Jeffery Jerome Cohen's Monster Culture (Seven Theses) really got me thinking and I really liked the organization of the text. It was difficult to develop just one question so I wrote two. But was further interested by later parts of the text.
Page 6- "This refusal to participate in the classifictory "order of things" is true of monsters generally: they are disturbing hybrids whose externally incoherent bodies resist attempts to include them in any systematic structuration. And so the monster is dangerous, a form suspended between forms that threatens to smash distinctions."
How does our creation and use of monsters illustrate our need for order and labels? Historians are OBSESSED with labeling subjects, time periods, ideas etc.and anything that fits outside our labels is troubling.
Page 8- "In the United State, Native Americans were presented as unredeemable savages so that the powerful political machine of Manifest Destiny could push westward with disregard. Scattered throughout Europe by the Diaspora and steadfastly refusing assimilation into Christian society, Jews have been perennial favorites for xenophobic misrepresentation, for here was an alien culture living, working, and even at times prospering within vast communities dedicated to becoming homogeneous and monolithic. The Middle Ages accused the Jews of crimes ranging from the bringing of the plague to bleeding Christian children to make their Passover meal. Nazi Germany simply brought these ancient traditions of hate to their conclusion, inventing a Final Solution that differed from earlier persecutions only in its technological efficiency."
While the end of the quote referencing technological efficiency is hard to swallow, this quote brings up a good point about our use of "monsters." Is the use of monsters in fiction a stepping stone to monsternizing( is that a word?) or othering aspects of our society? Is that something that has to be learned in a progressive manner or is it something that develops without the use of fiction and story telling?
I feel that fiction is a way to bring up how monsters relate to our society. How do people treat others who differ from them? There are Frankenstein's in our modern world. People who are considered black sheep's and judged for their differences.
ReplyDeleteI would hope that a tale like Frankenstein - or any good monster story - serves as a warning AGAINST this kind of real-world behavior that we have seen repeated over again throughout history in so many shameful ways. When we can recognize the humanity of Frankenstein's monster, we should also be able to see that same humanity in all of our brothers and sisters around the world, regardless of our differences. I think it would be hard to read this novel as a kind of justification for scapegoating and dehumanizing, but I certainly find that there are people out there believing all kinds of crazy things and so it saddens me to think that this may, in fact, be possible. This is why we need an educated citizenry!
ReplyDeleteI agree with Nina, I feel like our society is obsessed with labeling and order because we want to create an easier way of understanding people, places, things, and events that are difficult to grasp. This can be used to create a narrative that portrays others in a negative light creating more "monsters". Like they say, history is generally written by the winners.
ReplyDeleteI would argue that humans "monster-ized" the "other" long before we put monsters into literature. Storytellers have always used a rhetoric of hate to perpetuate animosity between themselves and their perception of an inferior group. In literature and art, I think it can go either way. That, as Dr. MB argues, monster stories can call out this societal habit. But I'm sure there are other monster stories that feed into it. But I think of it more as a symptom than a stepping stone.
ReplyDeleteIn regards to your first point, I think biologically Humans have a need to identify and label the world around them. So this is part of the reason monsters are so scary or daunting for humans; monsters often refuse this classification. We dont like what we dont know.
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