The Nature of Horror Author(s): Noel Carroll Source: The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 46, No. 1 (Autumn, 1987), pp. 51-59 Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of The American Society for Aesthetics Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/431308 Accessed: 12/05/2010 10:32

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http://www.jstor.org NOEL CARROLL

The Nature of Horror

FOR NEARLY A DECADE and a half, perhaps espe- Romero's Night of the Living Dead or Scott's cially in America, horror has flourished as a Alien. We shall call this art-horror.It is differ- major source of mass aesthetic stimulation. ent from the sort of horror one expresses in Horrornovels seem available in virtuallyevery saying "I am horrified by the prospect of supermarketand pharmacy, and new titles ap- ecological disaster" or "Terrorist acts are pear with unnervingrapidity. One authorin this horrifying." Call the latter usage of "horror" genre, Stephen King, has become a household natural horror. It is not the purpose of this name, while others, like Peter Straub, though essay to analyze natural horror, but only art- less well known, command large followings. horror- "horror," that is, as it serves to name Popular movies, as well, have remained so a cross-art genre whose existence is already obsessed with horror since the success of The recognized in ordinary language. Indeed, one Exorcist that it is difficult to visit your local might regard the first part of this article as an multiplex theater without meeting at least one attempt to rationally reconstructthe latent cri- monster. Horror and music explicitly join teria for identifying art-horrorthat are operative forces in many rock videos, notably Thriller, in ordinarylanguage. though one must remember that the iconogra- In order to avoid misunderstanding, it is phy of horrorsupplies a pervasive colorationof necessary to emphasize that by "art-horror"we much MTV. Of course, nonmusic TV itself are referringnarrowly to the effects of a specific offers several horror programs, such as Tales genre. Of course, one might be horrifiedby the from the Dark Side, while Broadway was re- events in a nonhorrornovel, for example, one cently terrorizedby Gorey's version of Dracula. might be horrified by the murder in The Horrorfigures even in fine art, not only directly Stranger. Nevertheless, though such horror is in works by Francis Bacon, H. R. Giger, and generatedby art, it is not part of the phenome- Sibylle Ruppert,but also allusionisticallyin the non we are calling "art-horror.""Art-horror," pastisches of many postmodernartists. In short, by stipulation, is supposed to refer to the horrorhas become a staple across contemporary product of a genre that crystallized roughly artforms, popular and otherwise, spawning around the time of the publication of Mary vampires, trolls, gremlins, zombies, were- Shelley's Frankensteinand that has continued, wolves, demonically possessed children, space often cyclically, to persist through the novels monstersof all sizes, ghosts, and other unname- and plays of the nineteenth century and the able concoctions at a pace that has made the last literatureand films of the twentieth.2Moreover, decade or so seem like one long Halloween it must be noted that though our emphasis is on night. Thus, the time is ripe to initiate an genre, we shall not respect the notion that aesthetic inquiry into the natureof horror.' horror and science fiction are discrete genres. The type of horror to be explored in this Much science fiction of the bug-eyed monster paper is that associated with reading something school, for instance, is really a species of like Stoker's Dracula or Blackwood's "An- horror, substituting supernatural forces with cient Sorceries" or with seeing something like futuristictechnologies. This is not to say that all science fiction is a subcategory of horror, but NOELCARROLL is professor of philosophyat Wesleyan only that much is. Thus, in our examples, we University. will move freely between what is called horror

? 1987 The Journalof Aesthetics and Art Criticism 52 CARROLL and science fiction. would not be a sufficient condition. For mon- It should not be assumed that all genres can sters inhabit all sorts of stories, such as fairy be analyzed in the same way. Westerns, for tales, myths, and odysseys,3 that we are not example, are identified primarily in virtue of wont to identify as horror. their setting. Novels, films, plays, paintings, What appearsto distinguish the horrorstory and so on that are grouped under the label of from mere stories with monsters, such as fairy "horror" are identified accordingto a different tales, is the attitudeof charactersin the story to sort of criterion. Like suspense novels or mys- the monsters they chance upon. In works of tery novels, novels are denominatedhorrific in horror, the humans regard the monsters that respect of their intended capacity to provoke a they encounteras abnormal,as disturbancesof certainaffective response. Indeed, the