Analyzing The Chupacabra In Andrew J. Hoffman's 'Monsters'

El chupacabra is a legendary creature that has been running around Mexico, and various parts of Centralcentral America after its initial sitting in March 1995 in Puerto Rico when a farmer found his 150 livestock animals were dead bloodsuck. But the chupacabra also dates back in Mayan culture stories reveal a creature with a bat or lizard like face two arms and has the ability to turn into a statue. It even had a sharp snout that lends itself as a service that could suck blood from animals. And findings have been found identify terms like “goat sucker” in Mayan literature

‘Coyotes’ (Conover. T. 1987) was written by Ted Conover and published by Random House Inc in 1987 (iDreamBooks.com), Ted Conover is an American author well known for going undercover and actively participating in his chosen field of research (newnewjournalism.com), generally staying in the role for a long period of time such as in “Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing” (Conover. T. 2000) when he went undercover as a correction officer, or ‘prison guard,’ (Conover. T. 2000) for a year to find the information that he was not able to gather in any other way as he was a journalist.

In this reading, Cohen proposes a sketch of a new modus legendi, meaning, “a method of reading cultures from the monsters they engender.”(Monsters page 11) He also says that he’s going to break some rules from recent cultural studies. Now, Cohen offers seven theses towards understanding cultures through monsters by their character, appearance and representation, such as: Vampires, the Alien, Frankenstein, Werewolves, Grendel, the Boogey man, and etc.

1. Monster is a novel written in a screenplay format with Steve’s journal entries mixed in throughout. Do you think this is an effective format for the book? Why or why not?

Monster by Sanyika Shakur yields a firsthand insight on gang warfare, prison, and redemption. “There are no gang experts except participants (xiii)” says Kody Scott aka. Monster. Monster vicariously explains the roots of the epidemic of South Central Los Angeles between the Crips and the Bloods that the world eventually witnessed on April 29, 1992. As readers we learn to not necessarily give gangs grace but do achieve a better understanding of their disposition to their distinct perception in life.

Rhetorical Analysis of “ Monster Culture ” In his opinion piece at the beginning of the book Monster Theory: Reading Culture , entitled “ Monster Culture (Seven Theses) ” , Jeffery Jerome Cohen tries his best to detail to his audience why monsters are symbolic of those things which e xist on the edges of culture. What monsters are changes according to the ideas and convention s most disruptive to any given culture at any point in time.

The study I chose was the Monster Study, it was a study that took place at the University of Iowa in 1939 by two female researchers named Wendell Johnson and Mary Tudor. They conducted an experiment on stuttering. This experiment was done on 22 orphan children in Davenport, Iowa. The children were separated into two groups, the first group received positive speech therapy where the children were praised for how good their speech was. In the second group the children were taught bad speech therapy and the children were belittled for every time they did not speak the right way. At the end of the experiment the normal-speaking children from group two that was belittled developed negative psychological effects, and

Diaz often analogizes religious worship of native deities to Satanism, criticizing Moctezuma that “those whom they look upon as gods are not so, but are devils, which are evil things, and if their looks are bad their deeds are worse and they could see that they were evil and of little worth” (139). To emphasize the devil-like characteristics of indigenous gods, Cortés warns Moctezuma how “these Idols hold it that they are deceiving you” (152) and Diaz describes Huichilobos, their god of War, as monster-like, with a “broad face and monstrous and terrible eyes” (150). During Cortés tour of the temple of Huichilobos, Diaz describes how “there was another small tower which was also an Idol house, or a true hell, for it had at the opening of one gate a most terrible mouth such as they depict, saying that such there are in hell” (154) and then further describes the idol house as “the Infernal Regions” (154) in order to emphasize the Satanic representations of Nahuatl religions. ADD ENDING

