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Introduction to Monster Studies

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Introduction to Monster Studies Introduction to Monster Studies: Apocalyptic and Post-Apocalyptic Cohen Thesis 3 Monster Literature ♦ Monsters are the harbinger of category crisis ♦ they do not fall into neat categories that are known to us Monster theory ♦ Unnatural creatures 1) Psychological approach ♦ dangerous because they are "disturbing hybrids" (E.g. zombie / vampire ♦ the monster embodies fears of the mind = dead human but alive) ♦ Focus on the personal experience ♦ defy logic and our current knowledge (how did it start? what causes it? ♦ Julia Kristeva’s concept of the abject (in: Powers of Horror: An Essay on how do we stop/kill them?) Abjection) Cohen Thesis 4 ♦ abjection: ♦ Monsters dwell at gates of difference ♦ “the state of being cast off”: the process by which one separates one's ♦ embody "the other" – that is what scares us (E.g. contemporary fears: bad sense of self from that which immediately threatens one's sense of life guy = Russian = alien from outside us) ♦ the process that separates from one's environment what "is not me„ ♦ history itself becomes monster (E.g. heterosexuality vs. homosexuality, ♦ Freud’s concept of the uncanny (related concept) black people) Cohen Thesis 5 2) Historical / Cultural approach ♦ The monster polices borders of the possible ♦ Monsters are inherently connected to the era that creates them ♦ every monster is a double narrative ♦ Michel Foucault: every historical age has its “privileged monster” 1) how it came to be ♦ Jeffrey Jerome Cohen: “Monster Culture. (Seven theses)” 2) what cultural use it serves ♦ Demarcates the borders we cannot cross Cohen thesis 1 ♦ it's always outside society ♦ Monster's body = cultural body ♦ threat of it keeps you in your place or from going somewhere ♦ never just a monster - always signifies something else ♦ not only physical, also social/cultural borders ♦ reflection of fears/anxieties and projection of them ♦ The monster is transgressive, a lawbreaker, it must be destroyed (but the ♦ tied to time/place/feeling of when they were created repressed returns, Freud warns) Cohen thesis 2 Cohen Thesis 6 ♦ The monster always escapes ♦ The fear of monster is really a kind of desire ♦ may escape and and come back; may be killed but would be replaced by ♦ Linked to forbidden practices more ♦ attracts us, we envy its freedom (temporary release from constraints) ♦ Its interpretation depends the culture and time that creates them ♦ acts as alter ego as an alluring projection of the self (an Other self) ♦ same monsters are used over and over again, but they gain different ♦ dangerously entices – we're scared, but we need them meanings each time ♦ do they really exist? if not, how could we? ♦ becoming more good-accepting ♦ part of escapist fantasy (Halloween) ♦ blending lines between good and bad, not black and white – grey ♦ we love them (scary movies, but you're safe) Cohen Thesis 7 The evolution of the vampire narrative ♦ The monster stands at threshold of becoming ♦ The new vampires break into his house and take him ♦ always returns ♦ His fate is execution ♦ bears human knowledge from outside ♦ Reason: these vampires fear him, he has been killing the vampires for 3 ♦ asks us how we perceive world years → “I am Legend” ♦ asks us to reevaluate cultural assumptions on race, gender, sexuality, ♦ “... And suddenly he thought, I'm the abnormal one now. Normalcy was a perception toward differences and tolerance toward its expression majority concept, the standard of many and not the standard of just one ♦ asks us why we have created them man.” ♦ we create them from imagination ♦ Who is the monster, then? (traditional vs new narrative) 1) Traditional vampire narrative: Richard Matheson: I Am Legend ♦ Invasion from the inside (body snatcher narratives) ♦ Clear divide between humans (good) and vampires (bad/dangerous) Vampire symptoms: 2) New vampire narrative: ♦ sensitive to garlic, light, mirrors, and holy objects from the faith the ♦ Destabilizing the category of the monster person used to belong ♦ vampires: monsters to Neville; Neville: monster to new vampires ♦ dormant during the day ♦ Bullets do not kill them Monstrosity ♦ Impaling kills them ♦ Demystifying the fantastic ♦ explicable threat; originates from humans not as a psychological threat Autodidactic research: demystification of the vampire but as the result of human error ♦ Isolating vampire germ ♦ The monster is inseparable from its creator ♦ Sun allergy: ensures the survival of the bacterium 1) vampires = Neville’s monsters; Neville = vampire’s monster ♦ Religious symbols + mirror: psychological reaction 2 cultural reading: vampire = culture-specific threat ♦ Garlic: allergic reaction ♦ Impaling anywhere by any sharp object: cutting the gluing effect of the Cultural reading / Conclusion bacteria ♦ Written: in 1956 – era of McCarthyism, “Red Scare” ♦ 2 types identified: 1) living vampires 2) the “true undead” ♦ Humanizing the monster; discarding binarism → criticism of the ♦ Turn: type 3 identified (Ruth): living vampire who looks human paranoid inner affairs politics of McCarthyism ♦ Learned how to survive: taking pills that nourish the vampiris germ & ♦ Spread of vampires as the result of ecological catastrophy (caused by keep it from multiplying and destroying the host bombing) → Cold war: preparations for a possible nuclear world war ♦ New society of such vampires ♦ Diegetic present of the novel: 1976: 200th anniversary of the Declaration ♦ Aggressively killing the “truly dead” vampires of Independence ♦ Cf. Thematic focus: the rise of a new race Marissa Meyer: Cinder Fairy tale rewriting as cultural context ♦ Traditional feminine roles of the fairy tales vs rewritten, feminist roles Loosely based on fairy tales matching a more feminist era Cinder: Cinderella ♦ Changing the character’s level of agency and the outcome of the story: Scarlet: Little Red Riding Hood emphasizing freedom Cress: Rapunzel ♦ Monster as oppressed woman in servitude → liberated woman, Queen of Winter: Snow White her own right, who may choose to marry Kai as her equal in the end (despite her cyborg nature) Setting ♦ New Beijing in Asia as Eastern Commonwealth ♦ Why? Proto-Cinderella story: Chinese “Ye Xian”, 9th century ♦ Humans, cyborgm androids (hierarchy) ♦ Letumosis (Blue Fever) – fatal disease, no cure ♦ Lunars want to conquer Earth ♦ Emperor Kai (Earth) + Queen Levana (Moon) to marry to avoid interstellar war Protagonist ♦ Linh Cinder: cyborg, 2nd-rate citizen in the country, servant in her stepmother’s family, Mechanic Themes: Oppression ♦ Means: mind manipulation + letumosis virus/antidote Otherness / Discrimination, Equality vs inequality ♦ Being a cyborg: metaphorical representation of bodily non-normativity Feminism as female power and female solidarity ♦ Monster in cultural context ♦ Sympathetic deviance: Cinder’s cyborg perspective ♦ Cinder’s path: a process towards inclusivity (from discrimination even by Kai to inclusion as final marriage and claiming throne in later novels) Science and technology ♦ threat vs. assistence and desire (Kai – Cinder romance).
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