Is the Big Bad Wolf Really Bad or Just Misunderstood?
Cynthia Jones
1.
The Nature of Man
What is the true nature of man? This is a question that men have been
dealing with ever since the existence of society began. According to Rousseau,
man, outside the contexts of society, is peaceful. In his essay Discours sur
l’origine et les fondements de l’inégalité parmis les homes, he claims that man,
before the creation of society, was neither good nor bad, and had neither vices
nor virtues. It wasn’t until man started living in groups/societies, that he became
corrupted and evil. This is why he insists in his book Emile that the boy is taken
away from society to learn, and to cultivate his goodness, before having it
corrupted by society. Rousseau argues that the first state of nature is that of the
“bon sauvage” and that people who call primitive man savage and cruel were
looking at peoples that were already far from this first state of nature. 1 So, man
in his natural/animal state, before the formation of groups, societies, and
countries, is good and peaceful.
This view is notably in much opposition, to that of Thomas Hobbes,
who stated that “homo homini lupus,” or “man is a wolf to man,” meaning that
he will devour and take what he wants no matter the cost to his fellow men.
Man is constantly at war with man. Without having rules and society placed
upon them, they “are in that condition which is called Warre; and such a warre,
as is of every man, against every man.” 2 Thus, the life of man is short and
brutish.
What one must see is that both of these natures make up man. Man is
both good and brutish. Alone in nature gathering fruits and living off the land,
man is peaceful, however once man decides to join in packs and starts to covet
what the others have, we see this brutish nature come out. These two natures
live inside man, and he is continually trying to find the balance between them
both, without letting one become stronger than the other.
In modern man, it becomes a question about the dialectic between
man’s cultural/societal nature and his animal/savage nature. Since man has
evolved from living in the wild to living within society, there still seems to be
traces of this evolutional past that leaves us longing to connect with nature. The
instinctual nature that exists in man reminds him that he was or is still part
animal. So how do we make the distinction between man and animal?
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Ever since Darwin and his theory of evolution, man has been asking
himself: what distinguishes himself from an animal? Man is an animal, but an
animal is not a man. Rousseau makes his distinction by noting that man is able
to choose by his own volition, where as an animal will rely purely on his instinct.
Also man is able to perfect himself; he is able to develop his faculties which will
remain with him for the rest of his life, whereas an animal will remain the same.
Therefore in man’s old age when he complains about becoming an imbecile, it is
because he has something to lose, while the animal would have nothing to lose,
only keeping his instinct. 3 However these animal instincts still exist within man,
and when man feels these animal instincts within himself, that is the moment
where he fears this unknown and long lost animal that exists inside.
Why does the wolf become the symbol of the evil nature inside man,
and not any other animal? Wolves are not purely destructive creatures, they can
also be nurturing like the she wolf in Romulus and Remulus. Wolves often mate
for life and live in packs, which makes them not that much different from
humans. Yet the wolf becomes the projection of man’s inner beast which
according to Nietzche: the greatest fear in man is the fear of that which is inside
him: “for fear of wild animals-that hath been longest fostered in man, inclusive
of the animal which he concealeth and feareth in himself:- Zarathustra calleth it
‘the beast inside.’” 4
There is a part within man that he does not trust, or that he is scared of,
because he does nut fully understand it. This instinctual side of man that causes
him to act outside of the laws of society is often personified as a ferocious beast,
like the wolf or the werewolf. The wolf becomes the personified fear that man
has of his own instinctual nature. In folklore and mythology this becomes a
mechanism for man to confront his animal nature or to distance this nature from
his cultural nature. According to Mary Midgly, “man has always been unwilling
to admit his own ferocity, and has tried to deflect attention from it by making
animals out to be more ferocious than they are.” 5
At one point in the course of man’s evolution, there was a rupture from
being prey to being predator. Anthropologist, Robert Eisler, claims that there
was a conscious movement from the peaceful fruit gathering herds to a lupine
pack of hunters, and that this is proven by ancient Indo-European tribal names
such as “Luvians, Lycians, Lucanians…meaning wolf men.” 6 According to
Eisler, ancient man would don the pelt of his predator thus mimicking or
“aping” the behavior of his predator:
The Paleolithic hunters of mammoth, reindeer, wild cattle and
horses on the plains of south Russia and central Europe must
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have made themselves ‘clothes of skin,’ since the stone
scrapers for preparing these, and beautifully finished bone
needles for sewing them together, are found in close
proximity. 7
Within mans collective unconscious there is the recognition of
belonging to a peaceful fruit gathering herd or what could possibly be the closest
to Rousseau’s “bon sauvage,” but there is also the memory of becoming this
carnivorous pack of the “wild hunt” and it is the combination of these two
ancestral pasts that causes man to feel a duality within himself; one side that is
peaceful and the other savage and terrifying.
