Wyatt Taylor
Professor Lewis
English 1100
12/12/17
Monsters
Monster? What exactly is a “Monster”? If you google it it’ll tell you this “an imaginary creature that is typically large, ugly, and frightening.”
But what is a monster?, well traditionally (for me at least) it’s something that scares you, a creature that’s tall ,strong, terrifying, and usually ends up eating/killing the well developed blonde cheerleader after she trips in some totally unbelievable fashion that makes everyone in the theater yell ”Oh my god, what the hell get up?!!” at the screen on a friday night.
But why do I think like this? Why is a monster to me something that’s laughable, something to poke and jest at after leaving the theater at around midnight on a tuesday in the middle of the summer? Its because of who I am, who I was raised by, what I watched and learned growing up, and subquestently where I was born, an american born in the late 90s not having a lot of actual present fears, its nothing but a joke.
So I guess when you ask yourself what a “Monster” it really depends on who your asking, who they are in a sense.
For example the poem “Windigo” By Louise Erdrich is about a monster that’s very prevalent in Native American cultural, it starts out from the perspective of the monster in which it’s a “flesh eating wintry demon” that is originally talking about stalking, and taking a small girl in hopes of doing something vile to the child.
But in the end of the story it reads that it takes her back after she digs her hands into his snow laced fur, and releases the man at the core of the beast, melting like a river in the sun the entire way back to her home.
Louise Erdrich was born in 1954 in a small town called little falls minnesota, her mother was a Chippewa Native-American and her father was German, many of her works focus on both sides of her heritage but his poem is definitely focused on her mother’s side, she persevered through college and received her masters in writing in 1978, Historically the “Wendigo” is a monster found in the northern parts of the united states, said to be a snow devil transformed by cannibalism and or a certain type of taboo, turning a person into a demon, in native american cultural this is seen as incredibly real and very scary.
Now why did she write this? Probably due to her mother, being in that part of the country its north and has harsh, long, freezing winters.
And I have no doubt when she a child her family would sit with warm drinks and blankets by the fire on a cold dark winter night, and listen to the mother or the grandparents tell old stories about wendigos.
In hopes of scaring the children to sleep (which by the way is a horrible idea and will backfire tremendously) and at the same time educate them about their heritage.
It’s the idea of passing down the cultural from one generation to the next, do you see what i’m getting at now? The “wendigo” is the monster for her, in that tradition.
In old times winter’s for that cultural were very hard, food was scarce and freezing to death was plentiful and what arose from that sort of a red flag, a “DO NOT TOUCH” button, a fear, a monster.
Something very real slightly adjusted into a story that mirrored the current generation’s struggle that is what a monster is.
Now at the very beginning of this class we were asked “what was the first monster that scared you the most? And why?” and I made some sarcastic comment about a children’s movie until it dawned on me.
What you’re afraid of most depends on your cultural and the time that you’re in.
During the aids scare in the 80s vampires were popular, vampires transfer blood, aids is transmitted by blood or bodily fluid, it mirrors it.
In the late 50s during the cold war traditional vampires and zombies were popular, everyone was afraid of chemical warfare, a giant disease that no one could stop and that there was no cure for, which is very present in films such as “the last man on earth”.
And now in the late 2000s we have films such as “Get Out” which is a racially charged horror movie where the monster is ourselves and how we perceive others, the movie ends up having nothing to do with race it just suggests that it does, and movies like “The Matrix” and “It” where a common theme is people being blissfully unaware of their surrounds and the dangers they possess, much like net neutrality and the impending doom related to higher powers.
Table of contents & Works Cited
Monster Novel
Novel: I am legend
Author Richard Matheson
Monster Poem
Novel: Monsters
Author: Dorothea Lasky
Native American Writer
Novel: Wendigo
Author: Louise Erdrich
LGBTQ+ Written work
Novel: IT
Author: Stephen King
Disability writer
Novel: Secret Window
Author: Stephen King
African American Writer
Novel: Get Out
Author: Jordan Peele
Intersectionality Writer
Novel: Frankenstein
Author: Mary Shelley
Environmental Concerns Writer
Novel: The Windup Girl
Author: Paolo Bacigalupi
Latinx Writer
Novel: Woman hollering creek
Author: Sandra Cisneros
Additional Writer
Novel: Zone one
Author: Colson Whitehead
Additional Writer
Novel: Dracula
Author: Bram Stoker
Additional Writer
Author: Max Brooks
Additional Writer
Writer: Jennifer kent
I am legend By Richard Matheson
Matheson was born in Allendale, new jersey to norwegian immigrants in the 1930s he graduated from high school In 1943 and was then enlisted in the united states army during World war II,
Matheson was an Infantry soldier for the duration of the war.
