Morten Tønnessen
Associate professor at University of Stavanger
(Department of health studies) and Chair of Minding Animals Norway
The questions
of the nature of the wolf, sheep, and humans, are methodologically problematic
for two different reasons: Human’s nature because we are the topic to be
investigated; the wolf’s and the sheep’s nature because we are not wolves
nor sheep. However, what we think
about what it is like to be a wolf or a sheep actually says a great deal about
what it means, for us, to be human.
Wolves and
sheep are among the animals that have been the most significant in terms of
cultural impact. The animal representations involving these two animals – which
are often perceived as being in fundamental opposition to each other – are
countless; only a few examples can be mentioned in this paper. These include
wolf-derived names from Adolf Hitler to Varg Vikernes, words and expressions
(“lone wolf terrorist”), fairy tales and Bible stories, and canine or ovine
appearances in a number of contemporary TV series and movies. Whereas the
werewolf is conceptually a wolfman,
the hilarious 2006 movie Black Sheep
introduced the weresheep (and thus
the sheepman).
In popular
culture, the wolf symbolizes evil, bottomless hunger, and raw sexuality. The
fact that in old Norse “vargr” (cf. the Swedish varg), the word for wolf, meant “outlaw”, and was also used in the
sense of “murderer”, “slayer”, is telling of the way we routinely attribute
human characteristics to wolves, and vice versa. To some extent the same can be
said about the sheep, which traditionally symbolizes that which is to be
protected, flock animals, and stupidity.
This paper
will draw on semiotics, philosophy, and Human-Animal Studies at large.
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