genres of the natural order. In fairy tales, on the other suspense, mystery, and horrorderive their very hand, monsters are part of the everyday furni- names from the affects they are intended to ture of the universe. In "The Three Princesses promote-a sense of suspense, a sense of mys- of Whiteland," for example, the lad is beset by tery, and a sense of horror. Again, not all a three-headedtroll; however, the writing does genres are identified this way-a musical is not not signal that he finds this creatureto be any tied to any specific affect. But the genres that more unusual than the lions he had previously are named by the very affect they are designed walked past. A creaturelike Chewbacca in the to provoke suggest a very tantalizing strategy space opera Star Wars is just one of the guys, throughwhich to pursue their analysis. though a creature made up in the same wolf Like suspense, works of horrorare designed outfit, in a film like The Howling, would be to elicit a certain kind of affect. We shall regardedwith utter revulsion by the humans in presume that this is an emotional state whose that film. In examples of horror, it would emotion we call art-horror. Thus, one can appear that the monster is an extraordinary expect to locate the genre of horror,in part, by character in our ordinary world, whereas in a specification of art-horror,the emotion that fairy tales and the like the monster is an works of this type are designed to engender. ordinarycharacter in an extraordinaryworld. Such an analysis, of course, is not a priori;it is One indicator, then, of that which differenti- an attempt, in the traditionof The Poetics, to ates works of horrorproper from monster sto- provide clarificatory generalizations about a ries in general is the affective responses of the body of work that we antecedently accept as characters in the stories to the monsters they constitutinga family. meet. Though so far we have only spoken about Initially, it is tempting to differentiate the the emotions of charactersin horrorstories, the horrorgenre from others by saying that horror preceding hypothesis is nevertheless useful for novels, stories, films, plays, and so on are getting at the emotional responses that works of markedby the presence of monsters of either a horror are designed to elicit from audiences. supernaturalor sci-fi origin. This distinguishes For horrorappears to be one of those genres in horrorfrom what are sometimes called tales of which, ideally, the emotive responses of the terror, such as Poe's "The Pit and the Pendu- audience run parallel to the emotions of char- lum" and "The TelltaleHeart," or Hitchcock's acters. Indeed, in works of horrorthe responses Psycho, which, though eerie and scary, achieve of charactersoften seem to cue the emotional their hairraising effects by exploring extreme responses of the audience. psychological phenomena that are all too hu- In "JonathanHarker's Journal" in Dracula, man. Similarly, by using monsters or other we read supernaturalentities as a criterion, one could separate horror stories from Gothic exercises As the Count leaned over me and his handstouched me, such as Radcliff's Mysteries of Udolpho, where I could not repressa shudder.It may have been that his suspicions of otherworldly beings are intro- breathwas rank, but a horriblefeeling of nausea came duced only to be explained away naturalisti- over me, which do what I would, I could not conceal. cally. However, even if a case could be made that a monster or a monstrous entity is a This shudder,this recoil at the vampire'stouch, necessary condition for horror, such a criterion this feeling of nausea structuresour emotional The Nature of Horror 53 reception of the ensuing descriptions of mind to sleep." Shortly after this, the monster, Dracula;for example, when his protrudingteeth with an outstretchedhand, wakens Victor, who are mentioned we regard them as shudder- flees from its touch. In "The Sea-Raiders," H. inducing, nauseating, rank, and not something G. Wells, using the third person, narratesMr. one would either want to touch or be touched Frison's reaction to some unsavory, glistening, by. Similarly, we model our emotional re- tentacled creatures: "he was horrified, of sponse upon ones like that of the young woman course, and intensely excited and indignant at in Night of the Living Dead who, when sur- such revolting creatures preying on human rounded by zombies, screams and clutches skin." In Muir's "The Reptile," MacAndrew's herself in such a way as to avoid contact with first response to what he takes to be a largish, the contaminatedflesh. The charactersof works deadly snake is described as "the paralysing of horrorexemplify for us the way in which to grip of repulsion and surprise." And for a more react to the monsters in the fiction. Our emo- contemporary illustration, consider the dream tions are supposed to mirrorthose of the posi- portent Jack Sawyer encounters in The Talis- tive human characters.This is not the case for man, by King and Straub: every genre. If Aristotle is