominates. Bryn kills the rogue and assumes the leadership of his pack, taking with her several werewolves who were a poor fit in traditional werewolf packs, forming a more demo­ cratic and egalitarian society. Nonetheless, she finds her pack under threat from jealous werewolves, most of whom want females to boost their numbers and resent the human Bryn’s powerful status. Bryn, despite being human, never contemplates leaving the werewolves to start a life amongst other humans. She explains that: ‘I’d never shift to another form, and I’d never have a wolf sharing my body and stalking through the corners of my mind. But I’d never be like other girls, either.’21 While she will never be a werewolf (or so she believes at that point in the narrative), Bryn’s upbringing ensures that she is not fully human and is alienated from humanity. The werewolf pack is essential for Bryn’s subjectivity, which is founded on being wolf-like. The character of Bryn recalls Angela Carter’s Wolf-Alice: ‘nothing about her is human except that she is not a wolf’.22 Estranged from the human world, being a member of and later the leader of a werewolf pack is an essential component in the development of Bryn’s subjectivity. The series concludes with Bryn abandoning humanity altogether and attempting to become a werewolf, which means she must be savaged to the point of death before the transformation can occur. Barnes does not reveal the outcome of Bryn’s attempt, but what is clear is that Bryn intends to become a full werewolf or die trying. Being human has become 184

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untenable for her: the development of her subjectivity among werewolves ensures that as she approaches adulthood she cannot conceive of a successful future as a human leader of lycanthropes. She reaches the point where she must become a werewolf or die, and dying is an outcome she is willing to risk to attain full lycanthropic subjectivity. Annette Curtis Klause’s Blood and Chocolate (1997) depicts the opposite scenario: sixteen-year-old Vivian was born a werewolf and raised among werewolves. Following an arson attack on her home by humans, which resulted in the death of her father and nearly half the pack members, the survivors have fled to a city and are directionless and leaderless. It is emphasized that the pack is in disarray and the members no longer know their place, their standing or their duties.23 Vivian herself is lonely, as she has no companions her own age save the Five, a gang of werewolf boys she blames for provoking the arson attack. She has never needed or tried to make friends with humans. With perfect logic, she wonders ‘why would I make friends with people who would kill me if they knew what I was?’24 However, when she meets free-spirited human boy Aiden and his cadre of friends, for the first time Vivian believes she can find love and romance with a human. In reaching out to Aiden and his companions, Vivian recalls Deleuze and Guattari’s notion of deterritorialization, a term that approximately describes a move away from a strict hierarchical structure to one that favours multiplicity and variability. The lycan­ thropic pack as depicted in Blood and Chocolate is at odds with Deleuze and Guattari’s definition of the pack in A Thousand Plateaus, which defines the pack as being composed of small numbers, is incapable of producing a fixed hierarchy and which engages in metamorphosis.25 The pack’s hierarchy is presented as essential to its survival, as without a dominant leader the pack descends into infighting and petty squabbles, and its younger members run wild. With her own status within the pack uncertain, and feeling dissatisfied with the pack’s assumption she will become Gabriel’s mate, Vivian ventures into the human world and a multitude of new experiences. The construction of the pack in Blood and Chocolate is therefore more reminiscent of Deleuze and Guattari’s conception of the mass or crowd as opposed to that of the pack. A mass has a large 185

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membership, and a one-way leadership relationship in which the leader embodies the entire mass and all subordinate members identify with them.26 Packs are smaller in number but less strict in terms of hierarchy, more fluid in their composition and have a tendency to be nomadic rather than sedentary. Packs are liminal in a way that masses and crowds are not: Deleuze and Guattari observe that they are forever shifting and changing shape. Someone at the centre of the pack at one point in time may find themselves on the outskirts at another moment. Crowds and masses are much more segmented and allow for the consolidation of power: the leader of the pack risks everything with each decision and each movement. Vivian’s pack is therefore a mass in terms of structure, with a strict hierarchy and a single, all-powerful leader. It seldom changes in any significant sense, save the catastrophic fire at the start of the novel that wipes out many of its members. In fact, its members consciously resist change, with pack members proving reluctant to leave the city they flee to even when it proves to be a hazardous environment for them. For the werewolves of Blood and Chocolate, fitting in is only achievable amongst their own kind, and even then only when their pack has a strong leader. Ultimately, Vivian regains her place in the pack and friendships with her fellow packmates, as well as a more suitable romance with Gabriel – though not before she suffers a great deal of angst and heartbreak at Aiden’s rejection when he discovers she is a werewolf. The ultimate lesson of Blood and Chocolate is to know your place and stick to it: trying to be something you are not will bring only grief. The pack in Blood and Chocolate is a crowd, according to Deleuze and Guattari’s definition, with a domineering alpha and clearly marked territory to inhabit. The pack led by Bryn in Barnes’s Raised by Wolves series is a true pack, however, in that it is much more egalitarian, less stable and in fact is not even composed entirely of werewolves. Bryn is human and takes tremendous risks in order to protect her pack. Andrea Cremer’s Nightshade series depicts a mass turning into a pack, as the strictly regulated Nightshade pack escape the control of the series villains, known as Keepers. They adopt a freer, if more perilous existence as they turn on the Keepers, eventually becoming true wolves and going to live in the wild. 186

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But one thing that is consistent, regardless of how the pack is depicted in YA werewolf fiction, is that young werewolves define themselves by their place within it. Vivian’s desire to be accepted by humans in Blood and Chocolate is hardly a strange desire, either for a lycanthrope or a human. The need to fit in and be popular assumes tremendous importance during the teenage years.27 Vivian differs markedly from many other teen werewolves in that she loves being a lycanthrope and would never surrender her shape-shifting abilities even if the opportunity presented itself. Other teen lycanthropes are compelled to or willingly surrender their lycanthropy in exchange for life as a human as they approach maturity. For teens obsessed with validation from their mostly human peer group, such a decision makes perfect sense. In an examination of contemporary YA literature, Melanie D. Koss and William H. Teale observe that the major themes the fiction were preoccupied with were about the protagonists attaining a stable identity, fitting in with others (usually other adolescents) and coping with the often-strange and frightening changes to their existences that occur throughout their stories.28 The theme of fitting in especially is one that resonates through­ out Blood and Chocolate. As Vivian was born a werewolf her foray into the human world is more a rebellious phase than a true desire to abandon lycanthropy and make her life among humanity, but her desire for a true mate echoes throughout the novel. But to find out where you belong, you require an identity, and the ultimate aim of much YA fiction is finding oneself and deciding what sort of person you will become. However, many protagonists in contemporary YA fiction are less concerned with developing an understanding of their own subjectivity than they are with fitting in with social groups. Although the wild wolf is a social animal, often residing in family groups, the werewolf in popular culture is a liminal being at best, intensely isolated at worst. Although the werewolf is beginning to congregate in packs – most particularly, the YA werewolf, who is nearly always a member of a pack – this is a process fraught with difficulty. A common plotline in YA werewolf fiction is to feature the YA werewolf rebelling against the strictures of its pack. Sometimes they effect change, at other times they capitulate and acknowledge the wisdom of the pack. 187

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Inevitably, however, a choice must be made, often between the human world and the werewolf world. In YA fiction, the human world and the lycanthropic world are usually two very different things, a marked contrast to the fiction examined in previous chapters, which often explores how werewolves are beginning to integrate themselves into the human world.

Leaving Lycanthropy Behind: Maggie Stiefvater’s Wolves of Mercy Falls Identity is at the heart of another, very different series about young werewolves: Maggie Stiefvater’s The Wolves of Mercy Falls series. It focuses on a teenage girl named Grace, who was once attacked by wolves as a child and who is one of several first-person narrators in the series. Grace is attracted to Sam, a mysterious yellow-eyed boy who only appears in summer. It transpires that Sam is a werewolf, and that he is seeking a cure for his lycanthropy. Over the course of the series, the characters of the acerbic Isabel, a wealthy but cynical girl, and former rock star Cole, a new werewolf, also take turns to narrate events from their perspectives. Cole also is the son of a famous scientist and has extensive knowledge of biology, which proves crucial as the series turns into a race against time to find an effective cure for the afflicted wolves, including Grace, who turns into a wolf at the climax of the second book in the series, Linger. The four must also try to save the werewolves from vengeful townspeople, who have lost children and friends to the wolves when they seek to boost their numbers. Rather than being an alternative identity for the teenage protagon­ ists to choose, as I discussed in Chapter 1 lycanthropy as depicted by Stiefvater is actually a negation of human identity. Rather than transforming at will or under a full moon, Stiefvater’s trilogy offers a more scientific explanation for lycanthropy, in which a mysterious bodily chemical that is sensitive to degrees of temperature triggers transformation when it becomes sufficiently cold. The cruelty of this is not only that it eventually results in permanent transformation into a wolf, but that whilst in wolf form the subjectivity of the were­ wolf is altered drastically. This is a similar scenario to that portrayed 188

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by the classic werewolf, in which the human is subsumed by a monster once a month or even more frequently. In the TV series Angel, for instance, new werewolf Nina is consoled by Angel, who tells her that her vicious new instincts are the fault of the monster inside her, rather than Nina herself. Stiefvater’s werewolves are not ravening monsters, although they will attack humans. The lycan­ thropes retain human memories, but in wolf form the recollections are perceived differently and self-awareness, a knowledge of who they are, is lost. While Grace delights in her experiences as a wolf, for Sam, this loss of human subjectivity is pure hell. As Beck explains to Grace, Sam’s love interest, Sam needs the self-awareness being human provides in order to feel alive and to attain happiness. ‘He is absolutely the best person I’ve ever met in the world, and I absolutely ruined him. I have regretted it every day for years.’29 In a Gothic twist to the novel, Sam is entrapped by his lycanthropy, which has been inflicted on him in childhood. The novels focus on his and Grace’s efforts to free him, and later Grace, from the biological imperative that enforces their transformations into wolves. Stiefvater’s depiction of her lycanthropes is strongly reminiscent of Deleuze and Guattari’s analysis of multiplicities, of things that gather in a group (or pack): ‘they are not divisible below or above a certain threshold, they cannot increase or diminish without their elements changing in nature’.30 Although this statement applies to the mass and not the individual, their comments on things changing in nature, depending on how many or how few they are, bring to mind the shifting subjectivities of Stiefvater’s werewolves. When the temperature drops below a certain threshold, the lycanthropes change both bodily and in nature – some essential part of them is lost. Whilst other werewolves come to terms with it, Sam never does. With Sam switching back and forth between two selves, his memories are also continually viewed through two differing perspectives: human and wolf. Whilst he does not forget any of his experiences, they are perceived differently when he is in wolf form, and for Sam this represents the loss of his human self. Despite the desire of Sam and Grace to be human, Stiefvater’s work is not preoccupied with making her teenage protagonists fit in with their peers or wider (human) society. Of her four narrators, Sam, Grace, Isabel and Cole, none are interested in popularity or 189

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validation from other teenagers. Cole is an extreme example of this: he is revealed to be a former member of a well-known rock band who vanished in mysterious circumstances. Initially arrogant, ir­ responsible and reckless, Cole desires to lose himself by becoming a wolf. Although his ego remains sizeable throughout the series, he rejects fame. For Cole, lycanthropy represents an escape from the human identities on offer to him, which are limited to drug-addicted rock musician or disappointing son to a brilliant scientist. Ironically, whereas lycanthropy for Sam is equated with an absolute loss of identity, it is becoming a werewolf that allows Cole to assume a new identity as leader of the werewolves and become a better person, in that he is no longer living exclusively for himself but helps and considers others. Despite living the American Dream of fame and adulation, it is lycanthropy that allows Cole to become a true member of a social unit and find acceptance, even love, with Isabel, who is every bit as harsh and tough as Cole. Concerns about fitting in carry particular resonance for the contemporary werewolf, as we have seen in previous chapters. Subjectivity is heavily dependent on context and the other subjects surrounding the werewolf striving for an identity, and this is even truer for adolescents. Robyn McCallum, in an examination of identity in children’s literatures, observes that children are commonly expected to leave behind solipsism as they mature and develop an identity that incorporates their relationships to others and the world around them.31 Unable to achieve a complete, rounded identity in isolation, in YA fiction children turn to their parents, peers and siblings in an effort to find out where they belong in the world. June Pulliam, in an analysis of female werewolves in popular culture, makes the intriguing suggestion that lycanthropy is social suicide for women. She cites the Ginger Snaps films as an instance of how becoming a werewolf makes it impossible for a woman to maintain deep or meaningful relationships with others, a point also made by Hannah Priest, as observed in Chapter 2. In the case of Ginger, her close relationship with her sister Brigitte breaks down after Ginger begins growing a tail and eating the neighbourhood dogs.32 Brigitte ends by killing Ginger after refusing to join her in a lycanthropic existence. Likewise, Leah Clearwater in Twilight struggles with becoming a werewolf and is ostracised by the male werewolves in 190

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her pack for making things ‘difficult’ for them. Nonetheless, as we have seen, in other lycanthropic texts becoming a werewolf is what enables women to become part of a social group.33 The difficulties teenage female werewolves find in maintaining a relationship is arguably a reflection of peer pressure amongst teens, where difference and deviance is discouraged. Typical personality traits associated with the werewolf – aggression, violence, sexual hunger – are associated with the masculine rather than the feminine, and the female werewolf who displays them is automatically excluded from the microcosm that is high school. ‘Get your slut bitch sister a leash!’ snarls nemesis Trina at Brigitte when Ginger begins dating (and ravishing) a popular boy, obviously appalled at Ginger’s breach­ ing of both feminine etiquette (her assertive sexual behaviour) and the breach of social convention (outcast Ginger dating one of the popular boys). It is worth noting, however, that Ginger was already an outcast before becoming infected with lycanthropy. Likewise, Leah was already alienated from the Quileute werewolves when her lover Sam left her for another girl, his soulmate. Such social exclusion is likely to have existed prior to the advent of lycanthropy in girls and women and owes more to the female werewolf’s human personality and environment than to her lycanthropy. Lycanthropy may exacerbate the teenage girl’s unpopularity in these instances, but is hardly its cause. If anything, it provides an outlet for Ginger’s already pronounced anti-social tendencies, and in other texts grants teenage girls a freedom denied them in their lives as humans. Of the other common themes in YA fiction identified by Koss and Teale, for teen werewolves, the idea of coping with strange, unsettling events takes on a new resonance. Most particularly when teenage werewolves undergo their first transformation. This is an experience that ranges from the ecstatic (such as the overtly sexual transformation scene at the climax of The Werewolf’s Kiss) to the embarrassing, such as in Claire de Lune, where the heroine only partially transforms on her first few full moons and is mortified to discover her pink nail varnish has survived the metamorphosis. Likewise, assuming a fixed identity, finding oneself, involves the adolescent either coming to terms with lycanthropy or discarding it in favour of being human. The importance of the people sur­ rounding the teenage werewolf cannot be overestimated in this 191

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instance. As demonstrated in previous chapters, the formation of identity is strongly influenced by the society and other individuals surrounding the subject. For teenage werewolves, this formation of identity is often complicated by absent or uncaring parents. The orphaned or neglected young werewolf is already a common trope in YA werewolf fiction, one that requires further examination.

Werewolf Orphans in YA Fiction As this chapter has demonstrated, for teenage werewolves, their identity centres round a pack, usually composed of fellow werewolves their own ages, rather than developing closer family ties. This is understandable in that validation from their peers is often of greater importance to teenagers than family approval, but in many YA werewolf texts there is no family to derive an identity from. Absent or neglectful parents are a common trope in YA werewolf fiction. The orphan or abandoned child is a common character throughout children’s literature, going back as far as Cinderella, or Hansel and Gretel in the story by the Brothers Grimm (not coincidentally, woods and forests are frequent settings in stories that feature teenage or child lycanthropes). In werewolf stories, in which adventure and wildness feature strongly, absent parents offer the enticing prospect of no boundaries and no true authority for the orphaned or neglected child. However, the loss of parents and the family unit also suggests vulnerability and insecurity. With no parents to protect them or help them, the orphaned or abandoned werewolf often finds them­ selves in a fight for survival, and dealing with an entirely different set of concerns than those that preoccupy typical teenagers with a stable family unit. In Maggie Stiefvater’s The Wolves of Mercy Falls series, both heroine Grace and hero Sam are the offspring of in­ adequate parents. Grace’s parents exhibit virtually no interest in her until she is admitted to hospital and later vanishes, and it is the in­­ eptitude of Sam’s parents that prompts the leader of the local werewolves, Beck, to bite Sam and bring him into the pack when he is still a young boy. This decision had devastating consequences for Sam’s whole family. When Sam began shifting uncontrollably, 192

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his horrified parents tried to kill him by slitting his wrists. They were convicted of attempted murder, and during the events of the series are incarcerated and serving life sentences.34 Sam is quite understandably traumatized by his past, a very Gothic convention. Although not an orphan in the traditional sense, Sam repeatedly faces the ramifications of absent or inadequate parents. Even Beck, who Sam clearly loves and admires, is a less than perfect father-figure for him. Beck explains that he believed Sam’s parents to be unequal to the task of raising such a sensitive, intelligent boy: ‘I saw him with his silly, vapid parents, them just as clueless as a pair of pigeons, and I thought, I could be better for him. I could teach him more.’35 In one sense he is correct: Beck is wise, knowledgeable and secretive, and his propensity for giving advice and dispensing wisdom denote him as a father-figure to the whole werewolf pack. He serves a role model for Sam, who is willing to accept Cole largely because Beck chose him as a werewolf for instance. But Beck later concedes to Grace that he did Sam a terrible wrong by turning him, stating that ‘I absolutely ruined him’.36 Beck’s tenure as father-figure is limited by his lycanthropy: by the third book in the series, Forever, Beck has succumbed to lycanthropy and is unable to guide and protect Sam, who must step into his mentor’s shoes (or paw-prints) and do what is necessary to safeguard the pack. Beck is not the only such guardian figure in YA werewolf fiction: in Barnes’s Raised by Wolves series, Bryn’s werewolf guardian is pack alpha Callum. Unlike Beck, Callum can literally perceive the future, although he seldom shares this knowledge directly. In true oracle fashion, Callum prefers to leave clues, such as giving Bryn a wooden horse, symbolizing the Trojan horse, to warn her of a traitor in her pack.37 However, although Beck does his best for Sam, the nature of lycanthropy means that eventually he will become a wolf permanently, effectively orphaning Sam a second time. In Barnes’s trilogy, Callum’s far-sightedness ensures he always prioritizes the greater good over Bryn’s welfare. By the conclusion of Barnes’s final book, Taken by Storm, Callum’s actions have brought about the death of Chase, the boy Bryn loved, and consequently although Callum still feels fatherly pride towards Bryn, she in turn has lost all love and respect for him and rejects him completely. However, 193

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Sam and Bryn are fortunate in having had a father-figure at all. With the exception of Beck, there are no true maternal or paternal figures in Stiefvater’s narrative. Isabel and Cole are both estranged from their parents: Isabel because her mother and father are grieving and later embittered over the death of her brother, Cole because his father considers him a disappointment. Grace is also the subject of benign neglect on the part of her parents, who are not abusive or cruel towards her but exhibit little interest in spending time with her or finding out what is transpiring in her life. Their neglect, though it causes Grace pain, ultimately makes it much easier for her relationship with Sam to develop – had Grace’s parents been more attentive, Sam spending the night in her bed, as he often does in Shiver (albeit without engaging in sexual intercourse) would not have been a possibility. Grace’s relationship with Sam is of far more importance to the development of her identity than her inadequate bond with her parents. It is Grace’s research and knowledge of science that allows Sam to remain permanently human at the con­ clusion of Shiver and permit their romance to develop, while in the final book in the trilogy, Forever, the now-human Sam refuses to allow Grace to lose herself in lycanthropy and devotes himself to curing her. There are numerous other examples of orphans in YA werewolf fiction. Kristopher Reisz’s Misty comes from a broken home and sees very little of her hard-working mother. Jennifer Lynn Barnes’s Bryn is orphaned in a werewolf attack before the Raised by Wolves series commences. Skyla Dawn Cameron’s River has the eponymous werewolf placed in foster care when no family can be traced (un­ surprising, as all her family are grey wolves). In the Twilight series, Jacob Black’s mother was killed in a car crash, although he still has a loving father in Billy Black. Lisa Tuttle’s Panther in Argyll (1996) about people who can transform themselves into predatory big cats, focuses on Danni, whose parents are splitting up and who is sent to live with her mother’s best friend in order to avoid the fallout of a messy divorce. All these texts feature lycanthropes who are either orphans or whose parents are unintentionally or wilfully negligent towards their offspring. Anaïs Nin, reflecting on death, suggests that the human is born twice. The second birth takes place when the human’s parents die, 194

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allowing the individual to come fully into their own and accept the legacy their parents have left for them, a legacy that, according to Nin, is spiritual rather than material.38 Although comparatively few lycanthropes in YA fiction are true orphans in the sense that both parents are deceased, not many demonstrate a close relationship to their mother or father, and quite often one parent is absent due to death or divorce. The absence of one or both parents, represent­ ing a rebirth of sorts, suggests an early assumption of adulthood on the part of the young werewolf, and it is true that many teenage werewolves (though by no means all) demonstrate a maturity and wisdom beyond their years. It also allows for greater agency on the part of the teenage werewolf. Childhood is a time when the subject is at its most powerless, a condition often exacerbated by being an orphan and having no true protector: Harry Potter in Rowling’s Harry Potter series is a well-known contemporary example. Forced to live with his aunt and uncle in the broom cupboard under the stairs for the first eleven years of his life, Harry becomes a target for the bullying of his cousin and the wrath of his Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon. But Harry gains power once he learns he is a wizard, and teenage werewolves can gain power through lycanthropy. Being an orphan or neglected or abandoned allows teen werewolves to bypass the helplessness of childhood and assume the mantle of adulthood with its attendant privileges and responsibilities. In the Wolf Springs Chronicles by Nancy Holder and Debbie Viguié, reluctant werewolf Katelyn is orphaned at the start of the series. Her lack of parents, and hence lack of guidance and protection, leaves her vulnerable but also forces her to fend for herself. Katelyn does so, and so successfully she becomes alpha of her pack by the third book in the series.39 Her werewolf friend Cordelia, also orphaned over the course of the series, becomes alpha of a rival pack, both of them metaphorically reborn as leaders and protectors. Being continually reborn has other implications than what Nin interprets as a true assumption of adulthood, each generation coming into its own even as it accepts the legacy of the one that preceded it. Nina Auerbach, in an examination of the orphan in eighteenthand nineteenth-century literature, comments on what she terms the orphan’s potential for rebirth.40 She configures this rebirth as perpetual re-invention, the ability to cast off the past and start over 195

