Big, Bad and Ugly – The concept of “the monster” in western culture (original) (raw)
Related papers
De•monstra•tion: The Monster and the Demonization of Other
2016
In this dissertation paper I aim to put in words what I artistically express in my thesis exhibition de-monstra-tion. The exhibition includes paintings, drawings and an installation imitating the national elections atmosphere in Turkey. It offers an artistic response to aggression and violence in different forms prevalent throughout the world. It does this by “demonstrating” how we can artistically criticize cruelties through re-politicizing politics in a manner as to neutralize all kinds of moral degradation associated with the demonization of other. I consider different connotations of the monster as expressed and elaborated in the literature to discuss how I use it as an artistic tool to humorously subvert moralized politics dominant in society and media. Then, I build my exhibition on neo-expressionism and graffiti with particular emphases on the works of Spero, Basquiat and Haring. Finally, I elaborate on how in my exhibition I used Artaud’s theatre of cruelty to re-politicize ...
The wide ranging economical, technological and political changes of the late 18th and early 19th century have created major social shift leaving the contemporary human in the state of uncertainty, instability and fear. These overwhelming social movements and rapid change of, up to that point, a stable and homogenous environment have triggered a need for the creation of ‘monsters’ – symbolical carriers of society’s accumulated terrors. With the development of the Gothic novel, the images of the deviant, non-human ‘other’ have served a purpose of defining the indefinable sense of uncertainty. Feeding on society’s fear of change and loss of traditional values, the creation of these deviant individuals has often served as a warning against the inevitable change, as well as a way of strengthening and preserving the border between self and the other, and thereby the very order that is being threatened.
From mythical monsters to future horrors: towards an understanding of the function of monstrosity:
This BA thesis investigates the function of the Monster from the 5th century onwards, with particular attention to whether, and how, this function has changed over time. To this purpose, three texts are analyzed: 'Beowulf', 'The Island of Doctor Morreau' and 'The Calcutta Chromosome', with a narrow focus on how the monsters in the chosen texts function and are described. Anthropological, philosophical, historical and literary approaches to the monster are outlined and to varying extents applied in the analysis of the individual texts. Subsequently, the texts are analyzed in chronological order, with particular emphasis on the function, description, and location of the monsters, with emphasis on the Monsters of 'The Calcutta Chromosome'. Subsequently, I undertake a comparative analysis of the monsters of 'Beowulf', 'The Island of Doctor Morreau' and 'The Calcutta Chromosome', this time focusing on the geographical location of the monsters, and its meaning. Finally, I attempt a theoretically founded analysis of how the monster functions in literature, with particular emphasis on its symbolic function. Here the theory that was explained in the opening chapter is drawn in, in an argument that the monster basically has different layers of functions. Furthermore, it is argued that the functions of the monster has various facets, symbolic and concrete, and that it refuses any clearcut definition. This is supported by McCormack's argument that the core feature of the monster is that it defies categorization. This is used to support the argument that the monster is fundamentally ambiguous. Throughout the thesis, it is argued that the monster is fundamentally a complex entity, and that any attempt to approach the monster from any one theoretical angle will be incapable of grasping this complexity. It is concluded that my thesis, that the monster has always resided beyond the border of what is known, but that this border has moved over time, is fundamentally correct. However, it is also concluded that this is but one aspect of the ambiguous nature of the monster. Furthermore, it is concluded that the monster is a fundamentally transgressive construct, and that the breaching of borders is one of the key functions of the monster. It is noted that general conclusions can only be drawn to a limited extent on the basis of the examined source material. Furthermore, it is emphasized that the purpose of this thesis is more to point to a general trend in the depiction of monstrosity across literary eras, than to make a definitive statement about the monster as a literary concept.
Rebeca - Revista Brasileira de Estudos de Cinema e Audiovisual, 2016
Neste ensaio é apresentado o que chamo de Mito do Monstro, aqui descrito e analisado como um mito que se origina da necessidade do indivíduo e das coletividades humanas de determinarem referências para se definirem como seres humanos, seja num plano espiritual, seja como seres corpóreos, materiais. A relação entre mitos e a noção de metáfora é discutida, enquanto monstros da literatura ocidental, como Caliban, Drácula, o monstro de Frankenstein, Dr. Jekyll e Mr. Hyde, entre outros, são analisados como metáforas do Mito do Monstro, sendo discutida a função metafórica dos monstros do Iluminismo e da Modernidade. Por fim, o zumbi hollywoodiano é proposto como a metáfora contemporânea do Mito do Monstro, devido a sua capacidade de expressar as angústias vividas atualmente diante de uma realidade que dificulta, ou impede que cada um defina sua própria identidade.
The Cultural Links between the Human and Inhuman
Monsters of Film, Fiction, and Fable: The Cultural Links Between the Human and Inhuman, 2018
Monsters are deeply embedded in our cultural fabric, moving across epochs from ancient mythology to folk and fairy tales to literature, and then film and television. The collected essays in this volume will explore the cultural implications of monsters, particularly those of the 20th and 21st centuries, delving into the various social, economic, and political issues that these monsters reflect. Long tied to ideas of the Other, the inhuman have represented societal fears for centuries. In fact, the dawning imperialist age saw a resurgence of these gothic horrors, particularly in fiction such as Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Civilized Victorian society reinvented the monstrous myths, projecting their fears about those they were colonizing onto the monsters that populated the pages. This resurgence expanded during Modernist times with the advent of radio, film, and television. Society quaked in terror over the reported aliens in War of the Worlds and Count Dracula floated eerily across the screen— just as ideas related to eugenics and racial purity permeated the Western world. The monster fiction and media of the postmodernist eras still reflect societal unease when it comes to issues of race, gender, sexuality, and other cultural issues. Yet, a transformation has occurred in contemporary works, a cultural shift, so to speak. In his essay “Monster Theory (Seven Theses),” Jeffrey Jerome Cohen says, “[t]he monster is . . . an embodiment of certain cultural moments—of a time, a feeling, and a place. The monster’s body quite literally incorporates fear, desire, anxiety, and fantasy . . . giving them life and an uncanny independence. The monstrous body is pure culture” (1996, 4). What we see as we move across the 20th and 21st centuries is a reclamation of the monstrous and an exploration of, as posthuman critics posit, the “us” in “them.” Rather than provoking only fear, many of these monsters now inspire sympathy, forcing audiences to question ideas related to the different social, political, and economic issues contemporary monsters represent as well as ideas about human nature.