IDEOLOGICAL ECHOES OF WEREWOLVES FROM MYTHOLOGY TO FICTION: A COMPARATIVE STUDY ON WHITLEY STRIEBER’S THE WOLFEN AND STEPHENIE MEYER’S NEWMOON

Abstract

This research focuses on the echoing process mythologies to fiction. The main problem of this research is the ideological echoes of European and Native American mythology of werewolves to fiction in Whitley Strieber’s The Wolfen and Stephenie Meyer’s New Moon. In this case, the researcher assumes that literary works are influenced by other sources in the social life. The authors of literary works may ‘imitate’ or ‘borrow’ the character from mythology. Here, mythologies of werewolves are acting like an ideology which influences the authors of both novels while describing the werewolves in their novels. In conducting this research, the researcher uses comparative approach. This approach is the method in analyzing the research problems. In order to get a further understanding of werewolves’ character in those novels, there are several points to be compared in this research. They are the types and source of influence, the characteristic of werewolves in mythologies, the characteristic of werewolves in both novels, and also the commonsense of werewolves which supports the ideological echoes of werewolves from mythology to The Wolfen and New Moon. As the result, this research has found that the werewolves’ characters in The Wolfen and New Moon have been influenced by the myths. The myths are European mythology of werewolves and Native American mythology of werewolves. The European mythology of werewolves is echoing in The Wolfen. And, werewolves, in New Moon, are the result of the acculturation between Native American and European mythologies of werewolves. The role of myth, here, can be noted as the ideology itself. Thus, it can affect the author in describing of the character in his or her literary work.