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in much the same manner a snake sheds its old skin. Without any concrete ties to a particular place or family, reconfiguring their identity comes easily to the orphan, and doubly so to the orphaned werewolf, who continually changes their form. Nancy A. Collins’s teenaged Skinner Cade, raised by foster parents who are deceased in her novel, Wild Blood, adopts various loyalties and personas before finding out about his birth parents and choosing where and how to live his life.41 The motif of rebirth is one that has prior associations with the figure of the werewolf. Barbara Creed suggests that the werewolf continually gives birth to themselves through their shape-shifting abilities, forever re-inventing themselves as they turn themselves inside-out.42 Whilst this concept of continually being reborn and re-invented does correspond to Deleuze and Guattari’s definition of becoming, with Skinner becoming wolf, becoming human and back again, it also implies the werewolf will be forced to live out multiple childhoods. Their learning and development will be cease­ less, and by implication the same powerlessness experienced by children and teenagers will be experienced multiple times. Taking this into consideration, it is unsurprising that some young werewolves choose to abandon lycanthropy for a settled future as a human and the prospect of growing up. The equation of lycanthropy, and by extension adventure and excitement with childhood, and unalienable humanity with adulthood is a theme that has existed in YA fiction since the 1990s. Kate Thompson’s novel Wild Blood (1999) is centred on Tess, who is a Switcher.43 Switchers have the ability to turn themselves into any animal they wish, but their ability has an expiry date. Once they turn fifteen, they can no longer shape-shift, remaining in whatever form they happen to be in at the time. In the final book of the trilogy, Tess is offered the chance to retain her shape-shifting abilities by a distant relative. This relative is Declan, another Switcher, who chose to become one of the Sidhe, a fairy, on his fifteenth birthday rather than give up his life as a Switcher. Tess makes the same decision, especially after witnessing Declan’s other remarkable powers – but is persuaded to remain human by her friend Kevin, a former Switcher who is now permanently human. Kevin presents a compelling argument for humanity, arguing that as a fairy Tess 196

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will never be able to define her own identity. Fairies are shaped by human perception, and if she becomes one Tess will be reduced to a figment of someone else’s imagination. Ultimately, Tess chooses to remain human, a decision both she and Declan come to terms with, as it will allow to her shape and develop her own subjectivity. Tess’s decision is made all the stronger by the fact that she does not remain human for what might be considered typical teenage reasons, e.g. in order to win popularity or for the sake of winning a boyfriend. There are compelling reasons behind her difficult choice. The first book in the trilogy, Switchers, emphasizes Tess’s status as a loner, something that is partly her own inclination and partly enforced by circumstance. She has little interest towards fitting in with her peers, and even her friendship with Kevin is slow to develop, despite both of them being Switchers. Nonetheless, becoming human does not necessarily offer power or security. Kevin, despite his compelling words to Tess, is alienated from his family and living on the streets after running away from home when still able to shape-shift. Kevin’s teenage rebellion has cost him dearly, and in some werewolf texts there is a cautionary message about trying to be something you are not or advising that whilst rebelling against the status quo may be exciting in the short term, there are always longer term consequences to consider.

Lycanthropy and Teenage Rebellion Lycanthropy is a breaching of the boundaries between human and animal, nature and civilization. Rebellion is also a breaching of boundaries imposed by authorities and establishments, and so lycan­ thropy lends itself easily as a metaphor to teenage revolt. And yet, as noted in the Introduction to this chapter, the adolescent propensity for rebellion and resistance is often strangely understated in YA werewolf fiction. A notable few are utterly defiant and insubordinate: Skyla Dawn Cameron’s River for instance, who hates the human world and just about everything in it. Andrea Cremer’s Nightshade trilogy is centred round the rebellion against a group of evil magical beings known as the Keepers. The heroine’s gradual realization that such a revolt is the only true, justifiable course of action open to 197

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her forms an essential aspect of her character development. There is a difference between the insurgence practised by Cremer’s were­ wolves and Cameron’s River. The latter eventually comes to accept life as a human, though she remains surly and ill-tempered. Cremer’s werewolves overthrow their rulers and destroy their society, allowing a fairer and freer culture to evolve. River resists, Cremer’s lycanthropes rebel, a distinction made by Mark S. Hamm. He argues that true rebellion is revolutionary and is composed of direct political action by people seeking to create a new social order, whereas resistance is largely symbolic and thus has less radical potential.44 Resistance, as defined by Hamm, comes naturally to numerous teen werewolves examined in this chapter, e.g. Cameron’s River, Curtis Klause’s Vivian. They struggle against the oppressive structures of school and low societal expectations, and some resist parents and other authority figures. But rebellion, the true desire to overthrow the social order and establish a new one, is rarer. The importance of having a pack, of having a place in the world is continually emphasized in the texts explored in this chapter. In Holder and Viguié’s novel Hot Blooded (2012), when teen werewolf Cordelia is cast out of her pack by her insane father, she literally begins to diminish and pine away. Social acceptance is not just gratifying, but necessary for survival in many YA werewolf texts. Roberta S. Trites suggests that rebellion in YA literature is only good up to a point, and ultimately the status quo must be preserved. Teens must learn to distinguish between good rebellion, defined as the safe expression of pent-up energies and emotions, and bad rebellion, which can prove dangerous to the social order.45 This analysis is one that could be applied to many (though by no means all) YA werewolf texts, in which the survival of the pack could be undermined through a rebellious teenager. The emphasis in many werewolf texts is on the importance of family and the pack, and as in Blood and Chocolate a rift between werewolves and their pack can have disastrous consequences. In the novel, it is revealed that rogue werewolves Astrid and Rafe have been hunting and killing humans, intending to frame protagonist Vivian for the crime. They are thwarted, but not before Vivian is almost killed by her terrified exboyfriend Aiden, who believed her to be responsible for the deaths. The film version of Blood and Chocolate, despite the drastically 198

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different plot, also continually emphasizes the importance of adhering to tradition and cleaving to the pack, a strategy that has allowed the werewolves to survive for centuries. Teenage werewolves differ from other adolescents in that they frequently have a duty towards their pack, some essential role to play in keeping it safe. Barnes’s Bryn and Cremer’s Calla are both alphas of their respective packs, and take their responsibilities very seriously. Rebellion is a luxury werewolves cannot always afford, a reality that distances them from other monsters such as vampires. Vampires in particular in popular culture are often shown indulging their desire for human blood before reforming and refusing to kill to survive.46 Nonetheless, when the teenage werewolf does revolt, they often spurn their pack and/or family and their rules. Sometimes this revolt is purely self-interested, but in both YA werewolf fiction and the YA genre as a whole rebellion is often linked to a higher cause. Teenage rebellion, when it does appear in YA werewolf fiction, is frequently about the greater good rather than self-interest or simply for the sake of being defiant. Bryn rebels against the ruling council of werewolves in Raised by Wolves in order to rescue the children who have been abducted and imprisoned by a rogue lycanthrope. Calla and some of her pack rebel against the evil Keepers quite literally to save the world; Christine Johnson’s Claire defies her pack not only to rescue her mother but to thwart the man who poses the lycanthropes’ greatest threat. Kristopher Reisz’s Unleashed deals with less lofty aims: the teenagers he shows becoming were­wolves are bored, disaffected and the victims of denig­ration from their classmates, which ranges from exclusion to vicious racial abuse. Nonetheless, Misty, their leader, dreams of a life away from the grim streets of Birmingham and travelling the world: ‘she wanted to be clever enough and fearless enough to leave everything familiar behind, to explore foreign cities and see strange sunsets’.47 But Misty gets her happy ending by the skin of her teeth. She and her fellow werewolves very nearly massacre a party full of the popular kids who have spurned them and only the intervention of fellow werewolf Daniel prevents them from aban­ doning their humanity forever. Daniel himself was attracted to Misty’s aura of rebellion, but realizes he cannot allow it to degenerate into vengeance. 199

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Misty herself is a prime candidate for lycanthropy. Already an outcast in her high school, she is a liminal figure from the outset of the novel. Of mixed-race parentage, once particularly nasty slur levelled at her is ‘mutt’, intended to denigrate her lack of racial ‘purity’. Even her name, Misty, is suggestive of a lack of boundaries, of a shifting, amorphous being. Misty’s family share her rebellious tendencies: her grandfather was involved in the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. Misty is also strongly associated with the figure of Puck from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a role she played onstage after beating numerous boys at the audition for the role.48 The association of Puck (and by extension Misty) with mischief, deception and magic suggests rebellion against the status quo. Roberta S. Trites likens teenage rebellion to Bakhtin’s definition of the carnival in the Middle Ages, in which social hier­ archies were disrupted and chaos reigned supreme for a limited time.49 This is a definition that could also be used to encapsulate A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and which can be used to outline the depiction of lycanthropy in Unleashed. As an outlet for Misty and her friends, a way of expressing their anger and frustration that must be halted when it becomes truly dangerous. For Misty and her friends, the main attraction of being a werewolf is the power it grants them. Lycanthropy offers power to typically powerless adolescents. In Unleashed, Misty and her friends, who are ignored in high school, forced to work in low-paid jobs for spending money and frequently the targets of racial abuse, find empowerment through becoming werewolves. However, both Daniel and Misty offer resistance in another manner – their unlikely romance.

Animal Magnetism: Lycanthropy and Sexuality in YA Fiction Daniel and Misty’s romance also has rebellious connotations. Daniel and Misty are aware their relationship violates the unspoken social code of their high school: golden boy Daniel dating wrong-sideof-the-tracks Misty, in an inversion of the sexual attraction between Ginger and stereotypical jock Jason in Ginger Snaps. However, it is the romantic aspects of their relationship, rather than their sexual intimacy, that violate the status quo. Male sexual desire for socially 200

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unsuitable females is non-revolutionary within the context of Unleashed, a situation that reflects wider Western society, in which women are taught to link sex and love and place a higher value on the latter, whereas men are encouraged to engage in sexual activity irrespective of emotion.50 Daniel’s decision to forgo college and travel the world with Misty at the conclusion to the novel is far more radical in that he accepts her as a romantic partner and can visualize a future with her. In contrast to Daniel’s rule-breaking romance, the rebellion of female werewolves against the social order is usually triggered by their developing sexuality, a trend that has been observed in other popular YA fiction to feature female central characters.51 Female werewolves have been associated with unrestrained, dangerous sexuality since the nineteenth century, when ravenously sexual female werewolves dressed in sumptuous furs and murdered men and children.52 Female sexuality is still a problematic issue in Western society, and accordingly YA werewolf fiction represents it being controlled and regulated, not always successfully. Not infrequently, the female werewolf’s sexuality is regulated by assigning her a mate her pack and/or family approve of. Curtis Klause’s Vivian is expected to mate with alpha Gabriel and become the new pack leader, a role she accepts only after being rejected by her human boyfriend. Andrea Cremer’s Calla is required to submit to an arranged marriage with fellow werewolf Ren. Failing this, the female werewolf’s sexuality is subject to stringent policing; the sexually rapacious Ginger in Ginger Snaps is actually killed off once she becomes too much of a threat. In a less extreme example, in Stiefvater’s The Wolves of Mercy Falls series, Grace’s parents realize their daughter is in a relation­ship with Sam after several months of ignorance. Convinced he is a bad influence, they attempt to make up for years of lackadaisical parent­ ing by banning Grace from seeing him, unaware Grace has already lost her virginity to Sam. In Curtis Klause’s, Cremer’s and Stiefvater’s texts, sexual awakening coincides with, or more accurately triggers, a political awakening. Calla, the teenaged Vivian out of Blood and Chocolate and Daniel are all inspired to resist their family’s expectations of them after engaging in forbidden romance. In the cases of Calla and Vivian they also shun the expectations of their packs, history and tradition 201

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and an unjust political system. Daniel’s rebellion is less political and more personal, but he still defies social expectation in dating Misty and eventually abandons plans to attend Cornell University as he only gained admission due to lying during his application. This conflation of sexual and political rebellion is another wider trend that exists in YA fiction. Clémentine Beauvais observes that political awareness and romantic, sexual love follow a similar trajectory in YA literature.53 Both tend to be triggered by the appearance of an illicit romantic interest, and Beauvais argues that the sexual tensions between the bodies of the two teenagers mirrors a desire to change the world surrounding them. As with the sexual element of rebellion, political awakening is nearly always an awakening of the female. The examples Beauvais uses in her analysis are Malorie Blackman’s Noughts and Crosses series and Meyer’s Twilight, both of which feature a forbidden romance for their heroines, and a subsequent grow­ing awareness of the world around them. In Blackman’s series, this constitutes a recognition of the dystopia surrounding the heroine Sephy, though Meyer’s series is distinctly less politicized and the revelation comes from Bella’s recognition of Edward as a vampire. Another, much more consciously gendered example of rebellion can be found in Christine Johnson’s Claire de Lune. Central character Claire learns to her surprise that male werewolves simply do not exist – all werewolves are female. When a werewolf becomes pregnant, if the foetus is male, a genetic imperative causes a mis­ carriage. Her mother explains to her that the savagery and viciousness associated with werewolves are also perceived as masculine traits, and therefore it is mostly men that humans suspect of being were­ wolves. This misconception is one that has allowed generations of werewolves to hide in plain sight. Claire and her mother are rebels against the (human) status quo simply by existing. Claire’s personal development is also noteworthy. Initially, a rather shallow and selfabsorbed teenager, horrified at her mother’s revelations – not least because the boy she has a crush on is the son of a notorious werewolf hunter – Claire’s gradual acceptance of her lycanthropy and eventual delight in her dual nature form the basis of the novel. By the climax of the novel, transformation brings ecstasy and freedom: ‘the feel­ ing of release was so great that Claire couldn’t hold back the cry that rose through her’.54 Johnson emphasizes that despite her initial 202

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reservations, Claire enjoys being a werewolf. Although the novel adheres to YA convention in providing a forbidden romance for Claire in the shape of the attractive Matthew, son of the werewolf’s greatest enemy, Claire’s sexual and political awakening occurs despite this. Claire rebels not only against the expectations of human society, but also against the wishes of the werewolf pack into which her mother inducts her. When her mother is taken prisoner in wolf form by the villain of the book, Dr Engle, the pack fearfully refuses to take action to rescue her, a decision Claire condemns. Despite her love for Matthew (and despite the fact that female werewolves do not engage in sustained relationships with human men) Claire’s decision to rebel against the pack is made independently, a marker of her growing self-reliance and a sign she is beginning to embrace being a werewolf rather than merely unnerved by it.

Race and Class in YA Werewolf Fiction The werewolf’s embodiment of teenage rebellion can be linked to both class and race, though neither have been explored extensively in literary criticism to date. Race, perhaps surprisingly, is seldom explored as an issue in YA werewolf fiction, although Reisz’s Unleashed does portray the racial abuse its protagonist Misty faces from her schoolmates. But as June Pulliam observes, the majority of werewolves in YA fiction are white, although representations of other ethnicities (at least when the werewolf is in human form) are gradually beginning to appear.55 The werewolf is often represented as a species apart from humans, as in Blood and Chocolate, which may partially account for this lack. Racial difference is ingrained in the lycanthrope even without representing the werewolf as an ethnic (human) minority. Shelley Chappell, in her PhD thesis ‘Werewolves, Wings, and Other Weird Transformations: Fantastic Metamorphosis in Children’s and Young Adult Fantasy Literature,’ analyses Blood and Chocolate using this assumption, categorizing the romance between werewolf Vivian and human Aiden as ‘interracial’ and ultimately doomed to failure.56 McMahon-Coleman and Weaver devote a chapter of their monograph to ethnic and racial politics as represented in werewolf fiction, and likewise their focus is the 203

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representation of lycanthropes as an ethnic minority in their own right. They also devote some examination to the lycanthropic preoccupation with bloodlines and hereditary purity exhibited in many contemporary texts, such as Cremer’s Nightshade series in which bloodlines and marriages are carefully recorded.57 But the absence of racial minorities in YA werewolf fiction (and indeed in werewolf fiction marketed towards adults) remains a glaring one. When ethnic minorities are depicted as lycanthropes, their portrayals are often deeply problematic. Meyer’s Twilight series defines its werewolves as exclusively Native American, a depiction that has drawn criticism for upholding racial stereotypes of Native Americans as savage, violent and dangerous.58 Most authors sidestep this potentially dangerous area and depict their werewolves as white. Of course, the lycanthrope is nearly always constructed as the other, and further othering through depiction as an ethnic minority is not necessary. It also ensures the werewolf’s status as subject without devoting special attention to it. As Karen Coats observes in her Lacanian examination of children’s literature: In the context of the European Enlightenment, Whiteness accrued to itself the secondary signifiers of rationality, achievement, innocence, freedom, individualism, and, even, human.59

Although the central characters in YA werewolf fiction, of course, cannot lay claim to being human, at least not unless they renounce lycanthropy, they are almost always white and heterosexual and thus as close as possible to the ‘ideal’ human specimen. Subjectivity is taken for granted in the majority of YA werewolf texts, or at the very least is strongly associated with humanity rather than lycan­ thropy. By aligning the teen werewolf with the ethnicity associated with independent thought and rationality, contemporary YA fiction asserts its teen werewolves’ subjectivity, in contrast to the struggles experienced by adult werewolves that I examined in Chapter 1. Which accordingly leaves them free to pursue romance or rebellion, without suffering from existential angst. It is possible that nearly all contemporary werewolves in YA fiction are portrayed as heterosexual for exactly the same reason – they are sufficiently queer without being portrayed as homosexual. 204

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However, there is a substantial body of criticism that focuses on queering the werewolf and several prominent examples in literature; Eric Stenbock’s ‘The Other Side’ (1893) being perhaps the most famous example.60 The lack of queer werewolves in contemporary YA fiction is arguably more indicative of the genre than the figure of the lycanthrope. Gay and lesbian characters are under-represented in YA fiction: although gay werewolves feature in Cremer’s Night­ shade series, they are very much supporting characters rather than the protagonists, who enact a heterosexual romance.61 Although the lycanthropes are arguably a minority in their own right, white, heterosexual protagonists appear most frequently in YA fiction, with sexual and ethnic minorities underrepresented. But the overwhelming whiteness of contemporary YA were­ wolves may also be linked to their propensity for rebellion against the status quo. Amy C. Wilkins, in an examination of youth sub­ cultures in a specific region of the USA, asserts that whiteness is considered normal and is used to define normal behaviour or normal people.62 She also suggests that, consequently, whiteness is not considered cool or exciting, and white middle-class youth in particular seek to rebel against it. Wilkins’s study focuses on Goths, Christians and what she terms ‘wannabes’, young men and women who adopt Puerto Rican dress, mode of speech, hairstyles and other visible markers of difference. Notably, all these subcultures can be identified through visual characteristics, notably their fashions, hairstyles, makeup and jewellery, whereas lycanthropy can be concealed if necessary. Another of Wilkins’s observations has some bearing on YA werewolf fiction: her assertion that rebellion against the established order is a luxury that only upper- and middle-class, affluent youth can afford. Class is an important, but hitherto under-researched aspect of YA werewolf fiction. Wilkins argues that class is displaced onto race, so that whiteness is associated with material affluence and middle-class status, and ethnic minority are coded as working class.63 It is true that the majority of teenage werewolves examined in this chapter have upper-middle-class backgrounds, or at the very least are not preoccupied with money troubles. However, Wilkins’s focus on middle-class rebellion overlooks the substantial body of scholarship on working-class subcultures, one that is too vast to be explored in detail here. Nonetheless, the concept of symbolism and 205

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style as modes of rebellion – or, more accurately, resistance – is a recurring one in examinations of working-class subcultures.64 The definition of resistance as symbolic (also commented on by Mark S. Hamm) is referred to in an examination of workingclass subculture by Lauraine Leblanc, who cites sartorial style as a key component of youthful resistance.65 Although clothing pos­ sesses transformative potential, a tradition that has endured since Cinderella’s glass slippers, style in itself does not constitute a rebellion. Nor do the young werewolves examined in this chapter exhibit much interest in fashion and different modes of presenting them­ selves in general. There are a few exceptions: Bryn’s best friend Devon in Raised by Wolves, the self-proclaimed world’s only metro­ sexual werewolf, and the pack in Unleashed, who distinguish them­ selves by wearing army boots. Nonetheless, Devon and the were­ wolves of Unleashed use these small acts of defiance as signifiers of differences, as indicators for the greater rebellion they are preparing themselves for. Devon, despite his lack of traditional lycanthropic traits (such as a propensity for violence), becomes the alpha of his own pack by the conclusion of Barnes’s werewolf trilogy, while pack leader Misty in Unleashed defies her critics and fulfils her dream of travelling the world by the end of the novel. The werewolf is typically encoded as a working-class monster in literary criticism. For instance, June Pulliam identifies the female werewolves she analyses as working class in origin.66 This is an observation also made by Chantal Bourgault Du Coudray, although Bourgault Du Coudray also acknowledges that the werewolf (particu­ larly in nineteenth-century literature) embodied all different types of otherness, including aristocratic decadence.67 As observed, the majority of young werewolves examined in this chapter originate from comfortable, affluent middle-class backgrounds. Nonetheless, several examples of the working-class werewolf also exist. In Curtis Klause’s Blood and Chocolate, money is seldom raised as an issue, but the majority of werewolves in the novel work in blue-collar jobs such as welding and waitressing, which are typically associated with the working class. In the Twilight series, Jacob Black’s lowincome background is contrasted with the splendidly wealthy Cullen vampires. However, these working-class werewolves are not always rebellious, or even prone to resistance. 206

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Rebellion in YA werewolf fiction is also often tempered by the lycanthrope’s awareness of the pack. Whereas the vampire’s exist­ence in fiction is typically one of extreme solitude, even when living amongst other vampires, an awareness of others is ingrained in the contemporary werewolf. Young werewolves, in other words, are forced to take into account the impact their actions will have on others. As argued in Chapter 2, there is particular pressure on young female werewolves to exhibit selfless and self-sacrificing characteristics. Alphas Bryn and Calla, lovesick Jacob Black and disdainful Vivian from the book version of Blood and Chocolate all have other werewolves to consider, who are affected by their attempts to rebel. Though Bryn and Calla revolt successfully, both pay a heavy price and lose loved ones, while Vivian nearly dies because of her disregard for the rules. Being an outsider is all very well when you have only yourself to consider, but the advent of the lycanthropic pack in YA fiction has made this a near-impossibility for the teenage werewolf. Another factor to consider is that not only do these teen werewolves have their packs to consider, but also wider (human) society. As demonstrated in Chapter 4, difference is not tolerated in conformist environments such as suburbia (or high school) and by the close of the story in most YA werewolf novels and series, everything settles down to something resembling normality. The werewolf achieves their aim and for the sake of keeping lycanthropy a secret or peaceful cohabitation with humans they conform, at least outwardly, to society’s expectations. The concept of Bakhtin’s carnival applies here: after a set period of anarchy, the status quo reasserts itself. Unleashed is an accurate example of this. As in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, where everything settles down into normality after a night of chaos, Reisz’s werewolves abandon lycanthropy in favour of a human existence that does not involve running around on all fours and burning down school buildings. Although this assumption of conventionality may be due to external factors, as in Switchers, some teenagers simply tire of lycanthropy. Inevitably, being a werewolf means being different, which is to be dreaded among teenagers. As the first chapter also demonstrated, the subjective werewolf’s identity is fundamentally unstable, always evolving and changing. Sometimes this is simply too much for an already confused teenager to cope 207

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with – and not to mention such fluidity is not associated with an adult identity. Being a werewolf is not conducive to becoming an adult, as we shall explore.