After the war he used his GI bill and graduated with his Bachelor’s degree from the university of missouri in 1951 majoring in journalism.
He became a writer was married and moved to california a year later and started publishing works of literature, he wrote and published I am legend in 1954, and passed away september 2013 to natural causes.
The book I Am Legend was published in 1954 during the cold war, the story is about a man named Robert Neville who is a solo survivor plagued by a horde of vampires, during the day he ventures out and murders the vampires with traditional methods found in old stories.
The book has a very one sided view on life focusing on disease and mental stress harboring addiction issues, it also puts a lot of precedence on religion, basing that certain vampires with fear symbols of religion that they once praised to in their former life.
It focuss highly that Neville has a strong stigma when it comes to the rest of the world’s population and that he has a very strong hatred for the creatures and discriminates against them constantly.
By the end of the book he “befriends” a female vampire out of loneliness and feeling of want for her, he ends up being captured by the horde and realizes that they have had a interconnecting society this entire time and that indeed to them neville is perceived as the bad guy, as the monster.
He is put on trial and awaiting to be executed when the female vampire gives him a sort of pills that he can use to commit suicide with so that his passing is easy, in the end Neville realizes that he is a legend to these people but not one of good proportions but nothing more than a murder, a monster, a close to home myth, a legend.
Dorothea Lasky was born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1978, she earned her bachelor’s and then her MFA at the University of Massachusetts.
She spent her life focusing,on writing poetry publishing multiple short stories, even being featured in the New Yorker, Paris Review, and American Poetry Review.
Slangy style and dramatic readings, are mostly her style of writing when it comes to her art, she was also awarded a Bagley Wright Fellowship in 2013, and she is now an assistant professor of poetry at Columbia University, and has been doing that ever since.
Monsters was published in 2007 by Dorothea Lasky, Its a short story (or a poem if you will)
About the narrative talking to a small individual about his personality.
She beginnings the story with talking about how monsters are everywhere, by calling small animals such of the likes as racoons and skunks.
She then goes on to reference that she has a little monster of her own and that this monster is small and she feeds it bacon but it does not satisfy it so she tells it to quiet and calm.
It’s not stated but hinted that the monster is not a monster but only a child of hers, staring into the gateway of her soul and then becoming one with her soul in return, fog is the main precedence here with stating that “nothing but fog is coming from their eyes”.
The story is more cute then scary and suggests that she cares for this monster and that she enjoys his company but I believe that the “Monster” is actually a child and what with other “monsters” being commonly cute small animals it would only make sense that small creatures would be considered a monster to her.
Louise Erdrich was born in 1954 in a small town called little falls minnesota, her mother was a Chippewa Native-American and her father was German, many of her works focus on both sides of her heritage but the poem that was chosen was mainly focused on her mother’s side of the family.
Contemporary Novelists observed that “Erdrich’s accomplishment is that she is weaving a body of work that goes beyond portraying contemporary Native American life as descendants of a politically dominated people to explore the great universal questions—questions of identity, pattern versus randomness, and the meaning of life itself.” In addition to her numerous award-winning novels and short story collections, Erdrich has published three critically acclaimed collections of poetry.
The story Windigo was published in 1984 and is focused from the perspective of a monster known as the wendigo mainly featured in Chippewa lore as a resulting in committing a taboo of taking part in cannibalism in the winter months in the northern realm of what is now the united states.
The story is shown as the monster stalks a small child residing in a log cabin with its mother, the monster is described as tall dangerous and frozen,It is a flesh-eating, wintry demon with a man buried deep inside of it.
It ends up stealing and taking her away from her home, after stalking and apparently lusting for the child.
The story is concluded with the child touching the monster with her hands and in turn melting the snow off its fur, turning it back into a man cleaning him till the passing snow melts and falls off onto the bushes that they pass as he runs from her home with her on his back.
The last line holds much value to the arch, as he runs all the way back to her home holding her melting like a river in the morning run as a soft of redemption and cleansing of his soul and body, for the wendigo is a curse not subject to body alone but also to its spirit.
IT By Stephen King
Stephen King was born on September 21, 1947, in Portland, Maine. He graduated from the University of Maine and spent some time working as a teacher while establishing credit as a writer.
He is known around the world for his many many works of fiction, all of which hold a very dark mature theme that resemble very close to home real world situations with a spin of the supernatural thrown in.
