Thesis Outline
Jul. 11th, 2005 11:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
deepfishyMay have occasional cryptic remarks, but new outline as follows:
(0. introduction)
1. A historical overview of the changing werewolf myth - probably a modified version of the literature review. In broad terms, this section will give context to the contemporary werewolf myth.
2. Infection (invisibly compromised) - agency as mitigated by greater external forces.
-a focus on lycanthropy-by-infection (rather than wolf belts, salves, supernatural pacts, witch-curses or astrologically-significant birthdates); people generally no longer choose to become a werewolf - chance survival of violence rather than an outright defiance of society.
-prejudice - werewolves as animals, monsters, sub-humans, carrying a contagious blood-borne disease (Anita Blake, Discworld, Harry Potter)
-minorities and the formation of bonds through shared experience. Pack loyalty, family.
-infiltration - the enemy (Dog Soldiers)
-we have seen the enemy, and they are us? An enemy that cannot be relegated to black-and-white understandings, because a werewolf is always also a human being. The benign side of Evil.
-a predestined end - the virus in society (the werewolf threat) must be stopped. The werewolf cannot remain part of society; eliminating the one for the good of the many (Dog Soldiers, American Werewolf in London, Ginger Snaps) or living apart from it (Wolf).
3. Social Mores (transgression - violence, carnality) - narratives of human nature. The question of agency in terms of morality.
-the Dionysian/Apollonian split between base and moral selves?
-the werewolf as enacting baser (carnal) desires for sex (not love), destruction (murder), food (cannibalism)
-the werewolf as emblematic of violent, uncivilised Nature (horror-tragedy attitude to the natural world)
-the werewolf as enacting human sadism (fantasy-comedy attitude to the natural world); also, absolute power corrupts absolutely (Fool Moon).
-the need to be a predator? (aggression, assertion, Darwinism). As an outlet for various desires, the figure of the werewolf problematises simplistically positive notions of individualism, being "true to yourself", not bottling emotions up inside. (Wolf, Ginger Snaps)
4. Body changes - the body as source of anxiety, disappointment, concern, joy, exhilaration. Agency as mitigated by physical limitations.
-tension between (biological) predestination and free will - puberty, hormones, menstruation.
-the betrayal of the body - not only in terms of the physical transformation, but in its hungers, its appetites, its longings; in overriding conscience.
-body as an outward expression of the inner self - the Mark of the Beast (difference can be read on the body) versus the enemy with our face (difference is hidden until revealed).
-the body to be read/marked/shaped by the supernatural or by science. Inheritance and curse.
(5. conclusion)
And, because it encapsulates the dichotomous nature of our relationship with predators, and makes me strangely happy:
"'Actually, we are worrying unduly,' said the Chair of Indefinite Studies. 'Sharks have a very undeserved reputation as man-eaters. There is not a single authenticated case of a shark attacking anyone, despite what you may have heard. They are sophisticated and peaceful creatures with a rich family life and, far from being ominous harbingers of doom, have reputedly even befriended the occasional lost traveller. As hunters they are of course very efficient, and a full-grown shark can bring down even a moose with...er...'
He looked at their faces.
'Er...I think I might perhaps have got them confused with wolves,' he mumbled. 'I have, haven't I?'
They nodded, in unison.
'Er...sharks are the other ones, aren't they?' he went on. 'The vicious and merciless killers of the sea that don't even stop to chew?'
They nodded again."
-The Last Continent, Terry Pratchett.
~
(0. introduction)
1. A historical overview of the changing werewolf myth - probably a modified version of the literature review. In broad terms, this section will give context to the contemporary werewolf myth.
2. Infection (invisibly compromised) - agency as mitigated by greater external forces.
-a focus on lycanthropy-by-infection (rather than wolf belts, salves, supernatural pacts, witch-curses or astrologically-significant birthdates); people generally no longer choose to become a werewolf - chance survival of violence rather than an outright defiance of society.
-prejudice - werewolves as animals, monsters, sub-humans, carrying a contagious blood-borne disease (Anita Blake, Discworld, Harry Potter)
-minorities and the formation of bonds through shared experience. Pack loyalty, family.
-infiltration - the enemy (Dog Soldiers)
-we have seen the enemy, and they are us? An enemy that cannot be relegated to black-and-white understandings, because a werewolf is always also a human being. The benign side of Evil.
-a predestined end - the virus in society (the werewolf threat) must be stopped. The werewolf cannot remain part of society; eliminating the one for the good of the many (Dog Soldiers, American Werewolf in London, Ginger Snaps) or living apart from it (Wolf).
3. Social Mores (transgression - violence, carnality) - narratives of human nature. The question of agency in terms of morality.
-the Dionysian/Apollonian split between base and moral selves?
-the werewolf as enacting baser (carnal) desires for sex (not love), destruction (murder), food (cannibalism)
-the werewolf as emblematic of violent, uncivilised Nature (horror-tragedy attitude to the natural world)
-the werewolf as enacting human sadism (fantasy-comedy attitude to the natural world); also, absolute power corrupts absolutely (Fool Moon).
-the need to be a predator? (aggression, assertion, Darwinism). As an outlet for various desires, the figure of the werewolf problematises simplistically positive notions of individualism, being "true to yourself", not bottling emotions up inside. (Wolf, Ginger Snaps)
4. Body changes - the body as source of anxiety, disappointment, concern, joy, exhilaration. Agency as mitigated by physical limitations.
-tension between (biological) predestination and free will - puberty, hormones, menstruation.
-the betrayal of the body - not only in terms of the physical transformation, but in its hungers, its appetites, its longings; in overriding conscience.
-body as an outward expression of the inner self - the Mark of the Beast (difference can be read on the body) versus the enemy with our face (difference is hidden until revealed).
-the body to be read/marked/shaped by the supernatural or by science. Inheritance and curse.
(5. conclusion)
And, because it encapsulates the dichotomous nature of our relationship with predators, and makes me strangely happy:
"'Actually, we are worrying unduly,' said the Chair of Indefinite Studies. 'Sharks have a very undeserved reputation as man-eaters. There is not a single authenticated case of a shark attacking anyone, despite what you may have heard. They are sophisticated and peaceful creatures with a rich family life and, far from being ominous harbingers of doom, have reputedly even befriended the occasional lost traveller. As hunters they are of course very efficient, and a full-grown shark can bring down even a moose with...er...'
He looked at their faces.
'Er...I think I might perhaps have got them confused with wolves,' he mumbled. 'I have, haven't I?'
They nodded, in unison.
'Er...sharks are the other ones, aren't they?' he went on. 'The vicious and merciless killers of the sea that don't even stop to chew?'
They nodded again."
-The Last Continent, Terry Pratchett.
~
