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Lycanthropic Culture Shock Analysis

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Analyze Claudette’s development in relation to the five stages of Lycanthropic Culture Shock.

In ”St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves”, Russell Wolves”, Russell writes a short story regarding a group of girls, whose parents are werewolves. Their parents sent them to St. Lucy’s Home for Girls to be reformed into civilized humans and become functional members of society. The main character, Claudette, is developed by comparing her behavior in each stage The Jesuit Handbook on Lycanthropic Culture Shock. The handbook partially accounts for Claudette throughout the five stages of Lycanthropic Culture Shock. In Stage One, the handbook somewhat accurately describes Claudette’s experience. In the first stage the handbook reports that the girls will enjoy this stage. It’s “fun” for them to “explore their new environment”(pg. 225). Claudette, as well the rest of the pack, take joy in “jump[ing] from bunk to bunk” and “bucking in kinetic laughter”(pg.225). …show more content…

The handbook simply explains that the students should now be able to “interact effectively in the new cultural environment” as well as “find it easy to move between the two culture”(pg. 246). Claudette gains a new human identity in Stage 5. She wore her “best dress and brought along some prosciutto and dill pickles”(pg.246) when she reconnected with her family. This shows that Claudette can now effectively behavior in a new human environment. However the handbook states that she should be able to “easy to move between the two culture”(pg.246). This is not the case when it comes to Claudette. When she first reconnects with her family after her time at St.Lucy’s her “mother recoiled from me, as if I was a stranger”(pg.249). Claudette develops a human identity, but in the process her wolf identity is somehow damaged. Therefore rendering her unable to easily “move between the two

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In this stage she is expected to feel comfortable in the human culture, and everything in the human culture will start to make sense (Russell 240). Claudette does not match the expectation in this stage due to the Sausalito dance. When she got to the dance, she met Kyle, her brother. Their conversations were very awkward, she, “narrowed my eyes at Kyle and flattened [her] ears, something [she] hadn’t done for months” (Russell 242 and 243) because she had changed into a human. She naturally resorted to her wolf like instincts to flatten her ears when she was in this awkward conversation with Kyle, meaning she has not met the expectation of the stage.

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During stage two, Russell’s development of Claudette directly corresponds with the epigraph. Claudette found that she was always “irritated, bewildered, depressed… uncomfortable and between stages”(page 229). This lines up perfectly with the Handbook, which describes feelings of discomfort and dislocation among the pack. Claudette had even “begun to snarl at [her] own reflection as if it were a stranger,” showing that she is very uncomfortable with the changes that have happened to her, both physically and mentally. In Stage 2, when the girls had begun to drift apart, Claudette found where she fit in, explaining that she “was one of the good girls.

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However, she still preforms bad wolf habits showing that she has not successfully adapted to the human culture. Little things such as translating wolf into English in her head before saying them is one example of the little things that go unnoticed. Still at stage three, Claudette wags her invisible tail, repeats the steps of being a well-mannored student, and licks her packs cheeks to comfort them. Claudette tries extremely hard to welcome her new culture but some things happen instinctively exhbiting that she is not ready to leave. For example, Claudette was at the dance and got mad at a boy so she instinctively displays her wolf personality.

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