The Pain of Growing Up Lycanthropy, or more accurately the ability to shift from one form to another, is frequently renounced or abandoned at the climax of many YA series that feature werewolves, as the protagonists assume adulthood. Lycanthropy is firmly associated with childhood and adolescence in texts by Stiefvater, Reisz, Cremer and Kate Thompson. Even in texts that do not feature lycanthropy in the strictest sense, shape-shifting is the exclusive ability of children. Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy for example features daemons, an external manifestation of the soul that always takes the form of an animal. When the people the daemons belong to are children, the daemons can take any form they wish. But they can only shift forms when their people are in childhood and adopt a single fixed form with the onset of adulthood. When the heroine of the series, Lyra, expresses a desire for her daemon to be able to shape-shift forever, one character tells her sagely that she will tire of his endless switching of forms and want him to assume a settled shape.68 He also points out that when a daemon chooses a final form, the compensation is knowing what sort of a person you are, and such knowledge is worth having. An earlier example of this would be in Kipling’s second volume of The Jungle Book, with Mowgli’s sad realization that he has effect­ ively outgrown the jungle and his animal friends and must live his life among men. Or Kate Thompson’s Switchers series, in which the protagonists are able to switch forms into any animal they want, an extraordinary ability that ceases entirely at the seemingly arbitrary age of fifteen. Fifteen, however, is a number that is situated exactly between ten and twenty, between childhood and adulthood. As Thompson’s Switchers mature, so they lose the ability to alter forms and must adopt a permanent one, just like Pullman’s daemons. McMahon-Coleman and Weaver make the observation that ado­ lescence is a period of drastic change – physical, mental and social 208

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– and so is often equated with metamorphosis.69 Becoming an adult means change ceases and the self becomes a fixed, immutable being, according to much YA lycanthropic fiction, and therefore the ability to shape-shift is lost. Before we proceed any further, a more concrete definition of adulthood is required. Some texts use legal age as a marker of adulthood: in Blood and Chocolate, only males aged twenty-one or older are allowed to participate in the mass brawl to become pack leader. In Forever, Grace identifies her eighteenth birthday as the date on which she will become free of any obligation to abide by her parents’ wishes. However, not all texts abide by this rule, nor does the often arbitrary-seeming definition of legal age take into account traditional rites of passage such as marriage, starting a family, studying at university or commencing a career. Definitions of adulthood vary considerably from author to author in the YA genre, and are often dependent on context. In Meyer’s Twilight, for instance, Edward’s foster sister Rosalie and foster mother Esme view marriage and caring for a family as a marker of feminine adulthood, while for Edward and stepbrother Jasper becoming a soldier and going off to war represents masculine adulthood. But adulthood in relation to the werewolf in YA fiction is nearly always centred round one, admittedly nebulous, characteristic – being civilized. Defining the concept of being civilized in YA literature is just as problematic as defining adulthood, not least because whilst the term civilization is employed frequently in discussions of literature, outlines of the term are far harder to come by. One useful definition by Layla Abdel Rahim is that civilization considers itself the origin of moral codes and compassion while wilderness and nature are savage, brutish and have few, if any, ethics.70 Whilst it is not accurate to say that teenage werewolves are without morality or compassion, being a lycanthrope offers them the chance to indulge their darker desires. Lycanthropy is certainly equated with ruthlessness and viciousness in multiple YA texts: numerous werewolves go on killing sprees in both the book and film version of Blood and Chocolate, while the werewolves in Unleashed renounce their humanity at the climax of the novel and go to revenge themselves on a high school party, albeit they do not follow through on these intentions. The human halves of the werewolves typically represent their better selves, 209

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capable of rational thought and empathy. But there is another dimension to being civilized in the majority of YA werewolf fiction, and it involves self-control and restraint. McMahon-Coleman and Weaver explicitly link maturity and civilization with self-discipline in their examination of the Twilight series.71 They point out that the werewolves in the series are explicitly described as immature, and that uncontrolled transformations on the part of the Quileute werewolves are attributed to a lack of control and restraint. Whenever teenage werewolves experience a lapse in self-control, trouble inevitably results. Reisz’s werewolves in Unleashed, driven wild by their high school tormentors, very nearly carry out a mass killing. In Cremer’s Nightshade male werewolves Ren and Shay run the risk of revealing their lycanthropy to their human classmates when they fight over the affections of Calla, the heroine of the tale – and revealing the fact that Shay was turned into a werewolf against the laws of Calla’s society, something that would result in her and Shay’s deaths.72 Such lapses in judgement and self-discipline are equated with immaturity and childishness. Rebecca Housel counters the suggestion that the werewolves are the immature characters in the Twilight series by arguing that Jacob Black is a true leader owing to his sense of responsibility and compassion.73 By contrast, vampire Edward Cullen’s arrogance causes him to behave in an irresponsible, immature manner on numerous occasions. Housel cites Edward’s attempts to commit suicide after he rejects Bella and leaves her unprotected in her hometown, an action that causes much grief to his adopted family and places Bella herself in great danger. Regardless, however, immaturity is still associated with a lack of self-control and impulsivity. Accordingly, in order to be considered mature, many werewolves abandon lycanthropy or are forced to give it up as they approach adulthood. Teenage werewolves who renounce lycanthropy, or are forced to abandon it, arguably undergo the progress of forming their identity into a single self. They leave behind an unstable identity that fluctu­ates between human and wolf and settle on being human. Andrea Cremer reverses this trend by having her teenage lycanthropes become wolves permanently at the climax of her trilogy, but the principle remains the same. Only rather than reconciling the disparate 210

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elements of their personality, human and wolf, teenage lycan­thropes are instead choosing to abandon their wolfish selves or are forced to give them up. Teen werewolves not infrequently show great distress at, or are proved to be incapable of, dealing with multiple identities, human and wolf, and giving up lycanthropy is often represented as the removal of a great burden. Maggie Stiefvater’s adolescent werewolves Sam and Grace quite literally save their lives by curing themselves of lycanthropy, but they also eliminate the threat to their subjectivity. Kristopher Reisz’s protagonist Daniel undergoes an identity crisis when he can no longer recognise which of his two selves, human and wolf, is the real Daniel and his giving up lycanthropy is one step he takes in order to resolve this. But there are other reasons behind Daniel’s renouncing being a werewolf than simple confusion over who he truly is. Some teenagers in popular fiction abandon lycanthropy because it has served its purpose, implying it was a method used to reconcile their identities, or else is a purely adolescent/childhood phenomenon. In Kate Thompson’s Switchers series, Switchers are forced to assume a single form on their fifteenth birthday and give up their shape-shifting abilities. But the loss is tempered to an extent by realization of the lessons they have learned from being Switchers. The message at the end of the final book in the trilogy is concerned with adaptability. Although no longer able to shape-shift, Kevin and Tess acknowledge that being a Switcher has taught them adaptableness and resilience, the qualities needed to survive any situation. McMahon-Coleman and Weaver identify a similar motive behind the abandonment of lycanthropy in Reisz’s Unleashed. The switching back and forth between human and wolf precipitates Daniel’s identity crisis; in reality, however, it had been impending for a long time. Daniel, encouraged by his parents, lied about a medical condition in order to gain acceptance to Cornell University, a decision which haunts him throughout the novel. Although he is a self-described shooting star, the prince of his high school, Daniel feels inadequate throughout much of the story as he did not obtain his place at the university by honest means and so seeks escape in lycanthropy. Daniel resolves his identity dilemma by taking control of his future and admitting to the university admissions board that he lied about 211

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his health, a move that loses him his place at the university but allows him to regain his self-respect. Once Daniel ceases to desire an escape from his human self, he no longer feels the need to be a werewolf. And as McMahon-Coleman and Weaver point out, the other werewolves in the pack, notably the rebellious Misty, find that they do not need lycanthropy to overcome the restrictions of their low-income, dull existences.74 Amy C. Wilkins, in her examination of subcultures amongst teenagers, asserts that ‘part of the adolescent imperative is to uncover or resolve who we really are: that is, to find stable, knowable identities’.75 This is in direct contrast to the depictions of lycanthropy examined in previous chapters, in which lycanthropy is part of an ever-evolving subjectivity. Subjectivity, for the teenage werewolf, is either closely tied with being human (as in Stiefvater’s work) or is associated with a fixed, settled identity in the Jamesian mode, which is also associated with the assumption of adulthood. In numerous YA werewolf texts, growing up and assuming a single, unchangeable identity is presented as highly desirable. The desire to grow up and assume adulthood and all its responsibilities in YA werewolf fiction is contrary to depictions of other fictional monsters such as the vampire. The puer aeternus, the eternal child, is a common concept in children’s literature, with J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan being only the best-known example. Peter Pan views an eternal childhood as eminently desirable; other children’s literature such as Tuck Ever­ lasting (1975) presents everlasting life more ambiguously. Although the werewolf is seldom presented as immortal in popular fiction, the vampire’s immortality is a key aspect of its depiction in Western popular culture, with texts such as Interview With the Vampire present­ ing both the positive and negative aspects of eternal youth. Rice’s infamous Lestat is forever young, beautiful and wild, but her vampire Claudia, turned immortal when she is just six, is condemned to an eternity in the body of a child. However, in series such as L. J. Smith’s Night World and Meyer’s Twilight, the majority of vampires were teenagers at the time they became the Undead. Meyer’s protagonist Bella is utterly terrified of aging past eighteen, and none of the vampires who pose as the children of the Cullen family, including Bella’s love interest Edward, express any concern about an eternity of attending high school. In 212

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fact, such an existence is presented as desirable in Meyer’s work. Bella avoids rites of passage such as attending prom, having a birthday party and her high school graduation, attending only because love interest Edward insists upon it. Bella’s desire to become a vampire is fulfilled, and she is allowed to remain eighteen, not to mention stunningly beautiful for eternity. The Twilight series, it is worth noting, ends once Bella has achieved immortality, recalling Sanna Lehtonen’s suggestion that being immortal is more appealing as an aim than as a lived reality.76 Nonetheless, being a vampire allows Bella to remain young and lovely forever. Likewise, becoming a vampire in Smith’s Night World series is less about stakes and sleep­ ing in coffins than about having a vampiric makeover. In the first book in the series, Secret Vampire (1996), new vampire Poppy is pleased that after sixteen years of being a petite and cute human, she now looks wild and exotic.77 In contrast to the vampiric yearning to remain a teenager forever, young werewolves are often surprisingly eager to leave childhood behind and assume the mantle of adulthood. In Blood and Chocolate, a teenage gang of werewolves known as the Five are dismayed at being excluded from the fight to become alpha of the pack, a position of power that can only be won by someone aged twentyone or older. In Claire de Lune, Claire resents being chided to keep her lycanthropy a secret, reflecting that her mother is treating her like a six-year-old.78 Of course, lycanthropy is not associated with immortality in the same way as vampirism, although novels such as Scotch’s The Werewolf’s Kiss depict werewolves as having super­ naturally long lifespans. But vampirism also has other perquisites – such as never aging. Vampirism represents all the positive aspects of adolescence: remaining forever young in a society that is enamoured of youth, being eternally beautiful and (of course) rich. In many texts vampirism is strongly associated with wealth and affluence. Lycanthropy repre­ sents all the perceived negative aspects of adolescence, such as moodiness, an inability to control impulses and a tendency to behave foolishly. Metamorphic abilities and lycanthropy are associated with immaturity in many YA werewolf texts, with McMahon-Coleman and Weaver focusing on the contrast between the wild werewolves in Meyer’s Twilight and her supremely self-possessed vampires. They 213

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argue that the Twilight series positions its werewolves as immature and undisciplined in contrast to the civilized vampires. In a series in which self-control is the ultimate virtue, the werewolves and their shape-shifting are represented negatively due to their volatility.79 Although the werewolves are presented as more natural than the vampires, this association with nature is not necessarily a positive thing either, although critics such as Bourgault Du Coudray tend to interpret it as such. In Cremer’s Nightshade series, the shapeshifting abilities of her werewolves are shown to be unnatural, brought about through the evil magic of the Keepers. Consequently, when the Keepers are destroyed, Calla and her fellow werewolves also lose the ability to shape-shift. This includes Shay, who was born a human and was turned into a Guardian by Calla. Nearly all YA tests depict the lycanthrope as having to choose between one state and another – become fully human, or fully wolf. They cannot remain in a state of flux, as this represents the journey of adolescence. Assuming a fixed form represents attaining adulthood. Stiefvater, Cremer, the Shifters series – all represent the same thing. A phrase commonly heard in childhood is ‘when I grow up . . .’ , usually followed by some statement about what the child wants to become. In contrast to Deleuze and Guattari’s notion of becoming, however, this concept of growing up is all about adopting a fixed, stable identity. The underlying message of these developments is that the dreams and fun of childhood must be left behind, and the responsibilities and burdens of adulthood must be shouldered, however unwillingly. This is a theme that has echoed throughout children’s literature. In C. S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia, for instance, his child protagonists find themselves exiled from Narnia once they become too old to visit. Teenage werewolves must learn to fit in with adult society – uniqueness is not a valued quality. The exception to this rule seems to be vampires, as in Meyer’s Twilight series. As we have seen, vampires are the celebrities of the monster world, associated with glamour, affluence and extraordinary beauty. Their strange behaviour is tolerated precisely because of their wealth and astonishing good looks. Exceptions are made for them: Rebecca Housel argues that Edward Cullen escapes punishment for his transgressions and is even rewarded for them due to his sparkly, celebrity status.80 214

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The werewolf in popular culture is not usually afforded this luxury, and must work to assimilate into both human and lycanthropic society. A significant proportion of YA werewolf fiction repeatedly emphasizes that the life goal of its protagonists is to fit in and be accepted. Fitting in, it is important to note, is not usually equated with being popular in YA texts. Teenage werewolves are not preoccupied with being universally liked so much as with finding a place in the world. Or better yet, a place within a pack, even if such a pack is comprised of only a select few individuals. Of course, it is easier to find a place to belong if you have found your soulmate, another popular theme in contemporary YA fiction – including that featuring the werewolf.

Young Adult Fiction, Gender and Romance Romance, specifically heterosexual romance, is a central component of much YA fiction, and literature focusing on the werewolf is no exception. The werewolf has begun to be represented as a romantic subject, but it has never been presented as desirable and seductive as the vampire has, for instance. Romance is intrinsic to YA texts, rather than something that is specific to the werewolf. The romance between werewolves, however, differs from the majority of YA romances in that lycanthropy grants its female protagonists a beastly power that other texts deny them. McMahon-Coleman and Weaver, in an examination of YA romances, observe that the figure of the dangerous male is a prevalent one in the genre.81 Texts such as Twilight and The Vampire Diaries where a human girl falls in love with a vampire, and Fallen (2009) by Lauren Kate, where a human girl is torn between two fallen angels, enact the traditional Beauty and the Beast tale, where monstrous males are redeemed by the power of a woman’s love. Nonetheless, despite the redemptive power of their affection, the girls in these novels are at a distinct physical dis­advantage compared to their supernatural male counterparts. In Twilight, Edward repeatedly warns Bella he could kill her by accident. In Barnes’s Raised by Wolves, despite years of fight training, human heroine Bryn recognises she will never best a werewolf in combat. The vulnerability of the heroine allows the traditional romance 215

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plot, of the heroine being rescued and protected by a gallant hero, to be played out against a supernatural backdrop. Yet in werewolf YA fiction, lycanthropic heroines are the standard rather than the exception. Cremer, Reisz, Stiefvater, Curtis Klause and more all depict wolfish heroines who are skilled and confident fighters, in keeping with their lycanthropic natures. In John’s Claire de Lune, reluctant loup-garou Claire begins to embrace lycanthropy when she realizes the physical power it grants her: ‘she was protected by the speed and strength that had pumped through her on her way through town . . .’82 It is the strength that lycanthropy gives her that enables Claire to defeat the villain of the novel. Although supported by human boyfriend Matthew, she does not rely on him for rescue. Even Barnes’s Bryn finds other methods of battling werewolves, realizing that her cunning and strength of mind com­ pensate for her physical weakness. Moreover, the beastliness and wildness embodied by the lycanthropic heroine allows them to be presented as slightly bolder regarding sex and sexuality than purely human girls. Although it is hard to quantify such characteristics – and, like the majority of the genre, the texts examined in this chapter are never explicit regarding sexual intercourse – there is a pronounced trend of heroines in YA werewolf fiction pursuing the boys and men they desire, rather than vice versa. Bryn in Raised by Wolves, Grace in Shiver and Vivian in Blood and Chocolate all pursue the boys they desire. Even in tales where the heroine is less proactive, desire still surfaces, particularly where the heroine transforms into a wolf. Claire’s first transformation in Claire de Lune, with its sensation of release, implies sexual experience. The transformation of Sylvie in Cheri Scotch’s The Werewolf’s Kiss is overtly sexualized: ‘it was . . . like having an endless orgasm over her entire body and brain . . . coming in waves, each one cresting higher . . . ’83 Lycanthropy grants girls power over their bodies and their sexuality, an em­ powering message and one that arguably reflects changing attitudes towards female agency in Western culture. It is fortunate that female werewolves are confident in their pursuit of their chosen mates, as they often find themselves confronted with more than one candidate. Love triangles are an exceptionally popular plot device in YA literature, featuring in series such as The Hunger Games and Twilight, and typically feature a girl who must choose 216

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between two suitors. The choice is always rendered difficult by the fact that both young men vying for her hand are brave, handsome and (usually) upstanding, but in the end one will be a better match for the heroine. This is usually by virtue of some personality trait that the heroine discerns and appreciates. The love triangle also has a long history in YA lycanthropic fiction. Lisa Tuttle’s Panther in Argyll and Curtis Klause’s Blood and Chocolate, two of the earliest YA texts to feature lycanthropy, depict two males struggling over a female (Tuttle) or a woman torn between two men (Curtis Klause). Panther in Argyll is hardly a ‘love’ triangle. The heroine, Danni, able to shape-shift into a panther, is appalled at the notion of two men fighting over her and is indignant at being considered a prize to be won. The fact that one combatant is the young but sarcastic Fin and the other is a caravan-inhabiting recluse known only as the old man reduces the romantic aspect considerably. But the romantic aspect is diminished even further when Fin explains the fight between himself and the old man has been in the offing for a long time – Danni’s presence is merely the trigger for an inevitable showdown. Nonetheless, Tuttle’s tale anticipates a scenario that plays itself out time and time again in YA fiction. The love triangle typically features one girl and two boys/men and a choice must ultimately be made between them. Of course, the girl in question is not simply selecting a romantic partner. Each young man represents a different mode of living, a different identity and a different destiny to embrace. The fact that the love triangle tends to be female-orientated is perhaps a reflection of the fact the romance genre is typically targeted at a female readership, but it may also be indicative of how girls and women are encouraged to view romance – of great importance in their lives, a higher priority than education and careers.84 The vast majority of texts examined in this chapter were penned by female authors, and female characters tend to be the main focus. Significantly, romance is nearly always a component in any story that features them, no matter how grumpy and anti-social they may be. Even Skyla Dawn Cameron’s River, who is angry, violent and short-tempered (not to mention still pining after the male grey wolf who was her mate), surrenders to the inevitable and begins a romance of sorts with her fellow werewolf Daryl by the close of her story. 217