right about catharsis, the emotional state of the audience does not some terrible creature had been coming for his double that of Oedipus at the end of the play. mother-a dwarvish monstrosity with misplaced eyes Also, when a comic charactertakes a pratfall, and rotting, cheesy skin. "Your mother's almost dead, Jack, can you say hallelujah'?"This monstrosity had he hardly feels joyous, though we do. Never- croaked, and Jack knew-the way you knew things in theless, with horrorthe emotions of the charac- dreams-that it was radioactive, and that if it touched ters and those of the audience are synchronized, him he would die. as one can observe easily at a Saturdaymatinee at one's local cinema. What examples like this (which can be mul- That the audience's emotional response is tiplied endlessly) indicate is that the character's modeled on that of charactersprovides us with affective reaction to the monstrous in horror a useful methodological advantagein analyzing stories is not merely a matter of fear, i.e., of the emotion of art-horror.It suggests a way in being frightened by something that threatens which we can formulate an objective, as op- danger. Rather, threatis compoundedby revul- posed to an introspective, picture of the emo- sion, nausea, and disgust. The monster is so tion of horror. That is, ratherthan characteriz- unwholesome that its very touch causes shud- ing art-horrorsolely on the basis of our own ders. And this corresponds as well with the subjective responses, we can ground our con- tendency in horror novels and stories to de- jectures on observations of the way in which scribe monsters in terms of, and associate them charactersrespond to the monsters in works of with, filth, decay, deterioration,slime, and so horror.That is, if we proceedunder the assump- on. tion that our emotional responses as audience The reports of characters' internal reactions members are supposed to parallel those of to monsters-whether from a first person, sec- characters, then we can begin to portray art- ond person (e.g., Fuentes's Aura) or authorial horrorby noting the typical emotional features point of view-in horror stories correspond to that authorsand directorsattribute to characters the more behavioral reactions one can observe beleaguered by monsters. in theaterand cinema. Just before the monsteris How do characters respond to monsters in visualized to the audience, we often see the horror stories? Well, of course, they're fright- character shudder in disbelief, responding to ened. After all, monsters are dangerous. But this violation of nature. Their faces contort. there is more to it than this. In Shelley's famous They freeze in a moment of recoil, transfixed, novel, Victor Frankensteinrecounts his reaction sometimes paralyzed. They start. Their hands to the first movements of his creation: "now are drawn toward their bodies in an act of that I had finished, the beauty of the dream protection but also of revulsion and disgust. vanished and disgust filled my heart. Unable to Along with the fear of severe physical harm, endure the aspect of the being I had created, I there is an evident aversion to making physical rushed out of the room, unable to compose my contact with the monster. Both fear and disgust 54 CARROLL are etched on the characters' features. Within only physical perturbationsbut beliefs, beliefs the context of the horrornarrative, the monsters about the properties of objects and situations. are identified as impure and unclean. They are Moreover, these beliefs are not just factual- putrid or mouldering things, or they hail from e.g., there is a large truck coming at me-but oozing places, or they are made of dead or evaluative-that large truckis dangerousto me. rotting flesh, or chemical waste, or are associ- Now when I am in a state of fear with regardto ated with vermin, disease, or crawling things. this truck, I am in some physical state-perhaps They are not only lethal but they make one's my muscles go limp-and this physical state skin creep. Characters regard them not only has been caused by my cognitive state, by my with fear but also with loathing, with a combi- beliefs that the truck is headed toward me and nation of terrorand disgust. that it is dangerous. My muscles going limp But before we attempt to work these obser- could be associatedwith many emotional states; vations into a theory of art-horror,a few com- what makes my emotional state fear in this case ments should be made about the structureof are my beliefs. That is, cognitive states differ- emotions.4 We are presupposingthat art-horror entiate one emotion from another though for a is an emotion, one reflected in the emotional state to be an emotional one there must also be responsesof charactersto the monstersin works some kind of physical agitation that has been of horror. Furthermore,we are presuming that engendered by the presiding cognitive state. art-horroris an occurrentemotional state, as is We can summarizethis view of the emotions a flash of anger, rather than a dispositional by saying that