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

A MANIFESTO FOR WEREWOLVES
analysis and even alteration of the dynamics of selfhood (especially
of the exploitative relationship between self and Other) fantasy thus
provides a better framework than Gothic horror for the cognisant and
deliberate exploration of such themes. Certainly, this is why fantasy
werewolves survive, learn, develop ethical frameworks and achieve
spiritual fulfilment, whereas Gothic werewolves keep making the same
mistakes until they die.
Tanith Lee explores the implications and limitations of such encounters
with the not-self, when the girl in the red coat asks the werewolf:
‘Man into wolf. Is it possible?’ 74 He replies: ‘Do you actually think
… that any one of us is truly what we’re pleased to call “real”? All
matter, flesh, skin, trees, stone, bricks, blood — it’s all illusory, fluid,
nonexistent, formed from nothing.’ 75 Later, when the girl has lost her
red coat and is buying a new one, she is perturbed by the women in
the shop:
They were so interested in all the other aspects of their lives, that for them
I hardly existed. I had become a sort of ghost. I left the town near evening,
by the night train for the south. In the city I knew I would be recognized,
and spoken to, I knew I should be perfectly alive and real. 76
As Lee’s conclusion suggests, it is probably impossible and perhaps
undesirable to abandon the experience of self-conscious subjectivity at
this historical juncture. Yet, the occasional encounter with the not-Self
is, if we are to heed the messages emanating from the academy as well
as from a spectrum of popular cultures, profoundly desirable. If we are
to take seriously the neo-Lamarckians’ suggestion that our ethical and
spiritual choices may affect our genetic future, it may even be necessary
for our survival. Certainly, as the werewolf has discovered, it can be
liberating and even empowering to discover that, as Lee’s modern Red
Riding Hood muses, ‘There’s no self to become.’ 77
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