What does a werewolf symbolize?

Answer 1

The Wolf as a symbol from old times untill today stands for honor, wisdom, ferocity, fear, also it stands for the unity of a family and the duty of caring for the ones you love or respect.

Being so the Werewolf as asymbol is split upon the two, depending on the culture upon wich we are discussing the symbol. For instance if we take the Werewolf as a Gothic-time horror symbol - it stands for a man bearing some of the Symbol marks as a wolf, in this case particularly it's ferocity and fear. But in other cultures, like common Mythologies which involve Werewolves heroes often do take on the form of a wolf, making them wolf-men or Werewolves, but they bear most of the other characteristics of the Wolf-symbol, like honor, ferocity (this time in a good way), unity of family, wisdom and so-on.

All in all it depends on what you want to portray with a werewolf symbol - something good, or something bad. It is a really good symbol to use in literature, music, movies and every other type of art, because it combines importaint characteristics in opposite, conflicting ways, which allow the imagination to run free.

PS: There are some casses of personal symbolism like in Dante's Inferno where the wolf stands for other things - you can read up on it in the book or in Wikipedia, but the evolution of this symbol to a werewolf is quite confusing, for it will probably reasult in a Female Werewolf being a symbol of Betreyal, Corruption and Cheating [as in in Love].