LAUSR

In our essay, we explore this image of a stereotypical Big Bad Wolf, and we explain how many of the themes, which keep resurfacing in debates about wolves in present-day culture, can be thought of as being associated with this stereotype. In order to investigate these possible associations, we consider human perceptions of wolf behavior and evaluate how these may correspond to attributes associated with immorality or wickedness especially as such human characteristics are expressed in the Jungian shadow archetype of evil. We further explore how the stereotype of the Big Bad Wolf may be created through the unconscious merger of actual wolf behavior with notions associated with evil in human beings. We first delineate the agenda of this essay and then provide a short overview of research on human-wolf relations in Central Europe. We then review aspects of wolf biology that may be particularly salient and potentially problematic to a peaceful coexistence between wolves and humans. Finally, we identify correspondences between those aspects of wolf behavior and the human understanding of what constitutes an evil act and how this correspondence may reinforce the concept of the Big Bad Wolf.