King has won multiple awards for his writings, such as the novel and motion picture known as “IT” that that recently re-released in 2017 as a full length movie, his other works such as “the mist” and “Secret window” are without a doubt monumental works of art gathering an insane fanbase, he has dozens of books released that are all works of arts and has established credit as an writer.
The novel “IT” was released in 1984 and is about a clown known as Pennywise the dancing clown, that is terrorizing the town of dairy maine in the late 50s, the key characters in the story are a band of outcast children known as “the losers club” ,individuals that form an alliance after being terrorized by school bullies and the demon clown.
The book is very dark and mature with haunting real world elements, but almost every character gets major development including the losers and the bullies.
The reason i’m focusing on this as an LGBQT novel is that one of the bullies is a closeted homosexual, which in itself is one of his fears that pennywise takes and uses against him.
In one chapter of the book the boy (who is one of the main bullies “henchmen”) who is gay, ends up sodomizing the the boy that is the secondary antagonist to the novel asides from pennywise.
The main focus of the book is that the clown came from another dimension and is residing in the town for hundreds of years stealing and killing children, feeding on their fear and feasting on their flesh, It takes the highest fear of its victim and manifests it in order to literally scare them to death.
It’s about fear, IT lives off fear, targeting children because they are easily scared and hurt.
At the end IT is defeated by the losers club and the town is saved but only after they persevere and unit together that the clown is defeated and killed in the process.
Secret Window by Stephen King was released in 2004, starring Mort Rainey played by Johnny Depp.
Mort Rainey is a very successful writer that has recently taken up lodging at a cabin after a very unpleasant divorce case with his newly ex-wife of ten years.
One day a man by the name of John Shooter shows up on his doorstep and claims that Mort has committed an act of plagiarism and has stolen and published one of Shooters works from years ago, outraged at this proposal Rainey searches around for the magazine the story was published in and then shows it to Shooter proving his innocence.
During this random murders are happening in the nearby town and his divorce case with his wife begins to go downhill, Mort arrives back at his cabin one day to find the words “SHOOT HER” carved into his wall.
Upon proving his innocence to Shooter, Mort has an epiphany and becomes aware of the fact that Shooter doesn’t actually exist and that he is actually a symptom of Morts mental illness called Dissociative Identity Disorder and that he mort is responsible for all the murders.
He ends up killing his wife by shooting her “Shooter” “SHOOT-her”.
The end of the film shows that Morts mental stability is dwindling and he has taken on the persona and fashion style of the man known as Shooter.
Jordan Peele was born in february of 1979, graduated high school in 97’ and went on to attend Sarah Lawrence College in 2001, most of his early works were about comedic sketches until he released “Get Out” in 2017 which was a much darker much more mature story, The writer is none too afraid to attack common day race issues and or make jokes when it comes to political issues.
Get out was released in 2017, a horror film with current day racism thrown into the mix.
The show stars a young man named Chris Washington an up and coming photographer,
He is begrudgingly forced into meeting his current girlfriends family, when they arrive to the location they are pulled over by a police officer that asks Chris for his license, even though he wasn’t driving until his girlfriend intervenes and the cop backs off, now Chris is black his girlfriend is white and the officer is white, setting the tone of defiente racism throughout the entire film.
Chris’s girlfriends mother is a hypnotherapist, while her father is a neurosurgeon,
The family has a volley of guests over at a party later that day every guest of seems to poke and prod Chris as if he was up for auction, making very racist comments all the way.
Chris feels very uneasy as nearly everyone there is racist and white, and everyone with melatonin in their skin appears void of personality and subject to yard work alone.
The Movie climaxes with Chris realizing that these people intend to hollow out his mind and use his body as a vessel for one of the older weaker individuals, where he would ride only shotgun to his cerebrale conscience.
Chris of course murders and escapes these people finding out that even his girlfriend was in on it, her father of course insisting that it’s not about racism at all but only that he’s young and strong and they want that which in itself is a lie.
It ends with him being rescued by his longtime friend and he escapes alive.
The movie touches on present day race issues, attacking and acknowledging that racism is very much real and alive.
Mary Shelley was born on August 30, 1797, in London, England. She married poet Percy Bysshe Shelley in 1816. Two years later, she published her most famous novel frankenstein.
She was rather young for being a writer and at the same time in that day and age being a woman was very difficult if you wanted any social or political standing.
helley died of brain cancer on February 1, 1851, in London, England.
Frankenstein was published in 1818, by Mary Shelley.