The beast that man fears within himself is the beast that he once used
to be. To cite Eisler once more:
We are all descended from the males of the carnivorous
lycanthropic variety, a mutation caused by the climatic
change at the end of the pluvial period, which induced
indiscriminate, even cannibalistic predatory aggression,
culminating in the rape and sometimes the devouring of the
females of the original peaceful fruit-eating ‘bon sauvage’
remaining in the primeval virgin forests. 8
This great upheaval in man’s past has caused him to feel guilt over his
carnivorous past. He has gone from living dispersed amongst the jungle to
living in small groups, to living in small villages, to what is known today as
“society” and he has tried to repress this ferocious image of his past by defining
man as “civilized” and animal or savage as “uncivilized.” This is why the image
of the werewolf becomes so terrifying, because it represents the savageness that
once existed and still exists within man. By projecting the fear of one’s own
animal instincts onto the wolf, it “provides settled people with a personification
for those persistent vices in themselves which constantly make settled life so
difficult. The killing of the personification makes them feel they have actually
killed the vice. They are symbolically destroying their own wildness,”
according to Mary Midgley. 9 Living within society has forced man to cut all
ties from his savage past, but there is always the collective subconscious
memory of his wild ancestral past. If man chooses to repress this animalism
within himself, then according to Freud this animal will return, but will act in a
distorted fashion. 10 Thus the natural predator aggression will come back much
stronger, more than just instinctual nature, but reeking havoc on all that stands in
its path. If man represses his inner animal too long, he will then become the
animal. An instance of this is seen in the story of King Lycaon in Ovid’s
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Metamorphoses. This myth is one of the many examples where the wolf is
portrayed as vicious, ferocious and essentially evil; however, in the citations that
follow, we will discover that this is not always the case.
2.
The Story of Lycaon
The story of Lycaon is an example of the guilt that man feels within
himself from the evolution of a peaceful fruit gathering tribe to the carnivorous
tribe. These predatorily and often cannibalistic tendencies that early man had,
has marked his past with a feeling of guilt. In this story Zeus hears of the
wickedness of King Lycaon. He came to Earth, disguised as a man and gave the
people of Arcadia notice that a god had come. King Lycaon decided to test this
and invited Zeus to his house. He served him the flesh of a recently slaughtered
slave. Zeus knew at once it was human flesh and struck a bolt of lightening
which destroyed the entire household. Lycaon fled in terror and was
transformed into a wolf: “blood thirsty still, he turned against sheep, delighting
in their slaughter, and his arms were legs, and his robes were shaggy hair…” 11
Zeus had wanted to kill all of man kind for this evil that he had found,
but instead made Lycaon into an example. The example proves that if one lets
his animal side take over his whole being, he will transform into the animal.
King Lycaon took pleasure in slaughtering animals and people, and even worse
committed cannibalism. According to Eisler the carnivorous lupine packs of
early men often “preyed on the more conservative fruit-gathering human herds
reluctant to adopt the bloodthirsty new mode of life, killing males and enslaving
females.” 12 Now that man is civilized and this type of behavior outlawed within
societal codes, man feels guilty of his cannibalistic past. To take such delight in
the eating of one’s own species is terrifying to man today, but at one point in his
evolutionary past he had partaken in such activities.
The saying that Hobbes uses: homo homini lupus, applies directly in
this story. Lycaon is a brutish powerful king who slaughters his servants for his
own pleasure. Lycaon is a murderous tyrant, and the only thing that he fears, is
another murderous tyrant who would be more powerful than he. Lycaon proves
to be the exemplary Hobbesian man, he is by his nature evil and continues in
this fashion until he is put in his place by a power that is higher than himself.
3.
The Lay, Bisclavret
A different representation of the werewolf is found in the lay,
Bisclavret, by Marie de France. Bisclavret, which serves for the name of the
main character in the story but also coming from the word “bleiz lavaret”
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meaning, talking wolf. 13 Marie de France makes clear that the origins of these
tales come from Brittany and therefore the titles of the lays keep their Breton
name. The tale of Bisclavret is about a “Garualf” living in Brittany. He leaves
his wife three days out of every week, and when his wife confronts him about
his strange disappearance, he reluctantly confides in her that he goes into the
woods and turns into a werewolf. The wife then becomes terrified and disgusted
with her husband, and she weasels him into telling her how and where this
transformation takes place. Upon finding out that it is the shedding of his
human clothes that allows him to turn into a wolf, and that without these clothes
he cannot become human again, she dupes an old lover with the promise of her
love, into following her husband and stealing the clothes. The husband is thus
bound to his wolf form, and forced to remain in the woods. The king finds this
“civilized beast” in the woods and takes the beast to his court. Bisclavret lived
for a year in the court until one day he saw his wife and her new husband come
into the court, upon seeing her he became so outraged that he bit off her nose.
