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

A MANIFESTO FOR WEREWOLVES
tribes originating from Europe and the wise but dwindling and despondent
Native American tribes. The role-playing game Werewolf: The
Apocalypse has provided a more immersive experience of this logic, in
which players assume the roles of lycanthropic ‘Champions of Gaia’. 40
Members of the alt.horror.werewolves discussion group have also taken
upon themselves responsibility for the environment; as their FAQ
page explains, ‘humanity has had to deal with a number of ecological
problems. … We seek to balance the two halves of our nature, so that
someday we can teach the rest of humanity how to balance its drive to
conquer with the reality that it needs nature to survive.’ 41
If the perspectives of feminism and environmentalism have been
central to the emergence of fantasy as a genre in its own right, so too
has Jungian theory. Because Jung’s notion of individuation presents
self-development as a type of journey or quest, in which the warring
aspects of the psyche are integrated into a harmonious whole, it has
resonated with the narrative structure of much fantasy. This would
certainly suggest why some werewolf stories are better understood
within the framework of fantasy than within that of Gothic horror.
Within a Gothic framework, the psyche is visualized as permanently
and antagonistically divided between the rational restraint of the
conscious mind and the irrational drives of the unconscious. This
model of psychology was validated by Freudian theory, in which fantasy
was seen as a negative impulse that exacerbates psychic conflict; as
Freud wrote, ‘a happy person never phantasies, only an unsatisfied
one’. 42 Jung, on the other hand, saw fantasy as ‘the creative activity
whence issue the solutions to all answerable questions; it is the mother
of all possibilities’ — a statement that positions fantasy as a positive
impulse that should be embraced. 43 Werewolf stories that pursue the
logic of fantasy certainly explore the possibilities of integrating the
antagonistic aspects of the werewolf’s identity, rather than documenting
the process by which the conflict between the human and the wolf
leads to spiritual torment, violence and death.
In Michael Cadnum’s Saint Peter’s Wolf, for example, Benjamin
Byrd experiences disorientation, anxiety and horror as he realizes
that he has become a werewolf. His lover Johanna, however, who is
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