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From Cheri Scotch’s restless werewolf-wannabe Sylvie to Andrea Cremer’s tough, dutiful Calla, young female werewolves nearly always find themselves bewitched by a handsome young man, who may be human or lycanthropic but is always irresistible. This may be a comment on the way young women are encouraged to regard romance: as the crowning achievements of their lives. Although female werewolves are often shown attending high school, few exhibit any concrete ambitions to attend university or choose a career. In The Werewolf’s Kiss, for example, at the beginning of the novel teen lycanthrope Sylvie is presented as determined to emulate her grandfather and earn a Nobel Prize, but by the close of the novel has forgotten her ambition in favour of a romance with gorgeous werewolf Lucian (although as she will live for hundreds of years she has plenty of time to rediscover her aspirations). Maggie Stiefvater’s Grace demonstrates an enthusiasm for mathematics and science as the trilogy commences, but her education soon diminishes in importance – partly due to trying to save lives by finding a cure for her lycanthropy, but also because of her love for her soul-mate Sam. But in these and plenty of other novels and stories, education is present primarily as a way of filling in time for the female lycan­thrope before getting down to the serious business of finding a partner. Marriage and children are seldom mentioned, nor do the female werewolves who are the focus of these novels think about them positively. But the notion of finding one’s soulmate, the person they are destined to be with forever, is exceptionally popular. There are some exceptions to this rule: Christine Johnson’s Claire de Lune shows female werewolves as living solitary lives, finding companionship with other female werewolves and having affairs with human men only to become pregnant and give birth to the next generation of lycanthropes. But Claire defies tradition in order to begin a relationship with a human boy, one that looks set to endure – especially after he discovers her lycanthropy and accepts it. Claire’s desire for a relationship is unsurprising in the context of YA fiction, where the plot of the texts invariably involves the protagonists seeking to form a stable, coherent identity. As Anthony Giddens observes, romantic love is considered necessary for the formation of a complete identity in contemporary society: 218

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Lycanthropy in Contemporary Young Adult Fiction The other, by being who he or she is, answers a lack which the individual does not even necessarily recognise – until the love relation is initiated. And this lack is directly to do with self-identity: in some sense, the flawed individual is made whole.85

Much contemporary Young Adult fantasy fiction adheres to Giddens’s definition of romantic love, with the majority of protagonists only attaining a complete social and personal identity once they have fallen in love and affirmed their bonds with their chosen partner. Adolescent romance is portrayed as an area of experimentation and discovery, in which the protagonists discover their true identity or make progress in doing so via the medium of romantic love. Perhaps curiously, teenage pregnancy seldom features in YA lycanthropic fiction. A teenage pregnancy plays a major role in Barnes’s Taken by Storm (2013), but aside from this instance teen pregnancy hardly appears. Pregnancy itself seldom plays a large role in YA werewolf literature, although older women (both human and werewolf) are shown becoming pregnant in Barnes’s Raised by Wolves and Johnson’s Claire de Lune. Although sex and sexual desire are common enough occurrences (though the former is seldom portrayed explicitly), they hardly ever result in a baby. Teen pregnancy is frequently portrayed in YA fiction, appearing in such popular series as Meyer’s Twilight and stand-alone novels such as Berlie Doherty’s Dear Nobody (1991). Other works, such as The Hunger Games and Harry Potter, conclude by showing their pro­tagonists married and with families. YA novels that feature were­wolves by contrast hardly ever mention marriage and the possibility of a family. As demonstrated in Chapter 2, the werewolf has posed a sustained threat to domesticity ever since the nineteenth century, with the female werewolf in particular proving hostile towards children and the YA werewolf is no exception. Although little outright antagonism towards children is demonstrated by werewolves, lycanthropy often makes sustaining close relationships difficult, as suggested by June Pulliam.86 Johnson’s Claire has a distant relation­ship with her werewolf mother, who not only has a career that requires her to travel but is forced to disappear on full moon nights. According to werewolf tradition, Claire has never known her father, as female werewolves do not marry or remain in lengthy relationships in Johnson’s text. Although her story 219

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ends on a note of optimism as she and her boyfriend Matthew affirm their feelings for one another, they do not look very far into the future. Nor do any of the werewolves analysed in this chapter. Growing up is more attractive as a goal than as a lived reality.

Conclusion After four chapters spent exploring the werewolf’s new sub­­ject­ivity and the developments in werewolf fiction that have already resulted from the continually evolving, multifaceted identity of the modern werewolf, it is remarkable that so much YA fiction depicts its lycanthropes as surrendering their shape-shifting abilities as they approach adulthood. Surely humanity has nothing so exciting or adventuresome to offer bright young people as the ability to turn into a wolf and run wild whenever they feel like it. But the renunci­ ation of lycanthropy, or being forced to give up the ability, under­ scores the message present in many YA texts: that the magic and fun of childhood must be surrendered, and the serious and sober responsi­bilities of adulthood must be shouldered. Nikolajeva asserts that many authors of literature for adolescent readers end by killing off their rebellious characters because they have no idea of how to resolve their stories.87 Depriving characters of the ability to shapeshift performs much the same function: they conform because they have no other choice. Although some texts, such as Thompson’s Wild Blood, offer a little consolation in emphasizing the lessons learned and wisdom gained from lycanthropy, it is still equated with im­maturity and childishness. Adulthood, and by extension power and agency, is associated with humanity, but above all with selfcontrol and a single form. Typically, the teenage lycanthrope ends by be­coming permanently human, but of course there are exceptions. Cremer’s werewolves end by assuming wolf form forever at the conclusion to her trilogy. Barnes’s book Taken by Storm ends in un­certainty as Bryn risks her life in an attempt to be transformed into a werewolf – the outcome is not disclosed to the reader. And sometimes the story concludes with the protagonists’ joyful acceptance of lycanthropy and the power it offers them, as in Johnson’s Claire de Lune. 220

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But the most common ending is the teen werewolf leaving lycanthropy behind to embark on a human adulthood. This is not always an unambiguous choice of humanity over lycanthropy. The former werewolf nearly always remembers the lessons they have learned as a shape-shifter and perhaps even retains some echo of the wildness they used to possess. As I argued in the Introduction, some contemporary lycanthropes possess a wolfish spirit, a lycan­ thropic inner self even if they cannot physically transform. Some of the endings for these teenagers who can no longer shape-shift could be considered happy. Stiefvater’s Grace and Sam are finally united (albeit this may be temporary), Misty and Daniel leave Detroit to travel the world in Unleashed. Kate Thompson’s Tess and Kevin plan a future in which they defend the wilderness that is being encroached on by human development. But all YA werewolf texts, as they draw to a close, share the sense that the protagonist is leaving behind adolescence and embarking upon a new phase in their lives. Although some may retain the ability to shape-shift, the wildness and freedom they knew as teen werewolves is slipping away from them, to be replaced with the responsibilities and obligations of adulthood. Whether or not this is a joyful experience for them, there is an aura of inevitability about it. Not everyone can turn into a wolf, but everyone, in the end, is forced to grow up.

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 Throughout this book, we have explored the concept of lycan­ thropic subjectivity, what it entails and the ensuing developments that have resulted from the werewolf’s becoming a thinking, con­scious being. The werewolf as a social being, as lawgiver, its presence in the city and urban areas, and finally, its popularity in the YA genre, have all arguably resulted from the advent of the werewolf as subject in popular culture. Unlike the vampire, however, the werewolf has not been fully embraced by human society. The concept of the beast within is still tremendously popular in film in particular, with the 2010 remake of The WolfMan and the British indie horror film Howl (2015) positively revelling in the carnage caused by their beastly, instinct-driven lycanthropes. And even where the werewolf has attained subject­ ivity, it is still very much a work-in-progress. The werewolf is in process of becoming, as Deleuze and Guattari phrase it, but its final form has not been arrived at – and indeed, may never be arrived at. Patricia McCormack observes that we cannot ask what a werewolf is – it is always changing, always shape-shifting. 1 A noteworthy amount of YA fiction resolves this instability by having its protagonists sur­render or renounce their shape-shifting ability and having them move on to a new chapter of their lives as human adults. Yet even then the wolf is not always eliminated, with the heroes and heroines of YA werewolf fiction carrying the memories

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and the scars of their time as lycanthropes with them into their (human) future. What is clear from the examples of lycanthropy studied in previous chapters is that there is no one clear definition of lycanthropic subjectivity. Sometimes a comingling of human and wolfish con­ sciousness, sometimes an almost schizophrenic divide between human and animal, sometimes the human consciousness augmented and influenced by lycanthropy as in Rice’s The Wolf Gift . . . the varying ways of presenting lycanthropic subjectivity appear infinite. The impact of the lycanthrope’s new status as subject is only just becoming apparent in popular culture. Whilst this monograph has explored some of them, such as the pack and the werewolf’s new role as lawgiver, there undoubtedly will be numerous other develop­ ments in future. The contemporary werewolf is no longer necessarily a ravening monster, but neither is it fully domesticated. You can run with the werewolves, but having one for a pet is still an exceptionally bad idea. The werewolf has always been a liminal creature, caught between nature and civilization, human and animal, rationality and instinct, so perhaps its new status as no longer wholly other but not entirely assimilated into human society is unsurprising. Forever caught between two polarities, the werewolf is in the process of trying to reconcile them, and it is always a struggle. Bourgault Du Coudray argues that the werewolf belonging to the fantasy genre in particular offers a chance of transcendence – of being able to lose the self. All boundaries between the self and the natural world are dissolved in a sublime experience as the werewolf sheds its humanity and the focus shifts from the centrality of the self. Nonetheless, Bourgault Du Coudray acknowledges that such discarding of the self in lycanthropic texts is usually temporary, and abandoning self-conscious subjectivity may even be impossible at this moment in time.2 This is a view with which I concur, simply because in order to discard the self, there must be a self to be discarded in the first place. Rosi Braidotti, when examining female subjectivity, asks the question: how can women undo a subjectivity they have not been granted until very recently by Western culture?3 The same can be said for werewolves. They have not had an identity to abandon until very recently, and in many respects this lycanthropic identity is still under construction. 224

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Conclusion

The same could also be applied to teenagers, which may offer a partial explanation for the privileging of human identity in many of the texts studied in Chapter 5. The traditional adolescent pre­ occupation with forming a fixed, stable identity is at odds with the uncertainty of becoming, where the final form is never arrived at. Also, lycanthropic identity could simply be an unattractive prospect, for adults as well as teenagers. For centuries, the lycanthrope has been frequently associated with insanity, evil, poverty and being an outsider. Few would choose to adopt such an identity, which may help explain why the classic werewolf has such a high death rate – better death than a life subject to lycanthropy. But lycanthropy in much contemporary fiction is beginning to move away from such negative connotations. In many texts – The Werewolf’s Kiss, The Wolf Gift, Rules for Werewolves and Unleashed, to name just a few – lycanthropy represents freedom. It offers a chance to escape the restraints and conventions that are part and parcel of being human, and offers an opportunity to explore alternative subjectivities. Not for nothing is there a distinctly hippie vibe to the conclusion of Kirk Lynn’s Rules for Werewolves, which features the werewolves abandoning human society to form their own 60s-style commune, where they can live in peace. The werewolf is working out its subjectivity, but is unable to do this in isolation. As demonstrated in Chapter 1, the subject is always influenced by the other subjects with which it is surrounded. Thus, the werewolf must either learn to live with humanity or form a new society composed exclusively of its own kind. Sometimes, as in Rice’s The Wolf Gift Chronicles, they accomplish both. Sometimes the werewolf abhors humanity and abandons it, as in Borchardt’s The Silver Wolf, or is forced to leave it behind, as in the climax to Cremer’s Nightshade series, when the lycanthropes transform permanently into wolves. But the texts examined in the previous chapters show a distinct preference, or at least necessity, for learn­ ing to live with humanity, or at the very least alongside them. Hence the werewolf’s move into the cities, its adoption of laws and regulations governing its behaviour, and its increasingly social existence. Lycanthropy has for centuries been a metaphor for humanity’s dark impulses towards violence, brutality and pure instinct, or, 225

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more recently, the dramatic changes of adolescence. Since the late 1970s and early 1980s it has been re-invented in popular culture, offering a more thoughtful, multifarious method of examining identity, and the components that go into creating a self, a complete being. The werewolf is still going through the growing pains of working out its subjectivity and identity and its future is uncertain. That is perhaps part of its appeal. The werewolf is ever-changing, ever-evolving, the very embodiment of contradiction, and what it turns into next remains to be seen. Until then, the werewolf will prowl through popular culture, offering danger and excitement to whoever chooses to leave normality behind and embraces the nature of the beast.

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Notes

 Introduction  1

 2

 3

 4  5

 6

 7

 8

 9

See Caroline Walker Bynum, Metamorphosis and Identity (New York: Zone Books, 2005) for a more in-depth discussion of the werewolf in Medieval culture. Chris Baldick, ‘Introduction’ in Chris Baldick (ed.), The Oxford Book of Gothic Tales (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), pp. xi–xxiii (xiii). Jerold E. Hogle, ‘Introduction: the Gothic in western culture’ in Jerold E. Hogle (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Gothic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), pp. 1–26 (2). Barry Lopez, Of Wolves and Men (New York: Scribner, 2004), p. 230. Adam Douglas, The Beast Within: A History of the Werewolf (New York: Avon Books, 1992), p. 48. Brian J. Frost, The Essential Guide to Werewolf Literature (Madison, WI: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2003), p. 55. Frost identifies a decline in the popularity of the werewolf during the Early Modern period that he connects loosely to the decline of the Medieval romance. Chantal Bourgalt Du Coudray, The Curse of the Werewolf: Fantasy, Horror, and the Beast Within (New York: I.B. Tauris & Co Ltd, 2006), p. 1. C. F. Otten, ‘Introduction’ in A Lycanthropy Reader: Werewolves in Western Culture, ed. by C. F. Otten (New York: Syracuse University Press, 1986), pp. 1–17 (1). F. G. Surawicz and R. Banta, ‘Lycanthropy Revisited’ in C. F. Otten (ed.), A Lycanthropy Reader: Werewolves in Western Culture (New York: Syracuse University Press, 1986), pp. 34–40 (40).

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Notes 10 11 12 13

14 15 16

17

18

19 20

21

22

23

24

Douglas, The Beast Within, p. 9. ‘Unleashed’ (2003) Angel, Season 5 Episode 3. WB, 15 October. Robin McKinley, Sunshine (London: Bantam Books, 2008), p. 131. James Rymer, Varney the Vampyre: or, The Feast of Blood, Part 2 (Mineola, NY: Dover Publications Inc., 1972), p. 858. Rymer, Varney the Vampyre, p. 734. Bram Stoker, Dracula (London: Penguin Books, 1993), p. 29. Brian J. Frost identifies a close relationship between the werewolf and the vampire, dating back to at least the mid-nineteenth century. See The Essential Guide to Werewolf Literature (Madison WI: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2003), p. 14. Angela Carter, ‘Wolf-Alice’ in Angela Carter, Burning Your Boats: Collected Short Stories (London: Vintage, 1996), pp. 221–8 (221). Jessica Tiffin, Marvellous Geometry: Narrative and Metafiction in the Modern Fairy Tale (Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 2009), pp. 73–6. Carter, ‘Wolf-Alice’, p. 226. Only humans, chimpanzees, orang-utans, gorillas, certain species of dolphin and elephants have demonstrated definitively that they can recognise themselves in a mirror. Gerhard Roth notes, however, that even animals who successfully recognise themselves in a mirror do not demonstrate a sustained interest in their reflection. Gerhard Roth, The Long Evolution of Brains and Minds (New York and London: Springer, 2013), p. 210. Aidan Day, Angela Carter: The Rational Glass (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998), p. 166. Katherine Mayberry, Teaching What You’re Not: Identity Politics in Higher Education (New York: New York University Press, 1996), p. 2. Batia Boe Stolar has also applied the theories of Deleuze and Guattari to the Ginger Snaps film trilogy, exploring the sisters’ relationship to one another and their environment. Batia Boe Stolar, ‘“Becoming Woman”/Becoming Wolf: Girl Power and the Monstrous Feminine in the Ginger Snaps Film Trilogy’ in Robert McKay and John Miller, Werewolves, Wolves and the Gothic (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2017), pp. 113–34. Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus (London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2013), p. 283.

228

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Notes

1: The Werewolf’s Journey Towards Subjectivity 1

2

3

4

5

6 7

8 9

10

11

12

13

14

15

Chantal Bourgault Du Coudray, The Curse of the Werewolf: Fantasy, Horror, and the Beast Within (New York: I.B. Tauris & Co. Ltd., 2006), p. 66. Sigmund Freud, ‘From the History of an Infantile Neurosis [‘The Wolfman’]’ in The Wolfman and Other Cases, trans. by Louise Adey Huish (London: Penguin Books, 2002), p. 303. Bourgault Du Coudray, The Curse of the Werewolf, p. 66. Freud, to my knowledge, never actually termed mankind’s unconscious desires as ‘the beast within’. As Bourgault Du Coudray observes, he used the word ‘wolfish’ to describe the unconscious and Bourgault Du Coudray refers to his characterization of the unconscious as ‘the beast within’ repeatedly. Robert Louis Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), p. 53. Michelle A. Massé, ‘Psychoanalysis and the Gothic’ in David Punter (ed.), A New Companion to the Gothic (Malden, MA and Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2015), pp. 307–20 (307). Massé, ‘Psychoanalysis and the Gothic’, p. 308. William Patrick Day, In the Circles of Fear and Desire: A Study of Gothic Fantasy (Chicago and London: Chicago University Press, 1985), p. 177. Day, In the Circles of Fear and Desire, p. 177. See Clemence Housman, The Were-Wolf (London: John Lane at the Bodley Head, 1896), and Captain F. Marryat, ‘The White Wolf of the Hartz Mountains’ in M. Valentine (ed.), The Werewolf Pack (Ware: Wordsworth Editions Limited, 2008), pp. 3–22. June Pulliam, Monstrous Bodies: Feminine Power in Young Adult Horror Fiction (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2014), p. 74. The rise of the werewolf pack will be explored in more detail in the next chapter. However, it is worth noting that the alpha (leader) of the fictional pack is nearly always male, to the extent this is almost a default assumption of how packs are structured. Joseph Grixti, Terrors of Uncertainty: The Cultural Contexts of Horror Fiction (London and New York: Routledge, 1989), p. 95. Barbara Creed, Phallic Panic: Film, Horror and the Primal Uncanny (Victoria: Melbourne University Press, 2005), p. xii. Kimberley McMahon-Coleman and Roslyn Weaver, Werewolves and Other Shapeshifters in Popular Culture (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2012), p. 133. Milly Williamson, The Lure of the Vampire: Gender, Fiction and Fandom From Bram Stoker to Buffy (London: Wallflower Press, 2005). Williamson

229

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Notes

16

17 18

19

20

21

22 23 24

25 26 27

28 29

30 31 32

33

34

35

devotes a lengthy section of her monograph to what she terms the ‘sympathetic vampire’ (p. 66) and the reasons for such vampires’ popularity amongst viewing and reading audiences. The Golden Ass by Lucius Apuleius, written in the second century AD, is a much earlier example of a transfigured human telling their tale in the first person. However, the narrator in this instance is transformed into a donkey. Bourgault Du Coudray, The Curse of the Werewolf, p. 98. Bourgault Du Coudray includes a detailed analysis of Steppenwolf in her monograph, but she is the only author I encountered during my research to examine the lycanthropic aspects of the novel. Nick Mansfield, Subjectivity: Theories of the Self from Freud to Haraway (New York: New York University Press, 2000), p. 3. Katherine Mayberry, Teaching What You’re Not: Identity Politics in Higher Education (New York: New York University Press, 1996), p. 2. Ingo Roland Stoehr, German Literature of the Twentieth Century: From Aestheticism to Postmodernism (New York: Camden House, 2001), p. 108. Hermann Hesse, Steppenwolf (London: Penguin Books, 2000), p. 73. Hesse, Steppenwolf, p. 149. Michael Minden, Modern German Literature (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2011), pp. 195–6. Hesse, Steppenwolf, p. 203. Bourgault Du Coudray, The Curse of the Werewolf, p. 93. David G. Richards, Exploring the Divided Self: Hermann Hesse’s Steppen­ wolf and its Critics (Columbia, SC: Camden House Inc., 1996), p. 134. Richards, Exploring the Divided Self, p. 134. Carl Jung, The Essential Jung: Selected Writings (London: Fontana Press, 1998), p. 16. Bourgault Du Coudray, The Curse of the Werewolf, p. 95. Bourgault Du Coudray, The Curse of the Werewolf, p. 147. Brent A. Stypczynski, The Modern Literary Werewolf: A Critical Study of the Mutable Motif (Jefferson, NC and London: McFarland, 2013), p. 14. Stypczynski’s arguments, in particular, rely heavily on the concept of the werewolf as representative of the Jungian shadow, which either overwhelms the conscious, rational personality (he cites Fenrir Greyback in Rowling’s Harry Potter series as an example of this) or is successfully accepted as an intrinsic part of the human/werewolf personality, creating a psychologically more rounded, healthy individual. Mary Midgley, The Essential Mary Midgley (Oxon and New York: Routledge, 2005), p. 389. Susanne Becker, Gothic Forms of Feminine Fictions (Manchester: Man­ chester University Press, 1999), p. 41.

