Role Of Monsters In Jewish Literature

The next thesis proposed by Cohen is that a monster is the harbinger of category crisis. In order to feel comfortable about places, people, and things in the word, we tend to group things into categories. All of these are placed in categories typically by physical appearance and certain traits that tend to stick out. Well, what’s scary about monsters is that they tend to be unnatural and not just fit into one category, but rather many different categories. One of the most common characters described by this thesis is Count Dracula, a monster that is neither dead nor alive. When one cannot be distinguished into a basic category this tends to frighten us because it goes against one of our common norms. He breaks our human-made laws of nature. Along with the violations of our norm groups, monsters also tend as an act to forewarn our cultures of crisis. The creator of Frankenstein can be seen as an act to

He gives more explanation of the pop culture refe rences, however, than he does of his more esoteric and academic precursors. This means that he expects that his audience is more familiar with the theory surrounding monsters than with m any of the pop icon monsters that have appeared throughout history. Cohen builds a strongly logica l argument that monsters are symbolic of the marginalized groups at the outer edges of c ulture, and in doing so he makes it clear that he feels his audience is well-rounded, academic , well educated and as interested in the theory of monsters as he is himself. Logos is not the only rhetorical device Cohen uses in this article, however. He also uses ethos to connect with his audience, and to differentiate bet

“As monstrous races faded from popularity, the increased focus on unnatural or monstrous individuals added new interest in the long-standing philosophical and theological debates about whether or not monsters could be human and where monsters fit within God’s ordered universe […] philosophers and theologians in both the medieval period and the Renaissance often interpreted these monstrous individuals as carrying a specific meaning for the community into which they were born (Wright 6).”

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.

Even Frankenstein, the monster’s creator, is blind to the innocence of the being he animates. Upon reflection, he recounts, “breathless horror and disgust filled my heart… unable to endure the aspect of the being I created, I rushed out of the room” (35), yet this rationalization lacks material justification. Frankenstein, as the creator, is endowed with a responsibility for the being he escorts into the world, a basic social value accepted by all. Nevertheless, he alienates his monster from its first breath, claiming, “no mortal could support the horror of [its] countenance” (36). Shelley employs this ironic twist of social expectations in order to emphasize the ability of visual bias to distort the expression of morality. To abandon a child is perceived as immoral, but to abandon a monster, born into the world with neither hateful bias nor malicious intent is acceptable. He is innocent in every aspect of disposition, yet society greets

Stephen Asma’s chapter on Biblical Monsters in On Monsters shows how godly monsters were on the rise in the Medieval eras. Whether it was gods’ testing of one’s faith, or individuals’ justifications as to why monsters were on earth, we can see the rise through this Medieval period as gods’ uses of monsters varies. In Asma’s subsection over The Apocalypse, he discusses numerous interactions between good and evil monsters where they are disguised almost as that of a symbolic gesture. For instance, Asma explains how God sometimes will use his monstrous capabilities to cause harm to an individual to test ones faith. We see this in particular when the devil convinces God to test Job this way (Asma 64).Throughout this period in time, we see the classic biblical beasts such as the Behemoth and Leviathan at work. These monsters, among

What defines a monster? Is it their grotesque, unnatural appearance that separates them from the rest of mankind, or is it their lack of remorse and compassion that makes them different? The word monster conjures up figures from gothic horror of exotic peoples with horrifyingly exaggerated features, and the kinds of impossible delusive beasts inhabiting the pages of medieval bestiaries. Well at first I thought exactly that. When I used to hear the word “monster”, my mind immediately pictured the petrifying beast that took residence under my bed for a substantial portion of my childhood. It had demonic beating red eyes, razor sharp teeth that glistened with fresh blood and amphibian like scales covering every inch of its enormous body. However, as I got older, I started to realize that there was no such thing as monsters and that it was all just a figment of my imagination. Accordingly, the fear of the monster under my bed slowly dissipated. Nevertheless, it wasn’t until after reading a quote by my favorite author, Steven King, that I was finally able to fully comprehend what the true definition of the word “monster” really was. “Monsters are real, ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes they win”. It had taken me awhile to truly grasp what King had meant, but then it clicked. Everyone has a monster inside them, dormant or not. That monster is the voice we hear in the back of our heads, urging us to cheat or to steal, and in some instances, worse. That monster