Carol Grunewald, an Animal Rights and environmental activist with the Humane Society of the United States, claims "people who care about people" should be concerned about the genetic engineers opportunity to create new animals. Grunewald, in the article "Monster of the brave new world," highlights several possible apocalyptic scenarios as a result of an almost unregulated genetic manipulation. According to the author we should ban the parenting of animals; moreover, we should not allow the release in nature of genetically modified beings by preserving the natural environment from unpredictable but surely catastrophic consequences. The arrogance and ignorance of humankind is leading humanity in a direction that ignores an inconvertible truth:

Monster exists long time ago and they are everywhere. However, there are different types of monster, some that are good and some that are bad. Many people that watched monster films get the desire of being one of the monsters that appears in the film. This essay will argue the different aspects and effects that monsters have in a person. I will use two article that will help explain the differences aspects and actions of the monster. One of the articles is “Here Be Monsters” by Ted Genoways, second article is “Fear of the Monster is Really a Kind of Desired” by Jeffrey Jerome Cohen. “Monster can function as an alter ego, as an alluring projection of (an Other) self” (Cohen, 190). Furthermore, this essay will show some fallacies that the author

“Fear and euphoria are dominant forces, and fear is many multiples the size of euphoria” - Alan Greenspan. New York author, Alan Greenspan, here is explaining that the threat fear presents is really no different than the state of intensity caused by euphoria. In Andrew J. Hoffman’s anthology, Monsters, there is substantial evidence that both fear and euphoria are inflicted upon men, by female monsters. The two threats men typically face against women are temptation and emasculation. Thus, in mythology and folklore, female monsters exemplify the impulse of desire (sexually) for men, and male weakness. These are creature that are lusted after and yet, still feared because of their power. Men find female monsters both fearsome and euphoric and will always threaten their dominance and control.

In the article “Monsters and the Moral Imagination,” Stephen Asma, a professor of Philosophy and Distinguished Scholar at Columbia College Chicago, argues that the existence of monsters have a purpose in our lives. It is not only to reveal our deepest fears, but to question our moral instincts. Being attacked by fictional monsters seems impractical, however, chaos and disasters do happen and exist in the real world. The creation of monsters is due to our reaction of our fears and the inability to control the world we live in.

Does a perfect world exist? It is the idea that when creating this utopia everyone will be happy, equal, understanding of each other. Often in the attempt to make this dream like utopia often becomes a dystopia. This futuristic, imagined universe in which oppressive societies are controlled and make it seem like a perfect world, but what do these dystopian worlds show us? In his text “Beautiful Monsters” , Eric Puncher depicts of a world where adults are casted out of society . A world where Children live forever and control society. It’s the conflict of the Perennials and the senescent that shows Puncher 's political argument. Pruncher’s argument is people often classify people and reject them from society through the false values that have been implemented in their society. While in Neil Gaiman 's and Bryan Talbot’s comic strip, “From Homogenous to Honey”, they depict a world where a masked assailant completely erases the homosexual narrative from history. By destroying these narratives, he is carrying out his agenda, and creating a dystopian society where everyone’s narrative is the same. Gaiman’s argument is that a dystopian society strips culture of its individuality, which leads to a lack of independent thinking, this in turn causes individuals to lose themselves. Therefore making everyone the same. This imperfect world clearly has a negative effect on the citizens. But through the authors dystopian worlds who was able to use it more successfully to create a

When analyzed online many of the definitions you will find for the word monster include: a strange or horrible imaginary creature, one who deviates from normal or acceptable behavior, or an animal of strange and/or terrifying shape. (Merriam Webster) When observing the “Monster Theory” by Jeffrey Cohen and the 7 theses that he provides in this text, one can begin to somewhat disagree with these formal definitions and attempt to say that it has an even greater meaning. Monsters might scare us and frighten us because of their physical appearances but also can provide us with possible solutions to gaps and uncertainties in our mind that Sigmund Freud would label as “The Uncanny”. I can only but agree with

I have decided to do my thrid quarter project on “El Chupacabra”. El Chupacabra is a myth or legend centered from Puerto Rico. I have grown much interest in this folktale. The mysterious and puzzling creature brings great interest to me. I’m eager to learn more about the Chupacabra. So with interest I believe this topic would be the correct choice for me.