But Teresa isn't doing it at Theres' bidding and the other Wolves aren't involved - it's not something she's doing for the pack. It's something she's doing entirely of her own volition, rather than following a code against her own inclinations. There and the other Wolves had no responsibility for the killing of Johannes - they only prey on enemies and strangers, not wholly unlike real wolves.gattoparde59 wrote: It is a common place in literature to have a character faced with a conflict between personal feelings and their own sense of morality. In Prosper Merimee's short story Mateo Falcone, the Corsican bandit Falcone puts his own feelings aside and shoots his own son in punishment for violating the code of honor. That is what I think Teresa does when she kills Johannes. She is setting her own feelings aside, or perhaps extinguishing them, forever.
To expand on my comparison with Javert, in Javert's case it's also about emotion to some extent - his entire worldview is based on equating morality and legality, and on following his duty, which naturally he perceives as upholding the law without fear or favour or pity. His entire life has been based on these premises, which ironically by saving him Jean Valjean shatters completely, thus destroying him emotionally. Faced with the shattering of his worldview, and with the moral conflict he has in either betraying the law or putting himself morally beyond the pale, he severs all ties to his superiors by killing himself. The way Javert sees it, his suicide is a way of tendering his resignation to both God and the police. Teresa rejects both morality and motional ties with her species by murdering Johannes, although she was already morally beyond the pale.
It's clear of course that how she imagines wolves has little to do with real wolves - real packs are usually made up of blood relatives (in nature, blood is everything), and they're never all of the same sex, plus they're about survival and not about going on the offensive against an enemy that will ultimately subdue them if they go far enough. Ironically what she's looking for does exist, but not in nature - what she's looking for is a gang of bullies. That's partly why she rejected Johannes' friendship.gattoparde59 wrote: Hawks are not the animal we want here, because hawks are not the social animals that Teresa is looking for. Teresa wants to belong to something, Teresa wants a "family." Teresa longs for a family that will set her free, as she imagines wolves in the wild living free.
Emphasizing how little what they do has to do with real wolves. The real wolves aren't interested in these disputes between humans, and have no interest in approaching them.gattoparde59 wrote:At the end Teresa goes to great lenghts to free the wolfs from their prison in at Skansen. Ironically, they stay within their enclosure.