Werewolves: A Thematic Analysis of Recent Depictions — Robert Davis

Werewolves have long been a staple of popular culture. In the 19th century and 20th century, there were countless books, plays, and films about people who turned into wolves or wolf like humanoids and went on rampages. The figure of the werewolf is so familiar that people across the world are familiar with the folklore, and the beliefs that they transform during a full moon, can only be stopped with silver, and transmit their disease by biting their victims.In fact, those beliefs were not originally part of werewolf folklore, but later embellishments by artists. The belief in lycanthropy is far older and more complex than most people suspect, dating all the way back to antiquity, and werewolves were once assumed to be very real. Indeed, people were even put on trial and executed because the courts of law were convinced they could change their form and kill innocent people. For thousands of years, werewolves have represented a strange and ancient tradition that still echoes through culture to this day.You will find stories and accounts of werewolves, ancient (and modern) shamans, horrific, bestial serial-killers and a comprehensive list of werewolf films as well as pages of documented fatal wolf-attacks and other, much stranger, more mysterious stuff. Various rational explanations of the phenomenon are explored and some surprising conclusions reached.