The court surprised by his abnormal behavior finds out that it was his wife that
had stolen his clothes. She returns the clothes and Bisclavret is able to become
human again.
The most interesting part of this story which distinguishes it from other
werewolf stories, is that Marie de France begins the lay by describing how
horrible and frightening werewolves are: “A werewolf is a ferocious beast which,
when possessed by this madness, devours men, causes great damage and dwells
in vast forests.” 14 However, she leaves us to question the true nature of a
werewolf, for when we meet Bisclavret we find that he is amiable and not at all
like the ferocious beast described above. Upon the wife’s constant questioning,
the reader learns that he goes deep into the forest to wait out his metamorphosis.
Marie de France simply states that he lives off of prey that he captures much like
a man going into the woods to hunt small animals. In this instance, he seems no
more wicked than the men that go off on the “wild hunt” in order to hunt game.
After returning from the woods he is always happy and in high spirits, “joius e
liez” 15 .
The transformation into the werewolf in this story is much like an
infliction that he must suffer through. He is a kind, gentle and a loving husband,
who will do anything to make his wife happy. “He was a good and handsome
knight who conducted himself nobly.” “He loved her [his wife] and she returned
his love.” 16 Nothing about this man seems deserving of punishment like in the
story of King Lycaon. He suffers from a malady which causes him to go out
into the woods and turn into a wolf for a few days. What this tale is trying to
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illustrate is the balance that Bisclavret is trying to find between his cultural
nature, the nature that belongs to society, and his animal nature, the nature that
is a part of his evolutionary past. He cannot kill the beast that is inside himself;
however he does not want to be fully taken over by his beast either.
It should also be noted that when he returns from these visits, he is
joyous and gay. This process in the woods is cathartic for him, it is allowing
him to release his inner animal rather than repressing it, which according to
Freud this repression will cause him unhappiness. Since this animal nature is
not repressed, it will not come back in a distorted fashion either. Thus, he
remains ever kind and faithful to his wife. Bisclavret is simply trying to find the
balance between these two sides within him. Unfortunately it is his wife who is
not comfortable with his dual nature, nor does she probably realize that there is a
dual nature within herself, and as a result of repressing her own animal nature,
she also seeks to destroy that of her husband’s as well.
The typical roles of the villain have been changed in this story. In a
typical story it is the werewolf that is the feared villain, however in this lay it is
the wife that then becomes the villain. Disgusted by the thought of her husband
becoming an animal she contrives a plot to rid herself of her husband and run off
with another man. Thus it is the wife and not the werewolf who becomes the
villain. Unable to accept this aspect of her husband’s life she traps him
permanently in his animal skin, making it impossible for him to return to society.
Here we see the husband, who has achieved a balance with his inner
animal juxtaposed with his wife, who has not. The husband allows the cathartic
release of his inner animal once a week for a period of three days. He leaves the
confines of society in order to return back to nature. However, he always
returns back to society. The wife, on the other hand, remains in the strict
regulated world of society and does not allow this kind of transformation.
Instead her inner animal comes back distorted; she becomes the villain. By
devising a malicious plot to rid herself of her husband, she is actually letting this
repressed animal that is inside her bring out evil and malicious tendencies.
Even when the husband is in his wolf form, he is still not a ferocious
and savage beast. Upon seeing the beast, the king remarks, “see the marvelous
way this beast humbles itself before me! It has the intelligence of a human
being.” 17 Even though Bisclavret is in his animal form, he still keeps his human
qualities. In fact, the only time that Bisclavret harms another human being is
when he sees is wife and her “new” husband appear in court a year later for a
party, without thinking he leaps at her and bites off her nose in revenge for what
she had done to him.
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In Bisclavret we have explored the dual nature of Man and his wife’s
reluctance to accept that nature, but we must also remember that there is a dual
nature within Woman as well.
4.
African-American Story, Manawee
In the African-American story Manawee the man cannot marry the
sisters until he recognizes their dual nature. The story centers on a man who
courts twin sisters, and he cannot marry them until he can guess their name. The
twin sisters represent the duality within women. The man cannot name the
sisters until his dog (or his animal nature) gives him the names.
The dog remarks in the beginning of the story that “one sister was
prettier than the other and the other sister was sweeter than the other. Though
neither sister possessed all virtues…” 18 That is to say that our wildish nature is
not the same as our cultural nature and vice versa. One side cannot possess all
virtues; it is a delicate balance between the two. This tale is quick to point out
that until the man could name, or accept, the duality of the women, he could not
marry them, and also likewise, until he learned to listen to his animal nature, he
could not learn the names of the sisters.
