For Wednesday: Bailey, “I Was a Teenage Werewolf” (pp.286-303)





Answer TWO of the following:

Q1: In the previous story, the town prefers to see Johnny “as a hero who’d saved humanity from the ascension of triumphant alien overlords” (55). How does this story also prefer to believe a convenient narrative of heroism/safety? Who is the hero? Who is the villain? What truths or taboos is the town hiding from?

Q2: Who is the narrator in the story? Even though he/she doesn’t introduce themselves as Nancy did, how can we tell who they are? Why do you think he tells the story from this perspective rather than giving the narrator a name and a character? How does it change the story?

Q3: The narrator claims that the anonymity of the werewolf gave them a certain power in their community. As he/she explains, “if we were both sovereign and slave to our terror, our teachers and parents were slaves alone. As long as no one knew who the teenage werewolf was, it could be any one of us” (296). Why does this give them power over their teachers and parents? How does this bond the teenagers together as a group?

Q4: The ending of the this story is surprising and a bit shocking: why do you think Bailey ends the story with all the adults being eaten/murdered? Is the point of the story to say “teenagers are evil and can’t be trusted”? Or does he have another intention? Why make every teenager a werewolf and every adult a victim?

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