“Would I board up the windows to keep the zombies out or seek the open water? Would I go down
“Would I board up the windows to keep the zombies out or seek the open water? Would I go down
In Jeffrey Jerome Cohen’s essay, “Monster Culture,” he explains the qualities of monsters…
Jeffrey Cohen is a professor of English and Director of Medieval and Early Modern Studies Institute. He specializes in many areas of research but he is famed for exploring monster; a subject that we will be looking at in this paper. I will be focusing on one of his seven theses of the monster culture by supporting his position with evidence from three different sources. In his work, 'Monster Culture,' Jeffrey Jerome Cohen introduces a new way of studying monsters in the context of the cultures in which they are found.…
Residential school, a gruesome institution that includes rape, torture and abuse. Residential schools have been around since the 19th century. They were created to assimilate aboriginal children into Euro-Canadian culture, and to essentially strip them of their native culture. In both the poem, “Monster” by Dennis Saddleman and the novel, Three Day Road by Joseph Boyden, the authors go in depth on the problems with residential schools. Saddleman explains how residential school obliterates native culture, while Boyden explains how the characters horrible experiences, ironically change them for the better.…
There are several legends or just stories regarding monsters that we have known since we were children and they have frightened us since we were young into our early teenage years. But if we really think about it, what might these monsters represent or why do we even have monsters. Authors attempted to look into the world of monsters more and attempt to identify more of what the monsters could symbolize or what they can represent regarding us, humankind. In other words, the authors explain their perspectives on how do monsters and their existence affect us, how do they represent what we are here for and more. Using the articles “My Zombie, Myself: Why Modern Life Feels Rather Undead,” “Cursed by a Bite,” and “Monsters and Messiahs” I will help…
As the differences, and sometimes similarities, between the two characters and actions of the creature are revealed to readers are introduced to Victor Frankenstein’s understated traits. Bringing out Frankenstein’s traits is the creation of the “monster”. First, it shows the scientific and humanistic mind of Victor…
Thus, Cohen is trying to understand specific cultures through the monsters, or fragments of history, they create. In the next part of this essay Cohen offers seven theses towards understanding cultures through the monsters that they create. In the first thesis, Cohen declares that, “The monsters body is a cultural body”. Monsters are created at a metaphoric crossroads, and embody a certain cultural moment in time.…
Frankenstein, the book, is meant to have connections to real life through its themes. One way the author emphasis theme is through virtues and vices of the two important characters. This essay will analyze the similarities and differences between two characters, Victor Frankenstein and monster, in terms of their virtues and vices. The virtue is a trait or quality of character which is moral, vices is a practice or habit that immoral. These factors are analyzed to determine the best choice overall as person.…
In his writing, “Monster Culture (Seven Theses)”, Jeffrey Jerome Cohen argues that we no longer live in an age that uses Unified Theory, an age when we realized that history is composed of a multitude of fragments. In this writing, he has bound some fragments together to form a “monstrous body” and pushes his readers to reevaluate their cultural assumptions relating to those specific fragments. In his first thesis, “The Monster’s Body is a Cultural Body” Cohen explains that each monster has a certain culture and follows certain rules. The monsters are typically born within a certain cultural moment.…
In the epic poem, Beowulf, the recurring image of darkness is often used as a portrayal of death and the unknown. The author also uses the same image to depict evil and sin and its relationship to Christianity. The underlying elements of Christianity within Beowulf can be attributed to the recent conversion of the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity. Through the persisting application of darkness, Beowulf addresses the presence of sin and the fundamental Christian beliefs in a savior and the redemption from sin. Throughout the poem, the pervasive use of sinister monsters lurking in darkness portrays the immoral acts of sin and evil.…
Humans fear evil, but in many cases, it is often that fear which causes the development of evil. The production of evil by fear is demonstrated through Frankenstein’s creation in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. The creature’s identity as a monster is due to societal rejection, isolation, and misinterpretation. It is the reactions of others which cause the creature to develop his violent tendencies.…
Why do we as a people fear monsters and similar entities? Throughout history people have created stories centered around monsters who would terrorize communities. These stories would be used to rationalize findings they couldn’t understand. These monsters were used to rationalize dieses, deaths and many other occurrences. These monsters still persist in stories today because over time they would evolve past what they stood for and would become symbols of our primal fears.…
Dr. Frankenstein’s obsession with proving his superior intelligence leads him to violate the laws of nature, and create the creature. When Dr. Frankenstein discovers the secret of life, he is delighted because he thinks he has become “greater than his nature will allow” (43); he enjoys having this “god like” ability. At first, he hesitates with his project of creating life, but he cannot control his desire for success so he begins to create a creature. He states, “I doubted at first whether I should attempt the creation of a being like myself … but my imagination was too exalted by my first success to permit me to doubt of my ability to give life to an animal as complex and wonderful as man” (42). Because Dr. Frankenstein is such a young scientist,…
In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the line between good and evil is blurred as a result of acts of cruelty. Victor Frankenstein played God, and yet, abandoned his creature. His inhumanity shaped his creation and bred their mutual suffering. Their fate is sealed from the very first act of cruelty: as it is the true creator of monsters. Yet, there is no clear-cut victim or perpetrator between the two main characters.…
The monster is inherently “benevolent and good,” but his lonesome journey transforms him into a “fiend” (Shelley 87). The monster describes himself saying, “ ‘My heart was fashioned to be susceptible of love and sympathy; and, when wrenched by misery to vice and hatred, it did not endure the violence of the change without torture, such as you cannot even imagine’ ” (Shelley 209-210). Created with an instinctive need for nurture from his creator, the monster was not capable of living alone in his society. In Stephen Gould’s view, “Frankenstein 's creature… is, rather, born capable of goodness, even with an inclination toward kindness, should circumstances of his upbringing call forth this favored response.”…