230

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Notes 36 37 38

39 40 41

42 43 44 45 46

47

48 49

50 51 52

53 54

55 56 57 58 59 60

61 62

Creed, Phallic Panic, p. 152. Patricia Briggs, Blood Bound (London: Orbit, 2007), p. 125. P. Briggs, ‘Alpha and Omega’ in On the Prowl (New York: Berkley Books, 2007), p. 59. Alice Borchardt, The Silver Wolf (London: Voyager, 1999), p. 20. Borchardt, The Silver Wolf, p. 383. Carrie Vaughn, Kitty Goes to Washington (London: Warner Books, 2006), p. 257. Carrie Vaughn, Kitty Goes to War (London: Gollancz, 2011), p. 106. Kelley Armstrong, Bitten (London: Orbit, 2004), p. 440. Armstrong, Bitten, p. 26. Bourgault Du Coudray, The Curse of the Werewolf, p. 95. See Diane Long Hoeveler, The Gothic Ideology: Religious Hysteria and anti-Catholicism in British Popular Fiction 1780–1880 (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2014) for an extended examination of anti-Catholicism in the Gothic. Catherine Spooner argues that in Rice’s Interview With the Vampire confession is used as a method of constructing the titular vampire’s subjectivity. The same process occurs, albeit intermittently, in The Wolf Gift. Catherine Spooner, Fashioning Gothic Bodies (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004), p. 167. Anne Rice, The Wolf Gift (London: Arrow Books, 2010), p. 216. Cynthia Sugar, Canadian Gothic: Literature, History and the Spectre of Self-Invention (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2014), p. 7. Armstrong, Bitten, p. 333. Glen Duncan, Talulla Rising (Edinburgh: Canongate Books, 2012), p. 90. Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus (London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2013), p. 41. Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, p. 41. P. McCormack, ‘Posthuman Teratology’ in A. S. Mittman with Peter J. Dendle (eds), The Ashgate Research Companion to Monsters and the Monstrous (Farnham: Ashgate, 2013), pp. 293–310 (304). McCormack, ‘Posthuman Teratology’, p. 304. McCormack, ‘Posthuman Teratology’, p. 304. Hesse, Steppenwolf, p. 74. Richards, Exploring the Divided Self, p. 7. Bourgault Du Coudray, The Curse of the Werewolf, p. 94. See Bourgault Du Coudray, The Curse of the Werewolf, pp. 141–2 and Brent A. Stypczynski, The Modern Literary Werewolf: A Critical Study of the Mutable Motif (Jefferson, NC and London: McFarland, 2013), p. 12. Bourgault Du Coudray, The Curse of the Werewolf, p. 93. Bourgault Du Coudray, The Curse of the Werewolf, p. 142.

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Notes 63 64 65 66 67 68

69

70

71 72

73 74 75 76 77 80

81 82

83

84 85 86

87 88 89 90 91

Bourgault Du Coudray, The Curse of the Werewolf, p. 147. Bourgault Du Coudray, The Curse of the Werewolf, p. 148. Bourgault Du Coudray, The Curse of the Werewolf, p. 148. Bourgault Du Coudray, The Curse of the Werewolf, p. 133. Brian McHale, Postmodernist Fiction (Oxon: Routledge, 1987), p. 14. Mary Midgley, Beast and Man: The Roots of Human Nature (London: Methuen & Co, 1980), p. 1. The influence of society on lycanthropic nature will be explored in more detail in the next chapter. Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (Oxon: Routledge Classics, 2006), p. 191. Susan Oyama, Evolution’s Eye: A Systems View of the Biology-Culture Divide (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2000), pp. 71–2. Armstrong, Bitten, p. 243. Bill Hughes, ‘“But By Blood No Wolf Am I”: Language and Agency, Instinct and Essence – Transcending Antinomies in Maggie Stiefvater’s Shiver Series’ in Robert McKay and John Miller (eds), Werewolves, Wolves and the Gothic (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2017), pp. 227–50 (230). Hesse, Steppenwolf, p. 206. Maggie Stiefvater, Shiver (London: Scholastic Ltd, 2009), p. 398. McCormack, ‘Posthuman Teratology’, p. 304. Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, pp. 302–3. Armstrong, Bitten, p. 440. Anne Rice, The Wolves of Midwinter (London: Arrow Books, 2014), p. 240. Carrie Vaughn, Kitty Goes to Washington, p. 258. Anna Powell, Deleuze and the Horror Film (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2006), p. 68. A. Tudor, ‘Why Horror? The Peculiar Pleasures of a Popular Genre’ in M. Jancovich (ed.), Horror, the Film Reader (London: Routledge, 2002), pp. 47–56 (48). A. Tudor, ‘Why Horror?’, p. 49. Creed, Phallic Panic, p. 128. Bourgault Du Coudray, p. 140. She states that some texts go as far as portraying werewolves as protectors of the environment. Creed, Phallic Panic, p. 137. Creed, Phallic Panic, p. 137. Bourgault Du Coudray, The Curse of the Werewolf, p. 80. Baldick, ‘Introduction’, p. xiii. Stypczynski notes that what he terms the ‘conflation’ of the werewolf and the vampire began in the ‘early modern period or slightly earlier’ and that ‘some tales explain this conflation by saying that every vampire is a dead werewolf’; The Modern Literary Werewolf, p. 26.

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Notes

2: The Lycanthrope, the Werewolf Pack and Human Society  1

 2

 3

 4

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 6

 7

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 9

10

11

12

13

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A. K. C. Ottaway, Education and Society (Oxon and New York: Routledge, 2010), p. 2. Katherine Mayberry, Teaching What You’re Not: Identity Politics in Higher Education (New York: New York University Press, 1996), p. 2. H. Priest, ‘Introduction’ in H. Priest (ed.), She-Wolf: A Cultural History of Female Werewolves (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2015) pp. 1–23 (10). Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus (London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2013), p. 244. Nick Mansfield, Subjectivity: Theories of the Self from Freud to Haraway (New York: New York University Press, 2000), p. 3. Nickolas Haydock, Movie Medievalism: The Imaginary Middle Ages (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2008), p. 113. Janice A. Radway, Reading the Romance: Women, Patriarchy and Popular Literature (London: The University of North Carolina Press, 1984), p. 10. The most prominent example of this is a werewolf named Honey, a very dominant wolf who nonetheless has a low ranking in the pack owing to her husband’s submissive nature. Carrie Vaughn, Kitty Goes to Washington (London: Warner Books, 2006), p. 225. Justin Cronin, New York Times. ‘Cry Wolf: Benjamin Percy’s Red Moon’, 14 June 2013. [online] http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/16/ books/review/benjamin-percys-red-moon.html?_r=0. Brent A. Stypczynski argues that the werewolf typically functions as social outcast, simultaneously reinforcing and disrupting the status quo. Examples of this include Thomas Emson’s Maneater (2008), in which all known werewolves bar the heroine are killed off in the prologue, W. D. Gagliani’s Wolf’s Trap (2003), which features a solitary lycan­ thropic police detective, and Stephen King’s Cycle of the Werewolf (1986). Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (Oxon: Routledge Classics, 2006), p. 6. Radha Chakravarty, Feminism and Contemporary Women Writers: Rethinking Subjectivity (Oxon and New Delhi: Routledge, 2008), p. 29. L. Gruen, ‘Dismantling Oppression: An Analysis of the Connection between Women and Animals’ in G. Gaard (ed.), Ecofeminism: Women, Animals, Nature (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1993), pp. 60–90 (61). Barry Lopez, Of Wolves and Men (New York: Scribner, 2004), p. 32.

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Notes 17

18 19 20

21

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26 27

28 29

30 31

32 33

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The werewolf pack is not exclusive to fiction written by female authors. However, as a general statement in contemporary werewolf fiction as a whole, female authors are particularly concerned with the pack and the role the individual (usually female) adopts or is expected to adopt within it. Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, p. 284. Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, p. 284. Hannah Priest makes a sustained examination of feminine lycanthropic sacrifice in her article, ‘I was a teenage she-wolf: boobs, blood and sacrifice’ in H. Priest (ed.), She-Wolf: A Cultural History of Female Werewolves (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2015), pp. 129–48. Calla is torn between duty and personal desire in the first book in the series, but by the second book, Wolfsbane, her choice veers between self-preservation and protecting her loved ones – an easy choice for Calla, who will do anything to protect her pack. Stephenie Meyer, Breaking Dawn (London: Atom, 2009), p. 315. H. Priest, ‘I was a teenage she-wolf: boobs, blood and sacrifice’, p. 140. Meyer, Breaking Dawn, p. 167. Ruth Bleier, Science and Gender: A Critique of Biology and its Theories on Women (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1984), p. 73. Rachel Vincent, Stray (Ontario: Mira Books, 2007), p. 298. It is never made clear why Anna’s powers of pacification do not work in this instance. However, Briggs informs her audience that the wolves who abuse Anna are doing so on the orders of their alpha, which they apparently find difficult to resist. Briggs, ‘Alpha and Omega’, p. 30. S. Wilkinson and C. Kitzinger, ‘Editorial Introduction’ in S. Wilkinson and C. Kitzinger (eds), Heterosexuality: A Feminism and Psychology Reader (London: Sage, 1993), pp. 1–32 (17). Faith Hunter, Skinwalker (New York: Roc Books, 2009), p. 41. Isabelle’s jealousy towards Anna is re-enacted in the sequel to ‘Alpha and Omega’ entitled Cry Wolf (2008) when Marrok’s mate Leah pays her a visit and alternately ignores and insults her. However, Anna does meet some friendlier female werewolves over the course of the story, though none of them play a large role in the plot. Radway, Reading the Romance, p. 72. John Ruskin, Sesame and Lilies: Three Lectures (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1873), p. 80. P. Harrison, ‘Reading the Passions: the Fall, the Passions and Dominion Over Nature’ in S. Gaukroger (ed.), The Soft Underbelly of Reason: The Passions in the Seventeenth Century (London and New York: Routledge, 1998), pp. 49–78 (52).

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Notes 35

36 37 38 39 40

41

42

43

44

45

46 47

48

J. Cate, ‘Participatory Lycanthropy: Female Werewolves in Werewolf: The Apocalypse’ in H. Priest (ed.), She-Wolf: A Cultural History of Female Werewolves (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2015), pp. 59–76 (69). Priest, ‘Introduction’, p. 11. Briggs, ‘Alpha and Omega’, p. 22. Priest, ‘Introduction’, p. 14. Priest, ‘Introduction’, p 14. In the final book in the series, Alpha (2010) a power-hungry and deceitful alpha named Calvin Malone causes civil war among the prides owing to his determination to become overall ruler of the werecats. He exhibits no paternal instincts, treating his sons and daughter as assets to deployed in the fight and kidnapping daughters of other prides in an earlier book, Shift (2009) in an effort to gain control. According to Susan Faludi, one definition of masculinity in American culture has remained constant for well over a hundred years: that a man be a good provider for his family. Susan Faludi, Stiffed: The Betrayal of the Modern Man (London: Chatto & Windus, 2011), p. 65. Clyde W. Franklin II, The Changing Definition of Masculinity (New York and London: Plenum Press, 1984), p. 28. C. Crossen, ‘“The Complex and Antagonistic Forces that Constitute One Soul”: Conflict Between Societal Expectations and Individual Desires in Clemence Housman’s “The Werewolf” and Rosamund Marriott Watson’s “A Ballad of the Were-wolf”’ in H. Priest (ed.) SheWolf: A Cultural History of Female Werewolves (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2015), pp. 111–28. See Graham R. Tomson, ‘A Ballad of the Werewolf’ in Montague Summers, The Werewolf in Lore and Legend (New York: Dover Publi­ cations Inc., 2003), pp. 266–7. Originally published in 1890, this poem describes how a werewolf carried away human children. The werewolf in question is eventually revealed to be their mother. This revelation is made even more intriguing when the author’s gender is clarified – Graham R. Tomson was the penname for Rosamond Marriott Watson. In Blood and Chocolate (1997) by Annette Curtis Klause, it is emphasized that humans and loup-garou, as they are known, are biologically incapable of breeding. This is given as one reason why human and loup-garou relationships are doomed to failure. Bourgault Du Coudray, The Curse of the Werewolf, p. 49. Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger, Malleus Maleficarum (trans. Montague Summers) (London: Arrow Books, 1971), p. 159. G. Bores (trans.), ‘A True Discourse Declaring the Damnable Life and Death of One Stubbe Peeter’ in A Lycanthropy Reader: Werewolves in

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49

50 51 52

53

54

55

56 57

58

59

60

61

62

Western Culture, ed. by C. F. Otten (New York: Syracuse University Press, 1986), pp. 69–76 (70). B. Daley, ‘Sweet Tilly’ in H. Kate (ed.), Wolf-Girls: Tales of Teeth, Claws and Lycogny (Manchester: Hic Dragones, 2012), pp. 185–97. Armstrong, Bitten, p. 176. Kelley Armstrong, Broken (London: Orbit, 2006), p. 443. Barbara Creed, The Monstrous Feminine: Film, Feminism and Psychoanalysis (London and New York: Routledge, 1993), p. 57. Susanne Becker, Gothic Forms of Feminine Fictions (Manchester: Man­ chester University Press, 1999), p. 61. B. Creed, ‘Ginger Snaps: the Monstrous Feminine as femme animale’ in H. Priest (ed.) She-Wolf: A Cultural History of Female Werewolves (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2015), pp. 180–95 (188). The film Ginger Snaps (2000) makes this connection explicitly. The eponymous Ginger is bitten by a werewolf on the night her first period starts, and it takes one lunar cycle for her to transform permanently into a werewolf. Creed, The Monstrous Feminine, p. 125. Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own (London: Penguin Books, 2000), p. 24. M. Daum, ‘Introduction’ in M. Daum (ed.), Selfish, Shallow and SelfAbsorbed: Sixteen Writers on the Decision Not to Have Kids (New York: Picador, 2015), pp. 1–10. S. Nunez, ‘The Most Important Thing’ in Daum (ed.), Selfish, Shallow and Self-Absorbed: Sixteen Writers on the Decision Not to Have Kids (New York: Picador, 2015), pp. 97–119 (p. 101). The author of this chapter humorously compares motherhood to becoming a nun in the level of self-sacrifice expected of participants. Carrie Vaughn’s Kitty and Patricia Briggs’s Anna, neither of whom are able to have children, were both turned into werewolves against their will, although Kitty’s infection was an accident whereas Anna was deliberately targeted and attacked. Christine Johnson, Andrea Cremer and Jennifer Lynn Barnes are a few examples of authors who depict their female werewolves as capable of giving birth to healthy children. The BBC TV series Being Human (the UK version) also features the werewolf Nina, who becomes pregnant and gives birth during the third series. The US version of Being Human (2011–2014) shows Nina’s counterpart Nora miscarrying when the baby begins an in utero werewolf transformation. Although the twins cited here are only babies and receive little focus from their respective authors, the presence of twins does evoke the Gothic trope of the doppelgänger. See William Hughes, Historical

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Notes

63

64

65

66

67 68 69

70

71

72

73

74 75 76 77

Dictionary of Gothic Literature (Plymouth: Scarecrow Press Inc., 2013), p. 86. See Jorie Lagerway, Postfeminist Celebrity and Motherhood: Brand Mom (Oxon: Routledge, 2017), p. 1; and Susan C. Staub, ‘Introduction’ in Susan C. Staub (ed.), The Literary Mother: Essays on Representations of Maternity and Child Care (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2007) pp. 1–11 (2). Susan Douglas and Meredith Michaels, The Mommy Myth: The Idealization of Motherhood and How It Has Undermined All Women (New York and London: Free Press, 2004), pp. 4–5. Diane Negra, What a Girl Wants: Fantasizing the Reclamation of Self in Postfeminism (Oxon and New York: Routledge, 2009), p. 65. Glen Duncan, Talulla Rising (Edinburgh: Canongate Books, 2012), p. 54. Duncan, Talulla Rising, p. 167. Negra, What a Girl Wants, p. 66. Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Books (London: Penguin Books, 1994), p. 15. See Rosamund Marriott Watson, ‘A Ballad of the Werewolf’ in Montague Summers, Werewolf (Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Publishing Co., 2003), pp. 266–7, and Clemence Housman’s ‘The Were-Wolf’ for instances of lycanthropic infanticide. Admittedly, consuming children is depicted as humorous in some texts. Neil Gaiman’s ‘Only the End of the World Again’ features a werewolf, the morning after the full moon, throwing up into a toilet bowl and realizing he has vomited up a child’s fingers. Despite the dark subject matter, the story is written to be amusing. N. Gaiman, ‘Only the End of the World Again’ in S. Jones (ed.), The Mammoth Book of Wolf-Men: The Ultimate Werewolf Anthology (London: Constable & Robinson Ltd, 2009), pp. 493–510. Rebecca Munford and Melanie Waters, Feminism and Popular Culture: Investigating the Postfeminist Mystique (London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 2014), p. 150. Bernard Williams, Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy (Oxon and New York: Routledge, 2011), p. 125. Briggs, Blood Bound, p. 112. Kramer and Spengler, Malleus Maleficarum, p. 161. Lopez, Of Wolves and Men, p. 33. Diane Negra, What a Girl Wants? Fantasising the Reclamation of Self in Postfeminism (London: Routledge, 2009), p. 85. Negra’s analysis of postfeminist culture focuses heavily on what she terms the ‘retreatist’ narrative, in which women abandon ambition and professional careers

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Notes

78

79

80

81

82

83 84

85

86

87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94

in favour of a return to their childhood homes, marriage and a family. Carrie Vaughn, Kitty Takes a Holiday (New York: Warner Books, 2007), p. 151. Carrie Vaughn, Kitty and the Dead Man’s Hand (New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2009), p. 276. In a humorous conclusion, Kitty’s mother gains revenge on her daughter for not being present at her wedding by throwing them a reception, in which Kitty is quizzed about prospective plans for motherhood and spends her time wishing she could get drunk (p. 279). Kitty and Ben’s marriage, it is made clear in the following books, is a happy one that is based on trust and mutual partnership, in which Ben and Kitty function very much as equals. E. Green, S. Hebron and D. Woodward, ‘Women, Leisure and Social Control’ in J. Hanmer and M. Maynard (eds), Women, Violence and Social Control (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press International Inc., 1987), pp. 75–92 (83). Douglas and Michaels, The Mommy Myth, pp. 3–4. Douglas and Michaels characterize the perfect mother as one who finds motherhood fulfilling and rewarding, and who adores it without reservation. She is considered a failure if any of these feelings is lacking or even questioned. Carrie Vaughn, Kitty Goes to War (London: Gollancz, 2011), p. 225. This is amended in the final book in the series, Alpha (2010), in which circumstances force Michael to tell his wife, Holly, the truth. She takes the revelation with surprising composure, her main concern being to gain all the knowledge she can from her husband. Interestingly, Borchardt was sister to Anne Rice, although the setting for their novels and their depictions of the werewolf differ hugely. Cheri Scotch, The Werewolf’s Kiss (New York: ibooks.inc, 1992), p. 215. Bourgault Du Coudray, The Curse of the Werewolf, p. 140. Munford and Waters, Feminism and Popular Culture, p. 108. Munford and Waters, Feminism and Popular Culture, p. 108. Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, p. 303. Powell, Deleuze and the Horror Film, p. 67. Powell, Deleuze and the Horror Film, p. 68. Bourgault Du Coudray, The Curse of the Werewolf, p. 140. The screenwriter for The Wolf-Man was science-fiction author Curt Siodmak, a German Jew who immigrated to America in 1937. The Wolf-Man is suffused with symbolism related to the persecution of the Jews in Hitler’s Germany, the most overt of which is the marking

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Notes

 95

 96

 97

 98  99 100

of the werewolf’s victims with a pentagram, a star, which evokes the Star of David. Linnie Blake, The Wounds of Nations: Horror Cinema, Historical Trauma and National Identity (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2008), p. 125. Nick Muntean and Matthew Thomas Paye, ‘Attack of the Living Dead: Recalibrating Terror in the Post-September 11 Zombie Film’ in Andrew Schopp and Matthew B. Hill (eds), The War on Terror and American Popular Culture: September 11 and Beyond (Madison and Teanek: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2009), pp. 239–58 (255). R. Jackson, ‘The 9/11 Attacks and the Social Construction of a National Narrative’ in M. J. Morgan (ed.), The Impact of 9/11 on Media, the Arts and Entertainment (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), pp. 25–35 (27). Vaughn, Kitty Goes to War, p. 225. Vaughn, Kitty Goes to Washington, p. 305. T. Pollard, ‘Hollywood 9/11: Time of Crisis’ in M. J. Morgan (ed.), The Impact of 9/11 on the Media, Arts and Entertainment (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), pp. 195–208 (197).

3: ‘Before the Law Therefore, There Cannot Be Monsters . . .’  1

 2

 3  4

 5  6  7  8

 9

Hermann Kantorowicz, quoted in A. L. Goodheart, ‘Introduction’ in Hermann Kantorowicz, The Definition of Law (London: Cambridge University Press, 1958), pp. xi–xxiv (xxii). David Punter, Gothic Pathologies: The Text, the Body and the Law (London: Macmillan Press Ltd, 1998), p. 3. Punter, Gothic Pathologies, p. 211. This may also explain why werewolf packs are typically governed by a single alpha whose word functions as law. Such a system may be inherently unjust but it does allow for unity, ensuring the pack remains strong. Punter, Gothic Pathologies, p. 211. Punter, Gothic Pathologies, p. 45. Punter, Gothic Pathologies, p. 45. S. Chaplin, ‘Contemporary Gothic and the Law’ in J. E. Hogle (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Modern Gothic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), pp. 37–51 (37). Mary Midgley, Beast and Man: The Roots of Human Nature, Revised Edition (London and New York: Routledge, 1995), p. 69.