an occurrent emotional state is emotional state, such as undying envy. An one in which some physically abnormalstate of occurrentemotional state has both physical and agitation has been caused by the subject's cognitive dimensions. Broadly speaking, the cognitive construaland evaluation of his or her physical dimension is a matterof felt agitations. situation. This is the core of an emotional state, In respect to art-horrorsome of the generally though some emotions may involve wants and relevant types of physical agitationsare muscu- desires as well as construals and evaluations. lar contractions, tension, cringing, shuddering, Using this account of the emotions, we are recoiling, tingling, frozenness, momentary ar- now in a position to organize our observations rests, paralysis, trembling, perhapsinvoluntary about the emotion of horroror art-horror.As- screaming, and so on.5 In order to be in an suming that "I-as-audience-member"am in an emotional state, one must undergo some con- analogous emotional state to that which charac- comitant physical agitation; one could not be ters are described to be in, then "I am said to be angry unless your negative evaluation occurrentlyart-horrified by Dracula if and only of the man standing on your foot were accom- if (1) I am in some state of abnormalphysical panied by some physical state, like being "hot agitation (shuddering, tingling, screaming, under the collar." etc.) which (2) has been caused by (a) my However, though in order to qualify as an thought: that Dracula is a possible being, and emotional state, a state must correlate with my evaluative beliefs that (b) said Dracula has some physical agitation;the specific emotional the property of being physically (and perhaps state one is in is not determinedby the kinds of morally) threateningin the ways portrayed in physical agitations one is suffering. That is, no the fiction, and that (c) said Dracula has the specific physical state representsa necessary or property of being impure, where (3) such be- sufficient condition for a given emotional state. liefs are accompaniedby the desire to avoid the When I am angry, my blood runs cold, whereas touch of things like Dracula. Of course, when you are angry, your blood boils. In order "Dracula" here is merely a heuristic device. to be in an emotional state some physical Any old monster X can be plugged into the agitationmust obtain, though an emotional state formula. will not be identifiedby being associated with a One thing to note about the preceding defi- unique physical state or even a unique assort- nition is that it is the evaluative beliefs that ment of physical states. primarilyserve to individuate art-horror.And, What then individuates emotional states? moreover, it is crucial that two evaluative Their cognitive elements. Emotions involve not beliefs come into play: that the monster is The Nature of Horror 55 regarded as threatening and impure. If the as well as in virtue of being formless, like dirt, monster were only evaluated as potentially for example. threatening,the emotion would be fear; if only Following Douglas, then, we initially specu- potentially impure, the emotion would be dis- late that an object or being is impure if it is gust. Art-horror requires evaluation both in categorically interstitial, categorically contra- terms of threat and disgust. It might also be dictory, categorically incomplete, or formless.8 mentioned that though the third criterion about This list may not be exhaustive, nor is it clear the desire to avoid physical contact seems that its terms are mutually exclusive. But it is accurate,it might have to be droppedin favor of certainly useful for analyzing the monsters of saying that it is a frequent but not necessary the horrorgenre. For they are beings or crea- ingredientof art-horror.6 tures which specialize in formlessness, incom- Undoubtedly, the use of "impure" in our pleteness, categoricalinterstitiality and categor- definition will strike some as too vague. But ical contradictoriness. Let a brief inventory perhapswe can relieve some of those anxieties carry this point. concerning vagueness by saying something Many monsters of the horrorgenre are inter- about the kinds of objects that standardlygive stitial and/or contradictory in terms of being rise to, or cause, reactions of impurity. This, both living and dead: ghosts, zombies, vam- moreover, will enable us to expand our theory pires, mummies, the Frankenstein monster, of art-horrorfrom the realm of definition to that Melmoth, and so on. Near relatives to these are of explanation, from an analysis of the applica- monstrousentities that conflate the animate and tion of the concept of art-horrorto an analysis of the inanimate:haunted houses with malevolent its causation. wills of their own, robots, and the car in King's In her classic study Purity and Danger, Mary Christine. Also, many monsters confound dif- Douglas correlates reactions of impurity with ferent species: dragons, werewolves, humanoid the transgression or violation of schemes of