A common concept used throughout literature is monsters that are based solely off of the differences characters are able to identify between themselves and another character. This relates to the fourth thesis in Jeffrey Jerome Cohen’s essay titled Monster Culture, where he states that monsters are based on differences. These differences can include “cultural, political, racial, economic, and sexual” (Cohen 7) differences, just to name a few. This thesis is exemplified in many medieval poems, including Bisclavret, by Marie de France, and Beowulf. Bisclavret and Beowulf both exemplify Cohen’s idea of monsters lying at the point of difference by showing that people discriminate and create stereotypes based on these differences.

A little girl screams in fear for her parents as she envisions a green, three-eyed monster lurking under her bed, waiting to get her until she finally closes her eyes. A little boy scares fellow trick-or-treaters as he’s dressed as a vampire for Halloween brandishing his pointy teeth with blood dripping out of his mouth. Both of these examples of monsters focus on the physicality of a creature and undermine the weight which the word ‘monster’ actually carries. In Shakespeare’s play, The Tempest, and in Mary Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein, there are characters that perfectly fit the description of a tangible monster. However, monsters are more than their somatic features. Monsters are created within based on circumstances, decisions that are

In Mary Shelley´s Gothic novel, Frankenstein, the Monster once claimed, “The fallen angel becomes a malignant devil. Yet even that enemy of God and man had friends and associates in his desolation; I am alone.” Frankenstein, since the 1910 film adaptation, has known a series of several adaptations that changed drastically, not only the plot but one of the main characters, the Monster, from stealing its creator´s name to being portrayed as a cold villain. Though, in the original storyline, the biggest threat to society is the creator itself, the one pretending to play as God, Victor Frankenstein. This essay will discuss the nature of the main characters of the novel and conclude who is the “real monster” in the end.

In the gothic novel Frankenstein, Mary Shelley weaves an intricate web of allusions through her characters’ expedient desires for knowledge. Both the actions of Frankenstein, as well as his monster allude to John Milton’s Paradise Lost. Book eight of Milton’s story relates the tale of Satan’s temptation and Eve’s fateful hunger for knowledge. The infamous Fall of Adam and Eve introduced the knowledge of good and evil into a previously pristine world.

The Creation’s first knowledge of mankind is that humanity will only accept him if he is physically appealing because of the initial rejection from his creator, Frankenstein. Thus, the Creation or ‘monster’ devotes himself to learning how to make his ‘protectors,’ or the De Lacy Family, his friends through reason. He gathers wood for the family and stops stealing their food, demonstrating

Steinbeck often talks about monsters, and does so very intricately in one paragraph. He states people can be born not deemed normal to society because of their physical appearance, and these kind of people are viewed as monsters. In the same argument, Steinbeck questions if someone who is born with a “malformed soul” can be considered

In Mary Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein, the inter-textual connection to the bible is prominent throughout the whole novel. Shelley connected the monster to Adam, Satan, the story of Eve and Adam and the monster reading Paradise Lost. Seeing as the bible was a highly read and recommended text during the early 19th century, Shelley’s establishment of the references served to establish Frankenstein as a sort of allegory of moralist text. She begins her biblical allusions with the idea of creations, mistakes and sins.

Monsters have proven to be more than just the fiendish appearance or the evil within such creatures – their monstrosity symbolizes, more or less, the characteristics that define mankind and/or our innermost fears. Prior to this Exploration of the Humanities course, I have interpreted monsters for what they are: heartless and destructive creatures that generate fear. However, I never bothered what the true cause of such fear is – only associating the gruesome presence with a psychological reaction of horror. But taking this class allowed me to broaden my perspective on monsters and monstrosity: humans fear the “Other” because we as individuals have an “Other” within us (subconsciously) that we are not willing to show to those in our