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Notes 10

11 12

13

14

15

16

17 18

19

20

21 22 23

Arthur M. Melzer, ‘The Origin of the Counter-Enlightenment: Rousseau and the New Religion of Sincerity’ in John T. Scott (ed.), Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Human Nature and History (Oxon: Routledge, 2006), pp. 272–307 (281). Barry Lopez, Of Wolves and Men (New York: Scribner, 2004), p. 208. Jacques Derrida, The Beast and the Sovereign, Vol. One, trans. Geoffrey Bennington (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2011), p. 64. The name of the police officer, Aberline (Hugo Weaving), is significant: it is the same name as one of the police officers to have investigated the Jack the Ripper murders, another instance where the law proved ineffective against a brutal killer. S. McKee Charnas, ‘Boobs’ in Isaac Asimov’s Werewolves, ed. by G. Dozois and S. Williams (New York: Ace Books Ltd, 1999, originally pub. 1989), pp. 40–62 (42). Several conclusions to ‘Boobs’ have been published: the earliest version, published 1989, closes with Kelsey plotting revenge on another bully. Later versions close more benignly, with Kelsey simply vowing not to target dogs as prey in her future as a werewolf. See S. McKee Charnas, ‘Boobs,’ in S. Jones (ed.), The Mammoth Book of Wolf-Men: the Ultimate Werewolf Anthology (London: Constable and Robin Ltd, 2009), pp. 472–92 for the latter. Carys Crossen, ‘“The Complex and Antagonistic Forces that Constitute One Soul”: conflict between societal expectations and individual desires in Clemence Housman’s “The Werewolf” and Rosamund Marriott Watson’s “A Ballad of the Were-wolf”’ in H. Priest (ed.) She-Wolf: A Cultural History of Female Werewolves (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2015), pp. 111–28 (124). Punter, Gothic Pathologies, p. 45. Carrie Vaughn, Kitty and the Midnight Hour (New York: Warner Books, 2005), p. 205. Brent A. Stypczynski, The Modern Literary Werewolf: A Critical Study of the Mutable Motif (Jefferson, NC and London: McFarland, 2013), p. 29. Keri Arthur, Beneath a Rising Moon (London: Piatkus Books, 2008), p. 159. Alice Borchardt, The Silver Wolf (London: Voyager, 1999), p. 85. Borchardt, The Silver Wolf, p. 85. W. P. MacNeill, ‘Popular culture’s lex vampirica: the law of the undead in True Blood, the Twilight saga, and The Passage’ in C. Sharp and M. Leiboff (eds), Cultural Legal Studies: Law’s Popular Cultures and the Meta­morphosis of Law (New York and Oxon: Routledge, 2016), pp. 231–51 (238).

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Notes 24

25

26

27 28

29

30 31 32 33

34 35

36 37

38 39

40 41

Authors such as Keri Arthur in Beneath a Rising Moon and P. C. Cast and Cathy Clamp in Howling Moon (2007) have portrayed lycanthropes with telepathic ability. However, this is typically limited to other lycanthropes and they cannot read human minds, as Sookie does with ease. Richard K. Sherwin, When Law Goes Pop: The Vanishing Line Between Law and Popular Culture (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2000), p. 10. Although death is the most serious punishment, for lesser offences banishment from pride territories, or the brutal practice of declawing a cat (removing the fingernails from the hands, which means they cannot grow claws when in cat form), are possible chastisements. The latter is performed on a tabby named Manx in the book Shift, as punishment for killing several toms. Sherwin, When Law Goes Pop, p. 10. There is an irony to Mikhail/Michael’s working for the Allies in the Second World War: Adolf Hitler was obsessed with wolves and wolf imagery, to the extent that one of his headquarters was named The Wolf’s Lair. McCammon seems to be aware of this obsession, writing a fictitious scene in which Hitler perceives wolves in canvases he has painted upon, taking them as a sign of German victory. Jennifer Sattaur, Perceptions of Childhood in the Victorian Fin-de-Siècle (Newcastle-Upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2011), p. 97. Cheri Scotch, The Werewolf’s Kiss (New York: ibooks.inc, 1992), p. 125. Anne Rice, The Wolf Gift (London: Arrow Books, 2010), p. 310. Rice, The Wolf Gift, p. 522. Kirk Lynn, Rules for Werewolves (New York and London: Melville House Publishing, 2015), p. 210. Scotch, The Werewolf’s Kiss, p. 163. Gill Plain, Twentieth-Century Crime Fiction: Gender, Sexuality and the Body (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2001), p. 34. Punter, Gothic Pathologies, p. 85. Earl F. Bargainnier, The Gentle Art of Murder: The Detective Fiction of Agatha Christie (USA: Bowling Green University Popular Press, 2005), p. 10. Stypczynski, The Modern Literary Werewolf, p. 14. Brian J. Frost, The Essential Guide to Werewolf Literature (Madison, WI: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2003), p. 99. Plain, Twentieth-Century Crime Fiction, p. 34. Chantal Bourgault Du Coudray, in The Curse of the Werewolf, examines various tropes and characteristics ascribed to the werewolf in pulp magazines of the early twentieth century, noting that male werewolves

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Notes

42

43 44

45

46 47

48

49 50

51

52 53

54 55

were often represented seducing innocent women (p. 71) and that the werewolf’s famous vulnerability to silver first appeared in pulp magazines in 1943 (p. 77). These are the films directed by Guy Ritchie, Sherlock Holmes (2009) and its sequel Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011), the BBC TV series Sherlock (2010–2017) and the CBS series Elementary (2012– ongoing). Stephenie Meyer, New Moon (London: Atom, 2006), p. 304. K. Jensen, ‘Noble Werewolves or Native Shape-Shifters?’ in M. Clarke and M. Osborn (eds), The Twilight Mystique: Critical Essays on the Novels and Films (Jefferson NC: McFarland, 2010), pp. 92–106 (93). Roman Bartosch and Celestine Caruso, ‘The Good, the Bad and the Ubernatural: The Other(ed) Werewolf in Twilight’ in Robert McKay and John Miller (eds), Werewolves, Wolves and the Gothic (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2017), pp. 87–113 (88). Lopez, Of Wolves and Men, pp. 130–4. Natalie Wilson, ‘It’s a Wolf Thing: The Quileute Werewolf/ShapeShifter Hybrid as Noble Savage’ in Maggie Park and Natalie Wilson (eds), Theorizing Twilight: Critical Essays on what’s at Stake in a PostVampire World (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2011), pp. 194–208 (195). Michelle Nicole Boyer, ‘Postcolonial Vanishings: Wolves, American Indians and Contemporary Werewolves’ in Robert McKay and John Miller (eds), Werewolves, Wolves and the Gothic (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2017), pp. 65–86 (85). Meyer, Twilight, p. 299. It is worth noting that Gagliani does not wholly embrace the concept of the subjective werewolf, choosing instead to present his hero as a man continually at war with what he terms the Creature. However, an important aspect of the plot involves Nick learning to accept his other, wolfish half and work in concert with it. P. Sierchio, ‘Interview with a Wolf Man’ in Fear Itself: Horror on Screen and in Reality During the Depression and World War II, ed. by M. E. Matthews Jr. (North Carolina: McFarland & Company Inc., 2009), pp. 126–49 (133). Sierchio, ‘Interview with a Wolf Man’, p. 133. Richard Breitman and Alan M. Kraut, American Refugee Policy and European Jewry, 1933–1945 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988), p. 87. Benjamin Percy, Red Moon (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2013), p. 144. Jesse Kavadlo, American Popular Culture in the Era of Terror: Falling Skies, Dark Knights Rising and Collapsing Cultures (Santa Barbara, CA: ABCCLIO, LLC, 2015), p. 59.

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Notes 56

57 58

59

60

61

62

63 64

Judith Halberstam, Skin Shows: Gothic Horror and the Technology of Monsters (Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press, 1995), pp. 7–8. Bourgault Du Coudray, The Curse of the Werewolf, p. 50. J. A. Weinstock, ‘Invisible Monsters: Vision, Horror and Contemporary Culture’ in A. S. Mittman with P. J. Dendle (eds), The Ashgate Research Companion to Monsters and the Monstrous (Farnham: Ashgate Publishing Ltd, 2014), pp. 275–90 (282). It is mentioned that Manx’s life was probably spared because she is female and fertile: women are rare in werecat society and Manx has value to the prides as a breeder. A male murderer almost certainly would have been executed, proving that principle can be sacrificed to practicality in werecat law. S. O’Sullivan, ‘Representing “The Killing State”: The Death Penalty in Nineties Hollywood Cinema’ in The Howard Journal of Criminal Justice, 42 (2003), 485–503 (486). Adam Douglas, The Beast Within: A History of the Werewolf (New York: Avon Books, 1992), p. 115. Augustine, The City of God Against the Pagans, trans. by R. W. Dyson, ed. by R. W. Dyson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), p. 843. Rice, The Wolf Gift, p. 310. Brian McHale, Postmodernist Fiction (Oxon: Routledge, 1987), p. 14.

4: The Werewolf in the Concrete Jungle  1

 2

 3

 4

 5

Chantal Bourgault Du Coudray, The Curse of the Werewolf: Fantasy, Horror, and the Beast Within (New York: I.B. Tauris & Co. Ltd., 2006), p. 151. Stypczynski makes this assertion only briefly, being more interested in the concept of the nature vs nurture debate as applied to the werewolf (p. 12). Barbara Creed, Phallic Panic: Film, Horror and the Primal Uncanny (Victoria: Melbourne University Press, 2005), p. 140. Lisa Kröger, ‘Panic, paranoia and pathos: ecocriticism in the eighteenthcentury Gothic novel’ in Andrew Smith and William Hughes (eds), Ecogothic (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2013), pp. 15–27 (20). Jennifer Schell, ‘The annihilation of self: the ecoGothic sensibilities of Mary Shelley and Nathaniel Hawthorne’ in Carol Margaret Davison (ed.), The Gothic and Death (Manchester: Manchester University Press,

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Notes

 6

 7  8

 9

10

11 12

13

14 15

16 17 18

2017), pp. 103–15 (114). Schell’s essay focuses primarily on these two nineteenth-century authors, but she does cite a number of contemporary texts that embody these characteristics. Raymond Williams, Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society (London: Fontana Press, 1983), p. 219. Williams, Keywords, p. 219. Timothy Clark, ‘Nature, Post Nature’, in Louise Westling (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Literature and the Environment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), pp. 75–89 (76). Robert Cummings Neville, ‘The Contingency of Nature’ in Robert S. Cohen and A. I. Tauber (eds), Philosophies of Nature: The Human Dimension: In Celebration of Erazim Kohák (New York: Springer Science + Business Media, 1998), pp. 121–38 (122). Eithne Henson, Landscape and Gender in the Novels of Charlotte Brontë, George Eliot, and Thomas Hardy (Farnham and Burlington VT: Ashgate Publishing, 2011), p. 5. Williams, Keywords, p. 224. Kevin Schanning, ‘Human Dimensions: Public Opinion Research Concerning Wolves in the Great Lakes States of Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin’ in Adrian P. Wydeven, Timothy R. van Deelen and Edward Heske (eds), Recovery of Gray Wolves in the Great Lakes Region of the United States: An Endangered Species Success Story (New York: Springer Science + Business Media, 2009), pp. 251–66 (254). Cheryll Glotfelty, ‘Introduction’ in Cheryll Glotfelty and Harold Fromm (eds), The Ecocriticism Reader (Athens, GA: The University of Georgia Press, 1996), pp. xv–xxxvii (xviii). Bourgault Du Coudray, The Curse of the Werewolf, p. 138. It is worth noting that neither Will Randall, the lycanthrope of Wolf, and Bob Duke, the werewolf of The Wild, is particularly good at being human. Bob Duke is a failed poet who struggles to pay the bills, and at the opening of Wolf, Randall’s wife has left him for a younger man who has also stolen Will’s job from him. But whereas Bob simply runs away from his failures, Will is rendered more active and daring by lycan­­thropy, and wins his job back before his final transformation. His wife also pleads for his forgiveness, but he refuses to take her back as he has fallen in love with another woman. The film Wolfen is based upon Strieber’s 1978 novel of the same name. Barry Lopez, Of Wolves and Men (New York: Scribner, 2004), p. 140. Opposing views on nature writing are offered by Mark Cocker and Robert McFarlane, with the latter arguing it is a vital tool for education and awakening a passion for nature in the general public, and the former criticizing it for being a ‘literature of consolation’ that distracts

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Notes

19 20

21

22

23 24

25 26

27

28

29

30 31

32

audiences from the very real damage being done to ecosystems and wildlife by human encroachment. See Mark Cocker, ‘Death of the naturalist: Why is the “new nature writing” so tame?’, New Statesman, 17 June 2015 [online] http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2015/06/ death-naturalist-why-new-nature-writing-so-tame, and also Robert McFarlane, ‘Why we need nature writing’, New Statesman, 2 September 2016 [online] http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/nature/2015/09/robertmacfarlane-why-we-need-nature-writing. Bourgault Du Coudray, The Curse of the Werewolf, p. 144. Donna Haraway, Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature (London: Free Association Books, 1991), p. 9. Kelly Oliver, Animal Lessons: How They Teach Us to be Human (New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2009), p. 254. Oliver also cites Deleuze and Guattari when commenting on Freud’s analysis of the Wolf-Man – see p. 32. Haraway, Simians, Cyborgs and Women, p. 8. M. Lewis, ‘American Wilderness: An Introduction’ in M. Lewis (ed.), American Wilderness: A New History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), pp. 3–14 (6). Bourgault Du Coudray, The Curse of the Werewolf, p. 151. Catherine Parry, ‘Pits, pylons and posts: Writing under the English rural idyll’ in Gary Bosworth and Peter Somerville (eds), Interpreting Rurality: Multidisciplinary Approaches (London and New York: Routledge, 2014), pp. 109–21 (109). S. Elliott, ‘Children in the natural world’ in J. Davies (ed.), Young Children and the Environment: Early Education for Sustainability, 2nd Edition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), pp. 32–54 (34). Kimberley McMahon-Coleman and Roslyn Weaver touch briefly on this topic in their monograph Werewolves and Other Shapeshifters in Popular Culture. Although they do not offer a definition of nature, they identify the werewolf as representative of such in texts such as Meyer’s Twilight series. See pp. 105–6. D. Keetley, ‘Possibilities of Post-Humanist Horror’ in K. Gregersdotter, J. Höglund and N. Hållén (eds) Animal Horror Cinema: Genre, History and Criticism (New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), pp. 187–205 (187). Keetley, ‘Possibilities of Post-Humanist Horror’, p. 196. Gabriella Gahlia Mohan, Turf Wars: Discourse, Diversity and the Politics of Place (Malden, MA and Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2007), p. 101. Richard Harris, Unplanned Suburbs: Toronto’s American Tragedy, 1900– 1950 (Baltimore and London: The John Hopkins University Press,

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Notes

33 34

35

36

37

38

39

40

41

42

43

44

45

46

1996), p. 87. Harris suggests home-owning is the most visible sign of individual success, a necessary status symbol in the goldfish bowl of suburbia. Mohan, Turf Wars, p. 101. Hannah Priest, ‘Introduction’ in Hannah Priest (ed.), She-Wolf: A Cultural History of Female Werewolves (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2015), pp. 1–23 (10). See Chapter 2 for a more detailed discussion on feminine characteristics. According to Laura Morowitz in her examination of monsters in suburbia, in the 1950s and 1960s monsters in popular culture often served as a stand-in for ethnic minorities and immigrants, outsiders attempting to invade peaceful and prosperous suburbia. L. Morowitz, ‘The Monster Within: The Munsters, The Addams Family and the American Family in the 1960s’ in Critical Studies in Television, 2/1 (2007), 35–56 (39). Kirk Lynn, Rules for Werewolves (New York and London: Melville House Publishing, 2015), p. 316. Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus (London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2013), p. 503. L. M. Friedman, ‘Public and Private Eyes’ in M. Freeman (ed.), Law and Popular Culture: Current Legal Issues 2004, Vol. 7 (Oxford: Oxford University, 2005), pp. 375–384 (376). Nick Mansfield, Subjectivity: Theories of the Self from Freud to Haraway (New York: New York University Press, 2000), p. 3. George considers himself debarred from such an existence, stating he is no longer normal and that only normal people get to raise families. However, his dream does come true to an extent, after his werewolf girlfriend Nina falls pregnant and gives birth to a healthy baby girl. P. Briggs, ‘Alpha and Omega’ in On the Prowl (New York: Berkley Books, 2007), p. 40. Tom Head and David B. Wolcott, Crime and Punishment in America (New York: Facts on File Inc., 2010), p. 220. Bernice M. Murphy, The Suburban Gothic in American Popular Culture (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), p. 2. The suburbs have existed in various forms as long as there have been cities, as the next section demonstrates. However, this chapter is preoccupied with the image of suburbia in popular culture and how the werewolf threatens/undermines it. Brian J. Frost, The Essential Guide to Werewolf Literature (Madison, WI: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2003), p. 178. John R. Stilgoe, Borderland: Origins of the American Suburb, 1820–1939 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1988), p. 1.

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Notes 47 48

49

50

51 52 53

54

55

56 57

58 59 60

61

62

63

64

Williams, Keywords, p. 57. Darryl Jones, Elizabeth McCarthy and Bernice M. Murphy, ‘Intro­ duction’ in Darryl Jones, Elizabeth McCarthy and Bernice M. Murphy (eds), It Came From the 1950s! Popular Culture, Popular Anxieties (New York and Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), pp. 1–16 (6). Becky Nicolaides and Andrew Wiese, ‘Introduction’ in Becky Nicolaides and Andrew Wiese (eds), The Suburb Reader (New York and Oxon: Routledge, 2006) pp. 1–12 (4). Scott Donaldson, The Suburban Myth (New York: Columbia University Press, 1969), p. 122. Morowitz, ‘The Monster Within’, p. 39. Murphy, The Suburban Gothic in American Popular Culture, p. 2. Jane Caputi, Gossips, Gorgons and Crones: The Fates of the Earth (Santa Fe, NM: Bear and Company Publishing, 1993), p. 111. Amy C. Wilkins, Wannabes, Goths and Christians: The Boundaries of Sex, Style and Status (Chicago and London: Chicago University Press, 2008), p. 28. Ernest Mathijs, John Fawcett’s Ginger Snaps (Toronto, Buffalo and London: University of Toronto Press, 2013), p. 13. Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, p. 445. J. Von der Thüsen, ‘The City as Metaphor, Metonym and Symbol’ in V. Tinkler-Villani (ed.), Babylon or New Jerusalem? Perceptions of the City in Literature (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1994), pp. 1–11 (2). Von der Thüsen, ‘The City as Metaphor, Metonym and Symbol’, p. 10. Donaldson, The Suburban Myth, p. 23. Mark Clapson, Suburban Century: Social Change and Urban Growth in England and the United States (Oxford: Berg, 2003), p. 125. Notably, the only prominent male character in the sequel, Ginger Snaps: Unleashed, is Tyler, an employee at the rehab centre in which Brigitte is forcibly detained. In an echo of Sam’s role, Tyler acts as the centre’s drug dealer, giving narcotics to female patients in exchange for sexual favours. Roger G. Panetta, Westchester: The American Suburb (New York: Fordham University Press, 2006), p. 440. Lawrence Grossberg, We Gotta Get Out of This Place: Popular Conservatism and Postmodern Culture (London and New York: Routledge, 1992), p. 173. Possibly the most quoted line from the film is ‘nobody thinks that girls do shit like this. A girl can only be a slut, a bitch, a tease or the virgin next door.’ By this point, Ginger has moved on to human prey: this line is delivered when she and her sister are burying a murdered class­ mate in their old Wendy house.

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Notes 65

66

67 68 69

70

71 72 73 74

75

76

77

78

79 80

81

T. Tessier, ‘Back Then: An Afterword’ in T. Tessier, The Nightwalker (New York, NY: Leisure Books, 2008), pp. 302–5 (304). Rob Sullivan, Street Level: Los Angeles in the Twenty-First Century (London and New York: Routledge, 2016), p. 2. Although Sullivan’s analysis is centred on Los Angeles, which he views as distinct from all other cities, I argue that his assertion that the city cannot be summed up by any one definition is applicable to the city as a concept in popular culture, not just cultural depictions of LA. Williams, Keywords, p. 57. Williams, Keywords, p. 56. C. Chant, ‘Introduction’ in G. Roberts and P. Steadman (eds), American Cities and Technology: From Wilderness to Wild City (London and New York: Routledge, 1999), pp. 1–3 (3). J. A. Weinstock, ‘Invisible Monsters: Vision, Horror and Contemporary Culture’ in A. S. Mittman with P. J. Dendle (eds), The Ashgate Research Companion to Monsters and the Monstrous (Farnham: Ashgate Publishing Ltd, 2014), pp. 275–90 (282). Kristopher Reisz, Unleashed (New York: Simon Pulse, 2010), p. 33. Williams, Keywords, p. 219. Williams, Keywords, p. 58. Lisa Benton-Short and John Rennie Short, Cities and Nature, 2nd Edition (London and New York: Routledge, 2008), p. 417. Timothy Beatley, Biophilic Cities: Integrating Nature into Urban Design and Planning (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2010), p. 15. M. Kaika and E. Swyngedouw, ‘Fetishizing the Modern City: The Phantasmagoria of Urban Technological Networks’, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 24/1 2000, pp. 120–38 (121). J. S. Bryson, ‘Surf, sagebrush and cement rivers: Reimagining nature in Los Angeles’ in K. R. McNamara (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Literature of Los Angeles (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), pp. 167–76 (167). Toby Barlow, Sharp Teeth (London: William Heinemann, 2007), p. 3. Barlow, Sharp Teeth, p. 8. Steven Flusty has observed that this reputation is largely unjustified and is the result of media sensationalizing crime. Between 1985 and 1995, LA’s crime rate per 100,000 people was among the lowest in the USA. Steven Flusty, De-Coca-Colonization: Making the Globe from the Inside Out (London and New York: Routledge, 2005), p. 77. J. Patrick Williams, Subcultural Theory: Traditions and Concepts (Cam­ bridge: Polity Press, 2011), p. 153.