insects, and humanoidreptiles.9 The creaturein culturalcategorization.7 In her interpretationof Howard Hawks's classic The Thing is an intel- the abominationsof Leviticus, for example, she ligent, two-legged, blood-sucking carrot. In- hypothesizes that the reason crawling things deed, the frequent reference to monsters by from the sea, like lobsters, are regarded as means of pronouns like "it" and "them" impureis thatcrawling was a defining featureof suggests that these creaturesare not classifiable earthboundcreatures, not of creatures of the according to our standardcategories. sea. A lobster, in other words, is a kind of Demonically possessed characters typically category mistake and, hence, impure. Simi- involve the mixtureof at least two categorically larly, all winged insects with four legs are distinct individuals, the possessee and the pos- abominatedbecause though four legs is a fea- sessor, the latterusually a demon, who, in turn, ture of land animals, these things fly, i.e., they is often thought of as a categorically transgres- inhabit the air. Things that are interstitial, that sive figure (e.g., a goat-god). Stevenson's most cross the boundariesof the deep categories of a famous monster is two men, Jekyll and Hyde, culture's conceptual scheme, are impure, ac- whereas the Frankensteinmonster is a compos- cording to Douglas. Feces, insofar as they ite of many different men. 10 figure ambiguously in terms of categorical op- Categoricalincompleteness is also a standard positions such as me/not me, inside/outside, feature of the monsters of horror: ghosts and and living/dead, serve as ready candidates for zombies frequently come without eyes, arms, abhorrence as impure, as do spittle, blood, legs, or skin, or are in some advanced state of tears, sweat, hair clippings, nail clippings, disintegration.And, in a related vein, detached pieces of flesh, and so on. Douglas notes that body parts are quite serviceable monsters, as in among the Lele people, flying squirrels are the cases of severed heads and especially sev- avoided since they cannot be categorizedunam- ered hands; for example, DeMauppassant's biguously as either birds or animals. Also, "The Hand" and "The Withered Hand," objects can raise categorical misgivings in vir- LeFanu's "The Narrative of a Ghost of a tue of being incomplete representativesof their Hand," Golding's "The Call of the Hand," class, such as rotting and disintegratingthings, Conan Doyle's "The Brown Hand," Nerval's 56 CARROLL

"The Enchanted Hand," Dreiser's "The way of answeringthis is by means of an Illusion Hand," Harvey's "The Beast With Five Theory: When people see Dracula onscreen, Fingers," and so on. The rate of recurrence they literallybelieve he is before them attacking with which the biologies of monstersare vapor- virgins or turninginto a bat. But this seems to ous or gelatinous attests to the notion of the be an improbablehypothesis, since audiences formlessness of horrific impurity, while the do not behave as though they believed that writing style of certain horrorauthors, such as Dracula was present in the movie theater or Lovecraft and Straub, through their vague, anywhere nearby. If they did, they'd head for suggestive, and at times inchoate descriptionof the hills or at least reach for their rosary beads. the monsters, leaves an impressionof formless- An alternativeapproach is the Pretend The- ness. " And of course, some monsters, like the ory. This approachgrants that people know that scorpion big enough to eat Mexico City, are Dracula does not exist-that he is fictional- magnificationsof creaturesand crawling things and goes on to explain our emotional response already judged impure and interstitial in the in terms of pretense. We are not really horrified, folkways of the culture. for we know Dracula is nonexistent, but we Douglas's observations, then, may help pretendto be horrified.13 The problemwith this dispell some of the fuzziness of the impurity line of approach,however, is that though inge- clause of our definition of art-horror.They can nious, it does not seem descriptively accurate. be used to supply paradigmaticexamples for When I am art-horrifiedby Dracula I am in a our applicationof the impurityclause as well as genuine emotional state, not a pretend state. a rough guiding principlefor isolating impurity, One needs something between the Illusion viz., that of categorical transgression.Further- Theory and the PretendTheory, something that more, Douglas's theory of impuritycan be used does not commit the audience to a belief in by scholars of horror to identify some of the Draculabut also leaves the audience in a state of pertinentfeatures of the monsters in the stories genuine emotion. An alternative might be the they study. That is, given a monster, the scholar Thought Theory. That is, saying we are art- can ask in what ways it is categorically intersti- horrifiedby Dracula means we are horrifiedby tial, contradictory(in Douglas's sense), incom- the thought of Dracula where the thought of plete, and/or formless. These