What Estes refers to as the “wildish woman” is similar to the wolf side
of Bisclavret. The wildish woman, or instinctual/animal side of woman, is
looking for someone who can understand and accept the beast that is within.
Unfortunately in Bisclavret’s tale, the wife was not accepting of this duality, but
luckily for the sisters, the man listened to his instinctual self and was able to
prove a successful mate.
5.
Concluding remarks
Within each of these three tales, we see how the wolf or werewolf
represents the animal instincts or desires of man. In the story of Lycaon, he is
overcome with his drive to hunt and kill, like the wild lupine packs of our
ancestral past, donning the pelt of a wolf or bear believing in its powers to turn
us into that animal. Lycaon is proof of man’s fear of this inner beast and what it
will do if let loose. Men are afraid of their own brutality, therefore this
wickedness must be displaced in an alien form that is not a part of their own
being. The image of a werewolf, a man trapped inside the body of a wolf, is the
precise image of man fearing that which lurks within his own being. By killing
or ridding oneself of the werewolf, man is trying to kill this brutal and
animalistic side of his nature. As seen in the tale of Bisclavret, where the wife
rids herself of her werewolf husband; an attempt to rid herself of her own inner
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evil. The wolf becomes the symbol of this ravenous beast that kills in mass
quantities for mere pleasure, which is not normal wolf behavior. If only one
could listen to this unknown nature within themselves, then man could find
peace, like in the case of Manawee. Once the man listened to his dog,
representing his animal nature, he was able to name the sisters and marry them.
Therefore it becomes a question of acknowledging this beast or animal nature
within us and learning to balance this part of ourselves within society.
1
J.J. Rousseau. Discours sur l’origine et les fondements de l’inegalite parmi les
homes. Gallimard, Paris, 2006, p.74.
2
T. Hobbes. Leviathan. Ed.R. Tuck. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge,
1991, p.88.
3
J.J. Rousseau. Discours sur l’origine et les fondements de l’inegalite parmi les
homes. Gallimard, Paris, 2006, p.41-2.
4
F. Nietzche. Thus Spake Zarathustra. Trans. T Commons. Pennsylvania State
University, 1999, p.266
5
M. Midgley. Beast and Man, Routledge, New York, 1979, p.30.
6
R. Eisler. Wolf into Man, Spring Books, London, 1951, p.33.
7
R. Eisler. Wolf into Man, Spring Books, London, 1951, p. 34.
8
R. Eisler. Wolf into Man, Spring Books, London, 1951, p. 42.
9
M. Midgley. The Myths we Live by, Routledge, New York, 2004, p.166.
10
A. Bleakley, The Animalizing Imagination : Totemism, Textuality, and
Ecocriticism, St Martin’s Press, New York, 2000, p.35.
11
Ovid, Metamorphoses, trans. Rolfe Humphries, Indiana University Press,
Bloomington, 1995, line:235-7.
12
R. Eisler. Wolf into Man, Spring Books, London, 1951, p.37.
13
P. Walter ‘Preface, traduction nouvelle et notes’ Lais: Marie de France.
Gallimard, Paris, 2000, p.449
14
Marie de France. The Lais of Marie de France. Trans. G. Burgess and K.
Busby. Penguin Books, London, 1986, 2003, p.68. I have also included the old
French: “Garualf ceo est beste salvage: Tant cum il est en cele rage, Hummes
devure, grant mal fait, Es granz forez converse e vait”
15
Marie de France, Lais, trans, Philippe Walter, Gallimard, Paris, 2002, p.148.
16
Marie de France. The Lais of Marie de France. Trans. G. Burgess and K.
Busby. Penguin Books, London, 1986, 2003, p.68 Translation in French: “Beaus
chevalers e bons esteit E noblement se cunteneit/ C’était un beau et bon
chevalier d’une conduite irreproachable.” “Il amot li e ele lui/ il l’aimait autant
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qu’elle aimait” Marie de France, Lais, trans, Philippe Walter, Gallimard, Paris,
2002, p. 146-8.
17
Marie de France. The Lais of Marie de France. Trans. G. Burgess and K.
Busby. Penguin Books, London, 1986, 2003, p.70. The French translation:
“Cum caste beste se humilie! Ele ad sen de hume, merci crie…Ceste beste ad
entente e sen” Marie de France, Lais, trans, Philippe Walter, Gallimard, Paris,
2002, p.156.
18
C.P. Estes, Women who run with the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild
Woman Archetype, Ballantine Books, New York, 1992, p.116.