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Notes 82

83

84

85 86

87

88 89

90

91

92

93 94 95

T. Lucas, ‘Youth Gangs and Moral Panics in Santa Cruz, California’ in T. Skelton and G. Valentine (eds), Cool Places: Geographies of Youth Cultures. London: Routledge, 1998), pp. 145–60 (152). Timothy Morton, ‘Frankenstein and Ecocriticism’ in Andrew Smith (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Frankenstein (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), pp. 143–57 (146). Stypczynski, The Modern Literary Werewolf, p. 19. Stypczynski explains the theory that only God could transmute matter originated in the works of St Augustine and was tremendously influential on medieval and early modern werewolf hunters. Bourgault Du Coudray, The Curse of the Werewolf, pp. 47–8. Kimberley McMahon-Coleman and Roslyn Weaver, Werewolves and Other Shapeshifters in Popular Culture (Jefferson NC: McFarland, 2012), p. 48. Jackson Pearce, Sisters Red (London: Hodder Children’s Books, 2011), p. 105. Pearce, Sisters Red, p. 275. McMahon-Coleman and Weaver observe that Sisters Red contains some disturbing implications, suggesting that the girls who are the natural prey of the Fenris invite attack because of their gaudy modes of dress and provocative behaviour. Scarlett does not actually say ‘they’re asking for it’, as she observes the ‘dragonflies’, but the inference is very much present, suggesting a victim-blaming attitude towards women who are attacked and/or sexually assaulted (p. 51). McMahon-Coleman and Weaver, Werewolves and Other Shapeshifters in Popular Culture, p. 48. Elizabeth Wilson, The Sphinx in the City: Urban Life, the Control of Disorder, and Women (Berkeley, Los Angeles and Oxford: University of California Press, 1991), p. 6. Hayter’s novel is told in the third person, using the perspective of multiple characters. At the beginning of the novel, Annie’s experience dominates, but as she begins to accept life as a werewolf the author begins to focus more on other characters, some of whom are also werewolves but the majority of whom are human. Once Annie is no longer ‘virtuous’ the author’s interest wanes. Arguably this is because Annie has completed her growth as a character, but also because Annie was repeatedly emphasized to be ‘the last nice girl’ in the city and once her ‘niceness’ is lost, she is no longer unique and worthy of interest. Wilkins, Wannabes, Goths and Christians, p. 250. Modan, Turf Wars, p. 113. Borchardt, The Silver Wolf, p. 371.

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Notes 96

97

98

Sidney I. Dobrin and Kenneth B. Kidd, Wild Things: Children’s Culture and Ecocriticism (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2004), p. 6. Richard Lehan, The City in Literature: An Intellectual and Cultural History (Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 1998), p. 184. Meyer’s vampires can also be tremendously violent, notably Edward Cullen’s stepbrother Jasper, who once attacks Bella in a blood-crazed frenzy. However, it is repeatedly emphasized that vampires have superior self-control to werewolves. Self-control, along with selfsacrifice, is the ultimate virtue in Meyer’s series, and werewolves are considered lacking.

5: Lycanthropy in Contemporary Young Adult Fiction  1

 2

 3

 4

 5

 6

 7

 8

 9

10

B. Osgerby, ‘Understanding the “Jackpot Market”: Media, Marketing and the Rise of the American Teenager’ in P. Jamieson and D. Romer (eds), The Changing Portrayal of Adolescents in the Media Since 1950 (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), pp. 27–58. David Simonelli, Working Class Heroes: Rock Music and British Society in the 1960s and 1970s (Plymouth: Lexington Books, 2013), p. 7. James Gilbert, A Cycle of Outrage: America’s Reaction to the Juvenile Delinquent in the 1950s (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), p. 63. Pat Triggs and Jessica Yates, ‘Puffin Plus’, Books for Keeps, April 1988, [online] http://booksforkeeps.co.uk/issue/49/childrens-books/articles/otherarticles/puffin-plus. Joseph Crawford, Twilight of the Gothic? Vampire Fiction and the Rise of the Paranormal Romance, 1991-2012 (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2014), p. 89. Walter Hogan, Animals in Young Adult Fiction (Plymouth, Toronto and Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press Inc., 2009), p. xiii. Michael Cart, ‘From Insider to Outsider: The Evolution of Young Adult Literature’, Voices from the Middle, 9/2 (2001) 95–7. Hannah Priest, ‘Young Adults and the Contemporary Gothic’ in Glennis Byron and Dale Townsend (eds), The Gothic World (London and New York: Routledge, 2014), pp. 274–83 (274). Charles L. Crow, American Gothic (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2009), p. 1. Jerold E. Hogle, ‘Introduction: the Gothic in Western Culture’ in Jerold E. Hogle (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Gothic (Cam­ bridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), pp. 1–26.

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Notes 11

12 13

14 15

16

17 18

19 20

21

22

23

24 25

26 27

28

29

Raymond Williams, Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society (London: Fontana Press, 1983), p. 275. Williams, Keywords, p. 276. P. D. Bailey, ‘Talismans of Shadows and Mantles of Light: Con­ temporary Forms of the Southern Female Gothic’ in Susan Castillo Street and Charles L. Crow (eds), The Palgrave Handbook of the Southern Gothic (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), pp. 445–60 (446). Andrea Cremer, Wolfsbane (London: Atom, 2011), p. 209. Karen Coats, Looking Glasses and Neverlands: Lacan, Desire and Subjectivity in Children’s Literature (Iowa City, IA: University of Iowa Press, 2004), p. 5. The female werewolf first appeared in printed fiction in Captain F. Marryat’s ‘The White Wolf of the Hartz Mountains’ in 1839 and so is a comparatively recent arrival given the werewolf’s lengthy history in Western literature. Maggie Stiefvater, Forever (London: Scholastic Ltd, 2011), p. 489. Bill Hughes, ‘“But By Blood No Wolf Am I”: Language and Agency, Instinct and Essence – Transcending Antinomies in Maggie Stiefvater’s Shiver Series’ in Robert McKay and John Miller (eds), Werewolves, Wolves and the Gothic (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2017), pp. 227–50 (230). Maggie Stiefvater, Shiver (London: Scholastic Ltd, 2009), p. 194. Jacqueline Schall, Tanner LeBaron Wallace & Vichet Chhuon, ‘“Fitting in” in high school: how adolescent belonging is influenced by locus of control beliefs’, International Journal of Adolescence and Youth, 21/4 (2016), 462–75. Jennifer Lynn Barnes, Raised by Wolves (London: Quercus, 2010), p. 21. Angela Carter, ‘Wolf-Alice’ in Angela Carter, Burning Your Boats: Collected Short Stories (London: Vintage, 1996), pp. 221–8 (221). Annette Curtis Klause, Blood and Chocolate (London: Corgi Books, 1999), p. 13. Curtis Klause, Blood and Chocolate, p. 13. Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus (London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2013), pp. 37–8. Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, p. 36. Alexander Patterson, Teenage Sociology (Bloomington, IN: Xlibris Corporation, 2012), p. 16. M. D. Koss and W. H. Teale, ‘What’s Happening in YA Literature? Trends in Books for Adolescents’, Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 52/7 2009, 567–9. Stiefvater, Shiver, p. 398.

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Notes 30 31

32

33

34 35 36 37 38

39

40

41

42

43

44

45

46

47 48

Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, p. 35. Robyn McCallum, Ideologies of Identity in Adolescent Fiction: The Dialogic Construction of Subjectivity (New York and London: Garland Publishing Inc., 1999), p. 7. June Pulliam, Monstrous Bodies: Feminine Power in Young Adult Horror Fiction (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2014), p. 92. Hannah Priest makes this observation regarding the character of Nina in the BBC TV series Being Human. See Priest, ‘Introduction’, p. 11. Maggie Stiefvater, Linger (London: Scholastic Ltd, 2010), p. 150. Stiefvater, Shiver, p. 397. Stiefvater, Shiver, p. 398. Jennifer Lynn Barnes, Taken by Fire (London: Quercus, 2011), p. 27. Anais Nin, The Diary of Anais Nin, Volume 5, 1947–1955 (Orlando, FL: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1974), p. 184. Nancy Holder and Debbie Viguié, Wolf Springs Chronicles: Savage (London: Doubleday, 2013), p. 229. N. Auerbach, ‘Incarnations of the Orphan’, ELH, 42/3 1975, 395–419 (398). Although not a YA novel in the strictest sense (it is typically marketed at adults), Wild Blood focuses on a teenager and follows the adolescent Skinner as he moves from (apparently) human boy to prisoner to savage werewolf to a much more benevolent figure by the story’s climax. Barbara Creed, Phallic Panic: Film, Horror and the Primal Uncanny (Victoria: Melbourne University Press, 2005), p. xiii. Thompson’s Switchers trilogy was marketed and categorized as books for children when they were originally published, but the author’s website at time of writing categorizes them as Young Adult. Thompson’s novel is unrelated to Nancy A. Collins’s Wild Blood – the shared titles are a coincidence as far as this monograph has been able to establish. Mark S. Hamm, American Skinheads: The Criminology and Control of Hate Crime (Westport, CT and London: Praeger, 1994), p. 83. Roberta S. Trites, Disturbing the Universe: Power and Repression in Adolescent Literature (Iowa City, IA: Iowa University Press, 2000), p. 36. The best-known examples of this are Angel from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, who turns good after having his soul restored to him, and Edward Cullen of Twilight. Edward explicitly refers to his drinking of human blood as a period of teenage rebellion. See Meyer, Twilight, p. 298. Kristopher Reisz, Unleashed (New York: Simon Pulse, 2010), p. 94. Curiously, a number of recent YA texts that feature werewolves also draw inspiration from Shakespeare’s works. In addition to Unleashed,

252

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Notes

49 50

51

52

53

54

55 56

57

58

59

60

Holder and Viguié’s Wolf Springs Chronicles references King Lear with its depiction of a mad werewolf pack leader and his daughters Ariel (Goneril), Regan and Cordelia, while Meyer’s Breaking Dawn references The Merchant of Venice. Trites, Disturbing the Universe, p. 36. Herenia García and Encarnación Soriano, ‘The romantic ideal of men and women involved in the relationship of friends with benefits’, Procedia – Social and Behavioural Sciences, 237 (2017), 203–8 (204). S. K. Day, ‘Docile Bodies, Dangerous Bodies: Sexual Awakening and Social Resistance in Young Adult Dystopian Novels’ in S. Day, M. A. Green-Barteet and A. L. Montz (eds), Female Rebellion in Young Adult Dystopian Fiction (Farnham, Surrey and Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Ltd, 2014), pp. 75–92. See p. 91 for a brief discussion of sexuality and rebellion in relation to Collins’s The Hunger Games. Chantal Bourgault Du Coudray, The Curse of the Werewolf: Fantasy, Horror, and the Beast Within (New York: I.B. Tauris & Co Ltd, 2006), p. 47. C. Beauvais, ‘Romance, Dystopia and the Hybrid Child’ in M. Hilton and M. Nikolajeva (eds) Contemporary Adolescent Literature and Culture: The Emergent Adult (London and New York: Routledge, 2012), pp. 61–76 (62). Christine Johnson, Claire de Lune (London: Simon & Schuster, 2010), p. 335. Pulliam, Monstrous Bodies, p. 78. S. Chappell, ‘Werewolves, Wings, and Other Weird Transformations: Fantastic Metamorphosis in Children’s and Young Adult Fantasy Literature’ (unpublished PhD Thesis, Macquarie University, Sydney, 2007), 184. See McMahon-Coleman and Weaver, Werewolves and Other Shapeshifters in Popular Culture, pp. 92–116. The lycanthropic preoccupation with bloodlines is one that has existed since the nineteenth century and such stories as Robert Louis Stevenson’s ‘Olalla’ (1885). Natalie Wilson, Seduced by Twilight: The Allure and Contradictory Messages of the Popular Saga (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2011). Wilson devotes a chapter to the problematic representation of race in Twilight, observing that up to the date her work was published it had received comparatively little critical attention. Karen Coats, Looking Glasses and Neverlands: Lacan, Desire, and Subjectivity in Children’s Literature (Iowa City, IA: University of Iowa Press, 2004), p. 126. Stenbock’s ‘The Other Side’ focuses on Gabriel, a religious, pacifistic boy from a small French village who is enticed across a mysterious

253

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Notes

61

62

63 64

65

66 67 68

69

70

71

72 73

brook and turned into a werewolf. He is redeemed and turned back into a human through the intercession of the village priest. Stenbock himself was openly homosexual and although ‘The Other Side’ does not refer explicitly to homosexuality, it is regarded as an example of queer literature owing to Gabriel’s pronounced difference from the other boys of his village, his straying across the brook to the ‘other side’ where the Catholic Church holds no sway and forbidden temp­ tations reside. An in-depth study of the story can be found in Ardel Haefele-Thomas, ‘“That Dreadful Thing That Looked Like A Beautiful Girl”: Trans Anxiety/Trans Possibility in Three Late Victorian Werewolf Tales’ in Jolene Zigarovich (ed.), TransGothic in Literature and Culture (New York and London: Routledge, 2018), pp. 97–112. Mark Lipton, ‘Queer Readings of Popular Culture: Searching (To) Out the Subtext’ in Susan Driver (ed.), Queer Youth Cultures (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2008), pp. 163–79 (171). Amy C. Wilkins, Wannabes, Goths and Christians: The Boundaries of Sex, Style and Status (Chicago and London: Chicago University Press, 2008), p. 11. Wilkins, Wannabes, Goths and Christians, p. 10. Stanley Cohen, ‘Symbols of Trouble [1980]’ in K. Gelder (ed.), The Subcultures Reader 2nd Edition (London and New York: Routledge, 2005), pp. 157–68 (161). Lauraine Leblanc, Pretty in Punk: Girl’s Gender Resistance in a Boys’ Subculture (New Brunswick, NJ and London: Rutgers University Press, 2002), p. 14. Pulliam, Monstrous Bodies, p. 78. Bourgault Du Coudray, The Curse of the Werewolf, p. 50. Philip Pullman, Northern Lights (London: Scholastic Children’s Books, 2005), p. 167. Kimberley McMahon-Coleman and Roslyn Weaver, Werewolves and Other Shapeshifters in Popular Culture (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2012), p. 17. Layla Abdel Rahim, Children’s Literature, Domestication, and Social Foundation: Narratives of Civilization and Wilderness (London and New York: Routledge, 2015), p. 202. McMahon-Coleman and Weaver, Werewolves and Other Shapeshifters in Popular Culture, p. 106. Andrea Cremer, Nightshade (London: Atom, 2010), p. 373. R. Housel, ‘The Tao of Jacob’ in R. Housel and J. J. Wisnewski (eds), Twilight and Philosophy: Vampires, Vegetarians and the Pursuit of Immortality (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 2009), pp.237– 46 (240).

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Notes 74

75 76

77

78 79

80 81

82 83

84

85

86 87

McMahon-Coleman and Weaver, Werewolves and Other Shapeshifters in Popular Culture, p. 160. Wilkins, Wannabes, Goths and Christians, p. 4. Sanna Lehtonen, Girls Transforming: Invisibility and Age-Shifting in Children’s Fantasy Fiction Since the 1970s (Jefferson, NC and London: McFarland Inc., 2013), p. 54. L. J. Smith, Secret Vampire (London: Hodder Children’s Books, 1996), p. 170. Johnson, Claire de Lune, p. 46. McMahon-Coleman and Weaver, Werewolves and Other Shapeshifters in Popular Culture, p. 106. Housel, ‘The Tao of Jacob’, p. 241. McMahon-Coleman and Weaver, Werewolves and Other Shapeshifters in Popular Culture, p. 57. Johnson, Claire de Lune, p. 227. Cheri Scotch, The Werewolf’s Kiss (New York: ibooks.inc, 1992), p. 254. Scott McCracken, Pulp: Reading Popular Fiction (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998), p. 76. Anthony Giddens, The Transformation of Intimacy: Sexuality, Love and Eroticism in Modern Societies (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1992), p. 45. Pulliam, Monstrous Bodies, p. 92. Maria Nikolajeva, Power, Voice and Subjectivity in Literature for Young Readers (Oxon and New York: Routledge, 2010), p. 7.

Conclusion  1

  2

  3

P. McCormack, ‘Posthuman Teratology’ in A. S. Mittman with Peter J. Dendle (eds), The Ashgate Research Companion to Monsters and the Monstrous (Farnham: Ashgate, 2013), pp. 293–310 (304). Chantal Bourgault Du Coudray, The Curse of the Werewolf: Fantasy, Horror, and the Beast Within (New York: I.B. Tauris & Co Ltd, 2006), pp. 147–9. Rosi Braidotti, Metamorphoses: Towards A Materialist Theory of Becoming (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2002), p. 15.

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 Armstrong, Kelley, Bitten (London: Orbit, 2004) Armstrong, Kelley, Broken (London: Orbit, 2006) Arthur, Keri, Beneath a Rising Moon (London: Piatkus Books, 2008) Auerbach, N., ‘Incarnations of the Orphan’ in ELH, 42/3 (1975), pp. 395–419 Augustine, The City of God Against the Pagans, trans. by R. W. Dyson, ed. by R. W. Dyson, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998) Bailey, P. D., ‘Talismans of Shadows and Mantles of Light: Contemporary Forms of the Southern Female Gothic’ in S. Castillo Street and C. L. Crow (eds), The Palgrave Handbook of the Southern Gothic (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), pp. 445–460 Baldick, C., ‘Introduction’ in C. Baldick (ed.), The Oxford Book of Gothic Tales (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), pp. xi–xxiii Bargainnier, Earl F., The Gentle Art of Murder: The Detective Fiction of Agatha Christie (USA: Bowling Green University Popular Press, 2005) Baring-Gould, Sabine, The Book of Were-Wolves: Being an Account of a Terrible Suspicion (London: Smith, Elder and Co., 1865) Barlow, Toby, Sharp Teeth (London: William Heinemann, 2007) Barnes, Jennifer Lynn, Raised by Wolves (London: Quercus, 2010) Barnes, Jennifer Lynn, Taken by Fire (London: Quercus, 2011) Bartosch, R., and Caruso, C., ‘The Good, the Bad and the Ubernatural: The Other(ed) Werewolf in Twilight’ in R. McKay and J. Miller (eds), Werewolves, Wolves and the Gothic (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2017), pp. 87–113

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Bibliography Stiefvater, Maggie, Shiver (London: Scholastic Ltd, 2009) Stiefvater, Maggie, Linger (London: Scholastic Ltd, 2010) Stiefvater, Maggie, Forever (London: Scholastic Ltd, 2011) Stoehr, Ingo Roland, German Literature of the Twentieth Century: From Aestheticism to Postmodernism (New York: Camden House, 2001) Stilogie, John R., Borderland: Origins of the American Suburb, 1820–1939 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1988) Stoker, Bram, Dracula (London: Penguin Books, 1993) Boe Stolar, B., ‘“Becoming Woman”/Becoming Wolf: Girl Power and the Monstrous Feminine in the Ginger Snaps Film Trilogy’ in R. McKay and J. Miller, Werewolves, Wolves and the Gothic (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2017), pp. 113–34. Strieber, Whitley, The Wild (London: Futura Publications, 1991) Stypczynski, Brent A., The Modern Literary Werewolf: A Critical Study of the Mutable Motif (Jefferson, NC and London: McFarland, 2013) Sugar, Cynthia, Canadian Gothic: Literature, History and the Spectre of SelfInvention (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2014) Sullivan, Rob, Street Level: Los Angeles in the Twenty-First Century (London and New York: Routledge, 2016) Summers, Montague, The Werewolf in Lore and Legend (New York: Dover Publications Inc., 2003) Tessier, T., ‘Back Then: An Afterword’ in T., Tessier, The Nightwalker (New York, NY: Leisure Books, 2008), pp. 302–5. Tessier, Thomas, The Nightwalker (New York, NY: Leisure Books, 2008) Thompson, Kate, The Switchers Trilogy (London: Red Fox, 2004) Tiffin, Jessica, Marvellous Geometry: Narrative and Metafiction in the Modern Fairy Tale (Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 2009) Triggs, Pat and Yates, Jessica, ‘Puffin Plus’, Books for Keeps, April 1988, [online] http://booksforkeeps.co.uk/issue/49/childrens-books/articles/otherarticles/puffin-plus Trites, Roberta S., Disturbing the Universe: Power and Repression in Adolescent Literature (Iowa City, IA: Iowa University Press, 2000) Tudor, A., ‘Why Horror? The Peculiar Pleasures of a Popular Genre’ in M. Jancovich (ed.) Horror, the Film Reader (London: Routledge, 2002), pp. 47–56 Tuttle, Lisa, Panther in Argyll (London: Mammoth, 1996) Vaughn, Carrie, Kitty and the Midnight Hour (New York: Warner Books, 2005) Vaughn, Carrie, Kitty Goes to Washington (London: Warner Books, 2006) Vaughn, Carrie, Kitty Takes a Holiday (New York: Warner Books, 2007) Vaughn, Carrie, Kitty and the Dead Man’s Hand (New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2009)

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Bibliography Vaughn, Carrie, Kitty Goes to War (London: Gollancz, 2011) Vincent, Rachel, Stray (Ontario: Mira Books, 2007) Vincent, Rachel, Shift (Richmond: Mira Books, 2010) Vincent, Rachel, Alpha (Richmond: Mira Books, 2010) Von der Thüsen, J., ‘The City as Metaphor, Metonym and Symbol’ in V. Tinkler-Villani (ed.), Babylon or New Jerusalem? Perceptions of the City in Literature (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1994), pp. 1–11. Walton, John, The Legendary Detective: The Private Eye in Fact and Fiction (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2015) Watson, Rosamund Marriott, ‘A Ballad of the Werewolf’ in Montague Summers, Werewolf (Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Publishing Co., 2003), pp. 266–7 Weinstock, J. A., ‘Invisible Monsters: Vision, Horror and Contemporary Culture’ in A. S. Mittman with P. J. Dendle (eds), The Ashgate Research Companion to Monsters and the Monstrous (Farnham: Ashgate, 2013), pp. 275–90 Wellington, David, Frostbite (USA: Three Rivers Press, 2009) Wellington, David, Ravaged (London: Piatkus, 2010) West, Robert, with Hardy, Ainsley, Theory of Addiction (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2006) Whitfield, Kit, Bareback (London: Vintage, 2006) Wilkins, Amy C., Wannabes, Goths and Christians: The Boundaries of Sex, Style and Status (Chicago and London: Chicago University Press, 2008) Wilkinson, S. and Kitzinger, C., ‘Editorial Introduction’, in S. Wilkinson and C. Kitzinger (eds), Heterosexuality: A Feminism and Psychology Reader (London: Sage, 1993), pp. 1–32 Williams, Bernard, Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy (Oxon and New York: Routledge, 2011) Williams, J. Patrick, Subcultural Theory: Traditions and Concepts (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2011) Williams, Raymond, Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society (London: Fontana Press, 1983) Williamson, Milly, The Lure of the Vampire: Gender, Fiction and Fandom From Bram Stoker to Buffy (London: Wallflower Press, 2005) Wilson, Elizabeth, The Sphinx in the City: Urban Life, the Control of Disorder, and Women (Berkeley, Los Angeles and Oxford: University of California Press, 1991) Wilson, N., ‘It’s a Wolf Thing: The Quileute Werewolf/Shape-Shifter Hybrid as Noble Savage’ in M. Park and N. Wilson (eds), Theorizing Twilight: Critical Essays on What’s at Stake in a Post-Vampire World (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2011), pp. 194–208