The book is about a crackpot scientist that brings a deceased body back from the dead, the monster then becomes “Frankenstein’s Monster” and is kind in nature (at first).
Until the townsfolk completely reject him from there society based upon his physical looks alone, Convinced that the monster had killed a man that had recently been murdered by unknown causes, they intend to lynch him for his crimes and therefore burn him to death in a church.
The book touches on judging a book by its cover and that everyone is born a child, innocent and deserving a chance.
The Windup Girl By Paolo Bacigalupi
Paolo Tadini Bacigalupi born August 6, 1972 is an American science fiction and fantasy writer.
His short fiction has been collected in Pump Six and Other Stories Night Shade Books, 2008.
His debut novel The Windup Girl, published by Night Shade Books in September 2009, won the Hugo, Nebula, and John W. Campbell Memorial Awards in 2010. Most of his works are about science fiction related stories.
The windup girl was published in 2009, it’s the story about Emiko the Windup Girl, a strange and beautiful creature. One of the New People, Emiko is not human; instead, she is an engineered, the current world is run by Anderson Lake a man working as a hired gun for a company based out in thailand, the world is breaking and society is falling apart.
He goes out in search of a job they gave him.
The book focused highly on biological warfare and that is run by a corrupt company, in a not so distant but very realistic future.
In the end they help the monks of thailand save the rest of the worlds seeds and eventually save the world Emiko is then allowed to live with her robotic brethren.
Woman hollering creek by Sandra Cisneros
Sandra Cisneros born December 20, 1954 is a Mexican-American writer. She is best known for her first novel The House on Mango Street 1984 and her subsequent short story collection Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories (1991). Her work experiments with literary forms and investigates emerging subject positions, which Cisneros herself attributes to growing up in a context of cultural hybridity and economic inequality that endowed her with unique stories to tell.
She is the writer of many short stories and winner of multiple awards.
was The tall tale “woman hollering creek” is actually an interpretation or just a rip off of the short story “La Llorona” but the newer version serves as a more female lead and empowering opposed to just a run of the mill horror story.
They are both set in a female perspective in which the husband is shown as the antagonist, and abuser, in “woman hollering creek” the antagonist is shown to have only seen the world through but rose colored glasses due to the fact that most of the information came to her through movies and television, while in ‘La Llorona“” the woman is given a spoiled perspective on life that was generated by the many would be lovers and admirers that constantly surrounded and doded on her, due to her beauty.
Which could cause them both to have a very skewed view on the world and how it should be, when the heroines in “woman hollering creek” was married it very much resembled when the woman in “la fonte” was married, both sharing excitement and contentment.
Colson Whitehead was born in 1969, and was raised in Manhattan.
After graduating from Harvard College, he started working at the Village Voice, where he wrote reviews of television, books, and music.
His first novel, The Intuitionist, concerned intrigue in the Department of Elevator Inspectors, and was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway and a winner of the Quality Paperback Book Club’s New Voices Award.
Hes written many short stories and novels including Zone one, a book about post-apocalyptic New York City, that was a New York Times Bestseller.
Zone One was published in 2009, and it begins after a zombie uprising has existed for some time and rebuilding of American society is underway. Perhaps symbolic of race and class distinctions, two types of zombies have emerged as part of the aftermath of a civilization-changing plague. One surviving, through rapidly deteriorating, group of the infected are the stragglers who slowly wander New York’s lower Manhattan region, now known as Zone One.
The book touches on a lot of social issues related to wealth and status, its a zombie horror book but the actual scary part is the people, zombies are predictable they have a set way of doing things but people are scary, you never know what their going to do.
Born in Ireland in 1847, Bram Stoker studied mathematics at Dublin’s Trinity College and embarked on his longtime role as an assistant to actor Sir Henry During this time Stoker married an aspiring actress named Florence Balcombe, who gave birth to their son, Irving Noel Thornley, in late 1879.
During this time Stoker married an aspiring actress named Florence Balcombe, who gave birth to their son, Irving Noel Thornley, in late 1879.
His books are legendary and long since aged like a fine wine.
Dracula was published in 1879 by Bram Stoker
The book begins with Jonathan Harker who is travelling to Castle Dracula to see the Transylvanian noble, Count Dracula. He is begged by locals not to go there, because on the eve of St George’s Day, when the clock strikes midnight, all the evil things in the world will come full sway.
But like an idiot he goes anyways because business must be done.
