The Curse of the Wer.. - Site de Thomas - Free

THE CALL OF THE WILD
to Freud’s Wolf-Man or the Steppenwolf, and modelled the wholesome
virtues of honesty, bravery, level-headedness and strong Christian
morality. There was also a marked emphasis on the bonds of friendship
or camaraderie between men in such narratives; for example,
the overcoming of the werewolf threat was often portrayed as a group
effort. 21 More often than not a woman (frequently a daughter or sister
of one of the male characters, and the romantic interest for one of the
other men, usually the narrator) would also be included in the group,
particularly as a supporting domestic presence in the planning stages
of the adventure, but her role in the action was invariably of the passive
variety — as a passenger, innocent bystander, victim to be rescued, or
decoy (also to be rescued). The presence of such helpless females in
need of protection helped to emphasize the strength and competence
of the male characters. 22
The promulgation of this narrative tradition at the very moment
when masculine subjectivity was being called into question invites
speculation that a once secure and stable masculinity was now in
need of shoring up, apparently through fraternal efforts. Indeed, if
individual masculinity was flawed by an unconscious programmed
with bestial drives, then a fraternal model of masculinity was a logical
way for men to keep each other in check, while still protecting and
maintaining male authority. The presence of such a fraternal grouping
clustered around Larry’s father in The Wolf Man (which was otherwise
so instrumental in establishing the lone suffering of the individual
werewolf) lends support to this idea.
The representation of such brotherhoods is also explicable in the
context of the two world wars, since the genial alliances of the English
and Americans were contrasted with the more sinister fraternal bonds
that were associated with the enemy; not least because imagery of the
werewolf was explicitly embraced by the German military during this
period. The German soldiers who refused to disband at the end of
the First World War called themselves ‘Werewolves’, and these fighters
were the precursors of the Freikorps, the volunteer armies that
fought the revolutionary German working class in the years immediately
following the First World War. Eventually, this group became ‘a
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