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Bibliography Wilson, Natalie, Seduced by Twilight: The Allure and Contradictory Messages of the Popular Saga (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2011) Woolf, Virginia, A Room of One’s Own (London: Penguin Books, 2000)

Filmography An American Werewolf in London, dir. John Landis (Universal Pictures, 1981) ‘Unleashed’ (2003) Angel, Season 5 Episode 3 Being Human (BBC Three, 2008–13) Being Human (Syfy, 2011–14) Blood and Chocolate, dir. Katja von Garnier (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 2009) Cat People, dir. Jacques Tourneur (RKO Radio Pictures Inc., 1942) Ginger Snaps, dir. John Fawcett (Motion International, 2000) Ginger Snaps II: Unleashed, dir. Brett Sullivan (Lionsgate/Twentieth-Century Fox, 2003) Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning, dir. Grant Harvey (Lionsgate Entertainment, 2005) Teen Wolf, dir. Rod Daniel (Atlantic Releasing Corporation/MGM, 1985) The Howling, dir. Joe Dante (Sony Pictures Entertainment, 1981) The Wolf-Man, dir. George Waggner (Universal Pictures, 1941) The Wolf-Man, dir. Joe Johnston (Universal Pictures, 2010) Underworld, dir. Len Wiseman (Lakeshore Entertainment, 2003) Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, dir. Patrick Tatopulos (Lakeshore Entertain­ ment, 2009) Wolf, dir. Mike Nichols (Columbia Pictures, 1994) Wolfen, dir. Michael Wadleigh (Warner Bros., 1981) Wolf Cop, dir. Lowell Dean (Studiocanal, 2014) Wolfblood (CBBC, 2012–17)

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Index

 9/11 attacks 59, 82, 89–91 abortion 80–1, 82 The Addams Family (TV series) 151 Alien (1979) 74 Alpha 22, 57, 63, 71–2, 107, 195, 199, 201, 213 An American Werewolf in London (1981) 18, 19, 49, 107, 153, 156 Angel (TV series) 4, 5, 189 anti-Semitism 123 Armstrong, Kelley 22, 29, 32–3, 35, 36, 37, 40, 42, 44, 49, 51, 53, 54, 60, 63, 65, 69, 71, 73–4, 76, 80, 82, 86, 87, 88, 92, 106, 122, 143, 152, 173 Arthur, Keri 82, 104, 153, 158 Bailey, P. D. 177 Baldick, Chris 2, 48, 177 Bargainnier, Earl F. 116 Barlow, Toby 54, 55, 60, 149, 157, 159–62

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Barnes, Jennifer Lynn 3, 4, 40, 57, 72, 76, 178, 184–5, 186, 193, 194, 199, 206, 215, 216, 219, 220 Bartosch, Roman 119 see also Caruso, Celestine Batman film franchise 50 The Beast Within 4–5, 11, 15, 17–21, 22, 25, 30, 32, 35, 36, 38–9, 40, 46–7, 51, 56, 58, 67, 69, 91, 97, 100, 114, 116, 179, 223 see also classic werewolf Beatley, Timothy 159 Beauvais, Clémentine 202 becoming 12, 15, 22, 38, 44, 46, 51, 88, 141, 148, 196, 214, 223, 225 see also Deleuze, Gilles; Guattari, Félix Becker, Susanne 74 Being Human (UK TV series) 45, 47, 53, 128, 143, 153 Bisclavret 1, 11, 17, 53 Bitten (TV series) 49, 53

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Index Blackman, Malorie 202 Blake, Linnie 89 Bleier, Ruth 65, 66 Borchardt, Alice 30–1, 33, 87, 88, 105–6, 136, 165–8, 169, 173, 225 borders/boundaries 5, 19, 20, 32, 41, 88, 122, 141, 197, 200, 224 geographical 140, 145, 148, 154, 160, 172 Bourgault du Coudray, Chantal 3, 11, 12, 17–18, 24, 27, 28, 34, 40–1, 47, 48, 73, 87, 88, 90, 92, 125, 133, 135, 136, 138, 206, 214, 224 Boyer, Michelle 119 Braidotti, Rosi 224 Briggs, Patricia 31, 51, 85 Mercy Thompson series 5, 30, 40, 50, 57, 58, 81, 82 Alpha and Omega series 30, 66–71, 72, 75–6, 79, 81, 82, 101, 135, 144 Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV series) 5, 149 Butler, Judith 42, 60–1 Cameron, Skyla Dawn 135, 162, 168, 169, 194, 197, 198, 217 cannibalism 73, 82 capital punishment 115, 126, 127 Caputi, Jane 146 Carter, Angela 2 ‘Wolf-Alice’ 7–8, 129, 184 Caruso, Celestine 199 see also Bartosch, Roman Cat People (1942) 4, 5, 48, 89 Cate, Jay 70 Catholicism 35, 111, 129, 130

Chakravarty, Radha 61 Chant, C. 155 Chappell, Shelley 203 Charnas, Suzy McKee 8–9, 23, 24, 32, 100–1 Cheever, John 145 children 22, 36, 56, 71, 72–6, 79, 80, 81, 83, 101, 121, 129, 152, 162, 169, 182, 190, 196, 208, 212, 219 The Chronicles of Narnia 214 the city 134, 139–44, 153–74, 186 Clark, Timothy 134 classic werewolf 25, 29, 30, 36, 38, 39, 42, 45, 59, 114, 115, 116, 158, 175, 189, 225 see also The Beast Within Collins, Nancy 136, 169, 176, 196 Confessions of an English Opium Eater (1821) 163 Crawford, Joseph 176 Creed, Barbara 23, 29–30, 47–8, 74–5, 133, 196 Cremer, Andrea 32, 64, 79, 83, 98, 162, 178, 180, 183, 186, 197–8, 199, 201, 204, 205, 208, 210, 214, 216, 218, 220, 225 Crow, Charles L. 177 Day, Aiden 8 Day, William Patrick 20 Deleuze, Gilles 12–13, 15, 18–19, 37–8, 44–5, 46, 52, 55, 63, 88, 92, 96, 137, 142, 148, 150, 154, 172, 185–6, 189, 196, 214, 223 see also Guattari, Félix Derrida, Jacques 100

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Index Desperate Housewives (TV series) 146, 151 detective fiction 114, 116, 117–18 divided self 21, 27, 38, 92 Dobrin, Sidney I. 169 see also Kidd, Kenneth B. Donaldson, Scott 150 Douglas, Adam 4, 128 Douglas, Susan 76 see also Michaels, Meredith Dracula (1897) 2, 3, 7, 20, 50, 98, 117 drugs 11, 147 mushrooms 127, 180 Dumas, Alexandre 19 Duncan, Glen 29, 35, 36–7, 40, 51, 77–8, 90, 92, 141, 152, 158 ecofeminism 11, 135 ecoGothic 135 The Epic of Gilgamesh 2 fairy tales 19, 192 Fallen (2009) 215 family 11, 53, 54, 59, 71, 72, 73, 76, 80–4, 143, 146, 150, 152, 187, 192 fantasy 10, 19, 20, 22, 40–1, 87, 88, 90, 92, 176, 219, 224 Farris, John 22 femininity 21, 36, 48, 55, 61, 65, 70, 75, 79, 81, 140, 150, 151, 166, 167, 168–9, 191, 209 Fletcher, Tom 168 Frankenstein (1818) 20, 50, 74, 117 Freud, Sigmund 13, 15, 18, 19, 20, 22, 27, 37, 38, 39–40, 43, 56, 136–7

Frost, Brian J. 117, 145 Frozen (2010) 139 Frozen (2013) 139 Gagliani, W. D. 22, 48, 121–2 Gaiman, Neil 50, 153 Galenorn, Yasmin 88, 153, 171 Garnier, Gilles 95, 101 gender 11, 48, 49, 55, 60–71, 74, 75, 101, 122, 140, 147, 150–1, 167, 175, 179, 202, 215–20 gender theory 42 The Ghost and the Darkness (1995) 138 Giddens, Anthony 218–19 Ginger Snaps film trilogy 20, 48, 144, 145–9, 150–1, 157, 158, 173, 176, 179, 190, 200, 201 Glotfelty, Cheryl 135 Gothic 1–2, 10, 19–20, 29, 35, 36, 41, 47, 48–9, 50, 74, 87, 96–9, 102, 133, 134, 163, 176, 177, 189, 193 suburban Gothic 144, 146 American Gothic 164, 165, 177 Romantic Gothic 177–8 Gruen, Lori 62 Guattari, Félix 12–13, 15, 18–19, 37–8, 44–5, 52, 55, 63, 88, 92, 96, 137, 142, 148, 150, 154, 172, 185–6, 189, 196, 214, 223 see also Deleuze, Gilles Hamm, Mark S. 198, 206 Haraway, Donna 137 Harris, Charlaine 58, 72, 106, 153 Harrison, Peter 69–70 Hayter, Sparkle 34, 110–11, 112, 114, 115, 118, 158, 165–7

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Index Henson, Eithne 134 Hesse, Hermann 2, 3, 23–4, 25–7, 28, 37, 39 Hogan, Walter 176 Holder, Nancy 195, 198 see also Viguié, Debbie homosexuality 155, 204–5 Horror 3, 10, 22, 41, 92, 117, 176 horror film 1, 10, 20, 46, 47–8, 51, 88, 89, 102, 121, 138–9, 146, 181 Housel, Rebecca 210, 214 Housman, Clemence 20, 51, 53, 80 How to Make a Monster (1958) 175 Howl (2015) 223 Howling Moon (2007) 127 Hughes, Bill 42, 183 The Hunger Games series 182, 216, 219 Hunter, Faith 68, 153 I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1957) 175 identity politics 13, 25 infanticide 73, 80–1, 82 Jaws (1975) 138 Jackson, Richard 91 Jensen, Kristian 119 Johnson, Christine 57, 72, 80, 92, 181, 199, 202–3, 218, 219–20 Judaism 128–9 Jung, Carl 13, 27–8, 32–9, 40, 43, 44, 51, 84, 116, 136 shadow 28, 51, 116 Kaika, M. and Swyngedouw, E. 159 Kalvado, Jessie 125

Keetley, Dawn 139 Kidd, Kenneth B. 169 see also Dobrin, Sidney B. Kipling, Rudyard 2 The Jungle Book 54, 78, 106, 208 ‘The Law of the Jungle’ 95, 103, 109 ‘The Mark of the Beast’ 19 Kitzinger, Celia 67 see also Wilkinson, Sue Koss, Melanie D. 187, 191 see also Teale, William H. Lagerway, Jorie 76 law 95–131 lycanthropic law 58, 69, 96, 97, 103 natural law 95, 96, 97, 101, 118 religious law 97, 128–30 Leblanc, Lauraine 206 Le Fanu, Sheridan 2 Lewis, Michael 137–8 Lopez, Barry 62, 82, 99–100, 136 Lynn, Kirk 112, 118, 141–2, 151, 176, 225 MacInerney, Karen 154, 156, 168, 173 Mackay, Neil 170 Malleus Maleficarum 73, 82, 128 Mansfield, Nick 25, 56, 143 Marion, Isaac 9 marriage 65, 82–3, 90, 98, 166, 201, 204, 209, 218, 219 Marriot Watson, Rosamund 73, 80 Marryat, Frederick 20 masculinity 28, 48, 49, 72 Massé, Michelle A. 19 Mathijs, Ernest 148

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Index Mayberry, Katherine 25 McCallum, Robyn 190 McCammon, Robert R. 108–9, 112, 115 McMahon-Coleman, Kimberley 11, 164, 165, 203–4, 208, 210, 211, 212, 213–14, 215 see also Weaver, Rosalyn medieval 1, 11, 12, 28, 69–70, 96, 100, 101, 162 Melzer, Arthur M. 99 menstruation and menstrual cycle 8, 71, 75, 175 Meyer, Stephenie, and the Twilight series 7, 14, 50, 63, 64–5, 81, 104, 118–21, 172, 179, 182, 190–1, 194, 202, 204, 206, 209, 210, 212–14, 215, 216, 219 Michaels, Meredith 76 see also Douglas, Susan Midgley, Mary 29, 41–2, 99 Millar, Martin 55, 60 miscarriage 71, 72, 202 Modan, Gabriella Gahlia 140 modernism 26–7 Morowitz, Laura 146 Morton, Timothy 162 motherhood 61, 72–9, 83–4, 219 multiplicity 12–13, 18, 26, 27, 37–8, 39, 52, 63, 92, 96, 97, 185, 189 Munford, Rebecca 80, 88 see also Waters, Melanie The Munsters (TV series) 151 Murphy, Bernice M. 144, 146 narration 6–7, 20, 50, 63, 163–4 first person 9, 23–4, 29, 40, 171, 188 third person 29

nature 11, 12, 14, 15, 21, 28, 38, 39, 47, 48, 82, 84, 96, 117, 119, 130–1, 133–9, 140, 142, 150, 152, 153–4, 155, 156, 158, 159–60, 161–3, 166, 167, 168–71, 178, 197, 209, 214, 224 nature writing 136, 137 Negra, Diane 78, 82 Nikolajeva, Maria 220 Nin, Anaïs 194–5 Nightmare in Suburbia (TV series) 144 A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) 146 Oliver, Kelly 137 other 23, 38, 58, 62, 90, 134, 204 Otten, Charlotte F. 3, 4 Oyama, Susan 42 Ozzie and Harriet (TV series) 145 pack 14, 30, 53–93, 102–3, 104, 108, 126–7, 152, 184–7, 198–9, 207, 224 patriarchal structure of 57, 61, 62–71, 79, 81 Panetta, Roger G. 151 Parry, Catherine 138 paternity 71–2, 193–4 Pearce, Jackson 101, 163–5 Penny Dreadful (TV series) 134 Percy, Benjamin 50, 59, 85, 90, 98, 122, 123–6 Peyton Place (1956) 151 Plain, Gill 114, 117 Polidori, John 7 postmodernism 41–2, 81, 130 post-structuralism 61 Powell, Anna 46, 88

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Index pregnancy 71–7, 80–1, 84, 90, 202, 218, 219 Priest, Hannah 12, 55, 64, 68, 71, 177, 190 psychoanalysis 26, 39, 44 link to the Gothic 19 Puer aeternus 212 Pulliam, June 190, 203, 206, 219 Punter, David 96–7, 101–2, 113, 114, 115 Radcliffe, Ann 134 Rebel Without a Cause (1955) 176 Reynolds, George 18 Rice, Anne 3, 37, 48 Interview With the Vampire 6, 212 The Wolf Gift 22, 29, 31–5, 36, 42, 51, 58, 63, 71, 82, 84, 87, 90, 92, 110, 111–12, 113, 114, 118, 122, 129–30, 141, 153, 158, 173, 224, 225 The Wolves of Midwinter 29, 44–5, 51, 58, 63, 81, 86, 87, 88, 90, 106, 115, 118, 122, 130, 143, 158, 173, 225 Richards, David G. 27, 39 romance 41, 45, 66, 67–9, 127, 166, 176, 185, 186, 194, 200–3, 204, 205, 215–20 Romanticism 177–8 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques 99 Rowling, J. K., and the Harry Potter series 5, 11, 18, 22, 23, 46, 73, 195 Ruskin, John 69 Russell, Karen 129 Saberhagen, Fred 6 Sattaur, Jennifer 109 Sconduto, Leslie A. 12

Scotch, Cheri 60, 87, 109–10, 112, 113, 114, 115, 122, 136, 151, 153, 181, 213, 216, 218 Scott, Bryson, J. 159 self 25, 39, 41, 42, 44, 51, 52, 143, 209, 224 self-control, importance of 24, 67, 108, 119, 157, 179, 181, 210, 214 sexual violence 55, 65, 66, 67, 164 sexuality 11, 60, 83, 119, 125, 148, 167, 200–16 Sherwin, Richard K. 107 Short, John Rennie, and BentonShort, Lisa 159 Simonelli, David 176 society 8, 13, 22, 23, 25, 26, 32, 36, 42, 45, 46, 49–50, 53–93, 96, 97, 99, 100, 103, 104–107, 108, 115–16, 122, 125, 126, 127, 129, 141, 143, 144, 149, 151, 154, 157, 159, 162, 168, 180, 181, 183, 184, 189, 192, 198, 201, 203, 207, 213, 214, 215, 218-219, 223, 224, 225 see also pack Staub, Susan C. 76 Stenbock, Eric 205 The Stepford Wives (1976) 151 Stevenson, Robert Louis 2 ‘Olalla’ 20 The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde 18, 26 Strieber, Whitley 135–6, 142, 162 Stiefvater, Maggie 43, 45, 92, 154, 177, 178, 179, 180, 181, 183, 188–93, 201, 208, 211, 212, 214, 216, 218, 221

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Index Stilgoe, John R. 145 Stubbe or Stump, Peter 73, 95, 101, 170 Stypczynski, Brent A. 11, 28, 40, 69, 104, 116, 133 Sugar, Cynthia 36 subjectivity 5, 6–9, 10, 11–15, 17–52, 54, 56, 61–2, 76, 78, 80, 91, 99, 107–8, 114, 117, 120, 122, 130, 141, 151, 156, 161, 163, 171–4, 179, 183, 184–5, 187, 188, 189–90, 197, 204, 211, 212, 220, 223–6 suburbs 14, 139–63, 168, 172, 173, 181, 207 Sullivan, Rob 154 Swyngedouw, E. 159 see also Kaika, M. Teale, William H. 187, 191 see also Koss, Melanie D. Teen Wolf (1985) 18, 175 terrorism 50, 59, 85, 89–90, 92, 123–8, 136 Thompson, Kate 180, 196, 208, 211, 220, 221 Tiffin, Jessica 7 Tuck Everlasting (1975) 151 Tudor, Andrew 47 Tuttle, Lisa 194, 217 twins 74, 77 unconscious 9, 17–18, 21, 22, 37–8, 39–40, 42, 88, 137 collective 27, 28 Underworld film franchise 53, 122 Updike, John 145 Vaughn, Carrie 5–6, 22, 31–2, 40, 45–6, 50, 51, 58, 69, 71, 72,

82, 83, 84, 85–6, 88, 90–1, 102, 123, 124, 126, 143, 153, 168, 170–1, 173 vampire 2–3, 6–7, 8, 9, 13, 14, 17, 23, 30, 38, 43, 46, 47, 49, 50, 51, 64, 74, 77, 78, 79, 88, 91, 102, 104, 106, 119, 120, 121, 122, 129, 140, 176, 182, 199, 202, 206, 207, 210, 212–14, 215, 224 Varney the Vampire (1847) 6–7, 20 Viguié, Debbie 195, 198 see also Holder, Nancy Vincent, Rachel 5, 6, 54–5, 57, 61, 65, 68, 69, 71, 82, 86, 88, 92, 98, 106, 107, 127 violence 20, 21, 28, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 47, 48, 52, 55, 56, 57, 59, 61, 65, 66, 70, 73, 78, 85, 89, 95, 105, 111, 113, 114, 115–16, 119, 120, 121, 125, 128, 131, 135, 137, 148, 149, 155, 156, 157, 160, 164, 169, 172, 184, 191, 204, 206, 217, 225 Von der Thüsen, Joachim 149 The Walking Dead (TV series) 9, 90 Walsh, Jill Paton 3, 4, 129 war 6, 50, 122, 124, 125 Warm Bodies 9 Waters, Melanie 80, 88 see also Munford, Rebecca Weaver, Rosalyn 11, 164, 165, 203–4, 208, 210, 211, 212, 213–14, 215 see also McMahon-Coleman, Kimberley Weeds (TV series) 151 Weinstock, Jeffrey 126, 155

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Index Wellington, David 22, 46–7, 60, 136, 144, 154 Werecat 54, 57, 65–6, 71–2, 86, 107, 127, 171 Werewolf: The Apocalypse (video game) 70 Wilkinson, Sue 67 see also Kitzinger, Celia Williams, J. Patrick 161 Williams, Raymond 133, 134–5, 145, 154–5, 159, 177 Wilson, Elizabeth 167 Wilson, Natalie 119 Wolf (1994) 12, 47 Wolf Cop (2014) 121 Wolfblood (TV series) 49, 53, 177, 181, 183

Wolfen (1981) 48, 53, 136, 138–9, 153 Wolf-Man 18, 137 see also Freud, Sigmund The Wolf-Man (1942) 10, 12, 18, 19, 48, 51, 53, 89, 107, 123, 124, 134 The Wolf-Man (2010) 4, 48, 100 Woolf, Virginia 75 young adult fiction 3, 11, 14, 22, 42, 43, 57, 64, 72, 92, 174, 175–221 zombies; 8, 9, 13, 23, 90, 104

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