features, more- such a possible being does not commit us to a over, afford a crucial part of the causal belief in his existence. Here, the thought of background of the reaction of impurity that Dracula, the thing that art-horrifiesme, is not operates in the raising of the emotion of art- the event of my thinking of Dracula but the horror.They are partof what triggersit. This is content of the thought, viz., that Dracula, a not to say that we realize that Draculais, among threateningand impure being of such and such other things, categorically interstitial and that dimensions, might exist and do these terrible we then react, accordingly, with art-horror. things. Nor need it be assumed that I am Rather, monster X's being categorically inter- reflexively aware of the content of my thought. stitial causes a sense of impurity in us without Dracula is presented onscreen and I am art- our awareness of what causes that sense. In horrified by the prospect that there could be addition, the emphasis Douglas places on cate- such a being perpetratingsuch deeds. Since it is gorical schemes in the analysis of impurity only the thoughtor the prospectof Dracula that indicates a way in which we can account for the frightens me, I don't run from the theater, nor recurrentdescription of our impure monsters as am I as anxious as I would be if I believed that "unnatural." They are unnaturalrelative to a a real vampire was only ten rows away. It culture's conceptual scheme of nature.They do appears to be an incontrovertiblefact that we not fit the scheme; they violate it. Thus, mon- may be frightened by the thought of a state of sters are not only physically threatening;they affairs that does not correspond to the world. are cognitively threatening.They are threatsto One may be frightened by the prospect or the common knowledge. 12 thought of U.S. troops invading CentralAmer- One question that inevitably arises when ica. The commitment to thoughts here may examining a phenomenon like art-horror is: raise fundamentalphilosophical quandariesfor how can people be horrified by a fiction? One some; however, in the question of art-horror, The Nature of Horror 57 our dependence on thoughts appears more pal- monster. The energies of the narrativeare then atable than the postulationof pretendemotions devoted to proving the monster's existence. or audience beliefs in vampires. Such a plot celebrates the existence of things The theory of art-horroradvanced above has beyond the boundariesof common knowledge. not been derived from a set of deeper principles. The OverreacherPlot, of which Frankenstein The way to confirm it is to take the definition and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are leading and the partial typology of the structuresthat examples, proposes a central figure embarked gives rise to the sense of impurityand to see if on the pursuit of hidden, unholy, or forbidden they apply to the reactions we find to the knowledge. Once the scientist, alchemist, monsters indigenous to works of horror. In my priest, etc., acts on this forbiddenknowledge- own research, though admittedly casual, these e.g., brings a corpse to life-inestimable, hypotheses, so far, have proved rewarding. maleficentpower is released and the consequent Moreover, these hypotheses seem worthwhile destructionis the stuff of the story. Whereasthe candidatesfor more rigorousattempts at corrob- protagonists in the Discovery Plot must go oration than I have the training to pursue. beyond the bounds of common knowledge, I have also found collateral support for this overreachers are warned not to exceed them. theory of art-horrorinsofar as it has enabled me But both the majorplots of the horrorgenre take to frame interestinganswers to furtherquestions the compass of common knowledge as their about horrorand paved the way for speculation basic donnee and explore it, albeit for different in unexpected directions. That is, the theory thematic effects. This, of course, fits very affords the basis for a continuing, highly coher- nicely with a theory that regards cognitive ent researchprogram. Thus, before concluding, threat as a major factor in the generation of I will mention some of the explanatory"fringe art-horror. benefits" of the theory in the hopes that these (3) The geography of horror stories often will enhance its attractiveness. situates the origin of monsters in such places as (1) It is a remarkablefact about the creatures lost continents and outer space. Or the creature of horrorthat very often they do not seem to be comes from under the sea or under the earth. of sufficient strength to make a grown man That is, monstersare native to places outside of cower. A tettering zombie or a severed hand and/or unknown to the human world. Or, the would appear incapable of mustering enough creaturescome from marginal,hidden, or aban- force to overpower a coordinatedsix-year-old. doned sites: graveyards, sewers, or old houses. Nevertheless, they are presented as unstop- That is, they belong to environs outside of and pable, and this