The Wild But Wonderful Werewolf
...and Chocolate exposes a more positive and relatable representation of the universally infamous creatures. Through Vivian’s insider perspective of the “wolf pack,” Annette Curtis Klause allows the reader into a world where the werewolf is not just a ravenous beast, but a truly complex being. Although the werewolves’ “animal” side is portrayed, their human qualities are present more than ever. This allows the reader to sympathize with them and therefore reduce any negative judgments of the werewolf community that have been previously reinforced through movies, literature, and historical evidence.
The idea of a werewolf makes many think of an evil outcast type of creature. The werewolf is traditionally viewed as a beast—one that kills for pleasure. Not only are they portrayed as a ravenous animal, but they are considered monsters. They are social outcasts who have no companions of their kind. They are lonely, isolated creatures who let the beast within take control of their human part. In fact, they are not classified as humans at all. Technically, they are part human, part wolf, but from the perspective of society, they are all monster.
Such perspectives of werewolves come from ancient myths from all over the world. Werewolves are not merely a creation of the media. Although there are Hollywood versions of the monsters, werewolf stories date back for centuries. Like the fear of witches during the Salem with trials, there was an actual fear of the existence of werewolves on almost every continent during the Middle Ages (Garden 19). This fear of lycanthropy continued to grow as time went on.
Lycanthropy is a term used to describe the transformation from man to wolf. However, it is also used to describe a medical condition in which a patient imagines that he or she can transform into a wolf (Ashley 15). For the sake of our purposes, the term is used to describe...
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