One evening, he tries to find an escape route… only to be discovered and almost seduced/devoured by three vampire ladies (the brides of Dracula). Dracula rescues him at the last minute, and Harker realizes that Dracula is only keeping him alive to finish the real estate transaction. Harker decides to make a break for it and only barely escapes from the castle alive.
Harkers fiance Mina is kidnaped by dracula an so he enlists a few friends one being Van Helsing.
Dracula then leads them on a spectacular chase back to Transylvania, where they finally catch up to him and kill him. Mina is saved, and they all live happily ever after. Except for Quincey Morris, who gets stabbed during the final fight.help of Van Helsing.
Max Brooks was born in Manhattan, New York City, the son of actress Anne Bancroft and director, producer, writer, and actor Mel Brooks.His father is Jewish and his mother was of Italian descent.
Brooks is dyslexic and attended Crossroads School in Santa Monica, California. He studied at Pitzer College in Claremont, California, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in history.
He spent a semester at the University of the Virgin Islands. He graduated from American University in Washington, D.C. in 1994.
Most if not all of his works have been centered around zombie stories in which the world is completely overrun.
World War Z was released in 2013 and is centered around a man named Gerry.
Gerry Lane and his family seems content. Suddenly, the world is plagued by a mysterious infection turning whole human populations into rampaging mindless zombies. After barely escaping the chaos, Lane is persuaded to go on a mission to investigate this disease.
Well not really persuaded but more forced into go or his wife and children will die.
The movie is very fast paced and violent barely stopping for a moment to breathe, it explores themes on who people really are when the shit hits the fan, it’s like any other zombie movie but on steroids.
The movie ends with Gerry realizing that the cure to the virus is another disease, any terminal disease can be administered to the individual and then cured so that the zombies will pay little to no attention to him essentially making them invisible.
Jennifer Kent was born in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia she graduated in 1991 from the National Institute of Dramatic Art.
Kent began her career as an actress, working primarily in television. She was a main cast member of Murder Call, from creator Hal McElroy, playing Constable Dee Suzerain in all 31 episodes of the series. She also appeared in several episodes of other Australian TV series such as All Saints, Police Rescue and Above the Law. Kent also had a small role in Babe: Pig in the City. She has also been an acting teacher for 13 years at major institutions.
When her husband passed away she gained “inspiration” and wrote the screenplay for the “Babadook” a movie centered around grief and loss.
The Babadook was released during the sundance film festival in 2014, the show is about Amelia Vanek a recently widowed mother struggling with the loss of her late husband and raising her very problematic child while struggling to keep a steady income.
Her six year old son Samuel is quite the handful and exhausts his mother in a number of ways, constantly getting in trouble at school having a form of ADHD that furthers his energy levels and making makeshift weapons to “kill the monsters with”.
One night Sam asks his mother to read him a bedtime story at which he choses a book titled “The Babadook” seemling cute and harmless until they read on to discover its very sadistic and not for children, the book talks about a creature known as the babadook that enters the home of an individual and it will never leave.
On afterwards from there Samuel becomes more and more annoying obsessing over the Babadook, which further deteriorates his mother’s mental state.
Eventually the Babadook supposedly traps them in their home trying to possess Amelia and murder Samuel, they end up defeating the Babadook when she realizes her duties as a mother and puts her child first and holds the creature captive, everyone now and then visiting it in the basement.
The babadook isnt real its a physical representation of grief and loss that slowly pulls mental state Amelia apart until she gains the strength to be a confident mother and put her child first.
She occasionally visits and is attacked by the Babadook but she always overcomes it, showing that she has the strength to accept it and move on.
Monsters Behind You, Around the Corner, and Up Ahead: A Course Reflection
This class was interesting to say the least, first day of class I thought it would be a standard english class, papers readings, and lectures.
The first day Professor Lewis came in and started talking about monsters I thought she was some random crazy lady that loves monsters (no offence of course, loved the class)
But in all honesty I loved the class, It was my favorite all semester, the readings the lectures especially and everyone in it made it very fun.
I didn’t always show up to class due to my own fault, but I did enjoy doing it felt exactly like what a college class should be, exciting,fun ,challenging, and one that makes you want to learn more about everything.
I wanna be a psychiatrist, I’ve always loved reading into things taking something apart piece by piece and learning “why?” I never thought an english class would make me think so much.
To say the least it was just, enlightening, I’ve never been the best at writing but I feel like this class helped me in a very defiant way, asking why and how and who wrote this?
But why did they write it? What were their parents like how were they raised?
With all these pools of knowledge its hard to believe that some people hate school.
Overall it was a very good class and I hope to take another class with the same professor next semester.
wyatt2287 