seems psychologically accept- unknown to ordinary social life. Given the able to audiences. This might be explained by theory of horrorexpounded above, it is tempt- noting Douglas's claim that culturally impure ing to interpret the geography of horror as a objects are generally taken to be invested with figurative spatializationof the notion that what magical powers and as a result are often em- horrifies is that which lies outside cultural ployed in rituals. Monsters, by extension then, categories and is, perforce, unknown. may be similarly imbued with awesome powers (4) Finally, we began by noting that we are in virtue of their impurity. in the midst of a period in which art-horroris (2) Horror stories are predominantly con- one of the major avenues of mass aesthetic cerned with knowledge as a theme. The two stimulation.Thus, it would be interestingif our most frequent plot structures in horror narra- theory of art-horrorcould contribute to our tives are the Discovery Plot and the Over- understandingof why at present the fascination reacherPlot. 14 In the Discovery Plot, the mon- with horroris so unquenchable. ster arrives, unbeknownstto anyone, and sets Adopting the role of armchair sociologist, about its gruesome work. Graduallythe protag- one notes that the present art-horrorcycle is onist or a group of protagonistsdiscover that a approximately coincident with a moment that monsteris responsible for all those unexplained many have chosen to call postmodernism.Pro- deaths. However, when the protagonists ap- ponents of postmodernism hail it as a period proachthe authoritieswith this information,the marked by the philosophical triumph of authorities dismiss the very possibility of the antiessentialism and by the purportedrecogni- 58 CARROLL tion that our concepts cannot be tethered by nineteenthas a variationon the Gothic form in England(and criteria.15 Deconstructionis the watchword. in related developments in Germany). For an overview of this tradition, see Elizabeth MacAndrew, The Gothic Tra- Now many may, as I do, question the philo- dition (Columbia University Press, 1979). I am at pains to sophical pretensionsof the postmoderns.But in stress the historicity of the phenomenain question to avoid their disavowal of criteria they may have cap- the fashionablecharge of ahistoricismso frequentlyleveled tured the spirit of the times. As social expres- at philosophers of art nowadays. I am not offering a sion, rather than as persuasive philosophy, transhistoricalaccount of horror,but a theory of a historical genre and its affects. postmodernrhetoric may reflect the recent ex- 3 Todorovwould classify these stories under the head- perience of the collapse of the conceptual fixi- ing of "the marvelous." Though I have been influenced by ties, or more aptly, the presuppositionsof Pax Todorov in this essay, I have not taken advantage of his Americana. In this respect, the current ascen- categories because I want to draw a distinction within the category of supernaturaltales between those which indulge dancy of the genre of horrormay be the mass art-horrorand those that don't. See Tzvetan Todorov, The popular expression of the same anxiety con- Fantastic (Cornell University Press, 1970). cerning criteria that preoccupies the more eso- 4 This essay closely follows the account of the emo- teric forms of postmodernism.For as our theory tions outlined in William Lyons, The Emotions (Cambridge art-horroris an entertainmentpredi- University Press, 1980). suggests, 5 This is not an exhaustive list, nor is it supposed that cated on the dislocation of cultural criteria an exhaustive list is possible. throughcategorical interstitiality,contradictori- 6 Our account obviously depends on a cognitive- ness, and so on. That is, our theory puts us in a evaluative theoryof the emotions. Such theories, of course, position to interpretthe currenthorror cycle as have been confrontedby counterexamples.For instance, it is said that we are in emotional states while dancing and that an exoteric variant of the postmodemnistsense that is a matter of rhythm and physiology rather than of that at present our conceptual frameworksare, cognition and evaluation. I am disposed to think that if we putatively, precariouslyunstable. are in an emotional state when dancing, then that has to do with our evaluation of the situation, our evaluation, for ' I have alreadyattempted a theoryof horrorcinema in example, of what the dance stands for or celebrates, or our my "Nightmare and the HorrorFilm: The Symbolic Biol- evaluation of our bond with our partner or the larger ogy of Fantastic Beings," Film Quarterly (Spring 1981). community of dancers or our audience or our relation to An expanded version of this essay was reprinted in The accompanyingmusicians. Or the evaluation might have to Anxious Subject, Moshe Lazar, ed. (Belmost, CA, 1983). do with ourselves, with the joy that comes fromjudging that The presentessay is meant to supersedethe earlierone. My we dance well, or from appreciatingbeing coordinatedand emphasis now is on a more cognitively orientedapproach to active. That is, if we are in an emotional state while horror than in the previous essay, which was heavily dancing, it seems attributableto many sorts of evaluative dependent on psychoanalysis. This change in direction, I beliefs. Simply being in a rhythmicallyinduced, trancelike think, provides a more comprehensive account of the state, directed at no object, does not seem to be an "repelling" aspects of horror than do my psychoanalytic emotional state. However, even if I am wrong here, it does hypotheses. This theoreticalshift, however, is not meant to not seem that such counterexamplesshow that there are no preclude psychoanalytic interpretationsof given works of cognitive-evaluative emotional states. And, of course, I horror. I would still defend most of the psychoanalytic would hold that horroris one of them. interpretationsof individual works propoundedin "Night- This move, though, invites the response that, like the mare and the HorrorFilm," as well as most of the structural putative dance emotions, shock is a rhythmicallyinduced, accounts of horrorimagery and narration. nonevaluativeemotion, and that horrorand art-horrorreally In the earlieressay, it was noted that an adequatetheory belong to the genus of shock. I would not want to deny that of horrorwould have to accountfor the way thathorror both shock is often involved in tandem with art-horror,espe- attractsand repels its devotees. In this respect, the present cially in theater and cinema. Just before the monster essay is not a full theory. It only explores the negative or appears,the music shoots up, or there is a startlingnoise, or repelling component of horror. A revised account of the we see an unexpected, fast movement start out from attractivenessof the horrorgenre remains to be made. For "nowhere." We jump in our seats, and perhaps some material on the seductive fascination of horror, see Philip scream. When we then recognize the monster, that scream Hallie, The Paradox of Cruelty(Wesleyan University Press, of shock gets extended and applied as a scream of horror. 1969), pp. 63-84. This is a well-known scare tactic. However, horroris not 2 Of course, horrific imagery can be found across the reducible to this sort of shock. For this technique is also ages, including, in Petronius's tale of the werewolf found in mysteries and thrillers, where we don't feel horror (Satyricon), Apuleius's story of Aristomenes and Socrates at the gunman who suddenly steps out of the dark. This (The GoldenAss), and in the medieval danses macabres and varietyof shock does not seem to me to be an emotion at all, characterizationsof Hell such as Vision of St. Paul, Vision but rathera reflex, though, of course, it is a reflex that is of Tundaleand, most famously, Dante's Inferno. However, often linked with the provocation of art-horrorby the the genre of horroronly begins to coalesce between the last artisansof monster spectacles. And, anyway, it must also half of the eighteenth century and the first quarterof the be stressed that one can feel art-horrorwithout being The Nature of Horror 59 shocked in the reflex sense of the term. as horrifying because they suggest virtually formless 7 Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger (London, 1966). mounds of human flesh. See his Lying Figure with a 8 "Object' and "entity" are stressed here in order to HypodermicSyringe. block certain counterexamples.Category errorsand logical 12 Consideringthe opening distinctions in this essay, a paradoxes, though they may horrify philosophers, are not question arises at this point concerning the reason why the normallyregarded as impure. But neitherdo they belong to monstersof fairy tales do not raise horrorresponses in either the domain of "objects and entities." For the purpose of the human charactersthey meet or in their readers. Surely analyzing art-horror,the domain of objects that are to be these monsters are categorical violations. My provisional in terms of impurityare beings. assessed answer to this relies on noting the way in which fairy tales ' Sibylle mixes differentspecies in her horrific Ruppert characteristicallybegin with formulas like "Once upon a charcoal drawings, such as The Third Sex. Also see Lucas time.' Perhapsthis functions to remove them from the rules Samaras's Photo-transformation.H. R. Giger's work not only compounds the categorical opposites of the organic of prevailing categorical schemes. and the mechanical, but also those of inside and outside. 1' See Kendall Walton, "'FearingFictions,' Journal 10 A typology of the combinatory structureof horror Of Philosophy 75 (1978). " imagery-stated in terms of the notions of fusion and These plots are described at greater length in my fission-is available in Carroll, "Nightmareand the Horror "Nightmare and the HorrorFilm." Film.' 5 Jean-FrancoisLyotard and Jean-LoupThebaud, Just " Though not strictly horrorimages in the terms of our Gaming (University of Minnesota Press, 1985). theory, Bacon's paintingsprobably often evoke descriptions