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.…
Walter Dean Myers’ Monster: Does Prison Make Steve a Monster? Creep. Psycho. Thug.…
In the play “The Monsters are Due on Maple Street” by Rod Serling,is an excellent example of how character events and actions advance the plot of the story. The text states that ” Operator, operator,something’s wrong with the phone, operator!” This text means that the power is out. According to the writer “ Steve. I think we better keep an eye on you too.”…
Monsters are not merely fictional creatures that hide in closets, or under beds waiting to pounce on their unsuspecting victims. One could say that human beings have the capability to become monsters. After all, it is the average individual who creates a culture of fear by perpetuating stigmas like: hate and prejudice. It seems as if fear derives solely from the environment in which the monster dwells, which in essence is everyday life. However, people do not just transform into monsters for the fun of it; their transformation is intentional, and that intention is often suppressed by a hidden agenda to manipulate other individuals, or the culture itself.…
It is odd to see an author propose a topic that contradicts his or her writing choice and beliefs , to path readers on a trail of uncertainty, doubt, and speculation. Many would find it peculiar to pose an argument on oneself; however, Jeffrey Cohen does exactly this to the readers of his essay “monster culture”. Cohen sends his readers on a crumbling path of ambiguity when he asks readers a question that puts his readers either at one end of the path or the other asking if monsters truly exist. In Cohen’s “monster culture”, monsters and culture are discussed and speculated on to bring to light the connections between them. “What I will propose here by way of a first foray, as entrance into this book of monstrous content, is a sketch of a new modus legendi: a method of reading cultures from the monsters they engender,” he starts (11).…
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.…
The theme of a story is an idea the author wishes to convey to the readers. It can be expressed directly in the work or revealed through the details of the story, such as plot, characters, and setting. In John Steinbeck’s novel, Of Mice and Men, one of the most important themes is dreams. The harsh truth that the American Dream-the idea that anyone can achieve goals through hard work and personal sacrifice is only granted to few, is represented in the book. The characters in the novel all dream of a better life, but are unable to achieve it due to various obstacles.…
To begin this argument, people who enjoy horror films support that watching horror gives them a chance to learn, to experience situations. In an article “The Lure of Horror” published in November 2011, Dr. Christian Jarrett is the Psychologist’s staff journalist mentioned “Movie monsters provide us with the opportunity to see and learn strategies of coping with real- life monsters should we run into them, despite all probabilities to the contrary“. Dr. Jarret explained that horror scenes give people a chance to face with situations that may happen in real life so that people can handle situations or run away instead of standing and screaming. Similarly, Mathias Clasen says, “ That’s where horror can teach us something truly valuable” (Jarrett…
Walter Dean Myers' graphic novel Monster is about a sixteen-year-old African American boy named Steve Harmon, This graphic novel is written in a first person perspective from Steve's view. He shows himself through his journal entries and a screenplay. In this book, the protagonist’s are Kathy O’Brien, Mr. Sawicki, and Steve Harmon. The antagonists are the justice system, Richard Evans or more commonly known “bobo”, James King, the Assistant District Attorney (Sandra Petrocelli) and Steve King's lawyer Asa Briggs. The story takes place in Manhattan, Harlem, the courtroom in a city lockup, and sometimes in the neighborhood where Steve Harmon lives.…
This is Spiegelman’s subtle way of showing another form of loss of identity and how the Jews viewed themselves as less than and that being Jewish was a bad thing. While the Jews have the heads of mice along with tails, they still have a human body. This is Spiegelman’s way of giving them a very human form. The heads and tails act as a shield of sorts. Some of the events of the book, such as hangings, would be very hard to read and look at if the characters are…
Of Mice and Men (1937) by John Steinbeck is a very engaging novella which focuses on two main characters, George Milton and Lennie Small, who are chasing an impossible delusion of the American Dream. Their journey to reach this dream is laborious and problematic but when they finally progress to their goal, complicated problems arise which lead to the inevitable ending of Lennie 's death. The ending is destined to occur due to how it is important to show the author 's intention by showing how life was during the Great Depression and how people fought to survive in these harsh conditions. Steinbeck 's ambition is to develop certain themes. The themes that the author has portrayed in the story is that the American Dream is an impossible vision…
The article, Monsters and the Moral Imagination, is informing the audience that monsters show a boarder aspect of the society. The article gives different point of views on monsters and gives a direct explanation on how the acts portray by monsters reminds us about reality. However, the use of monsters can improve our imagination by teaching us about survival and preparing us for disasters and global issues. Monsters can be good or bad as shown in different fictional stories. For example, these stories of Frankenstein and World War Z, display multiple warnings about our standard of living and high expectations in this current era of globalization.…
In the novel, Monster by Walter Dean Myers three themes are explored: race, justice, and A.V.R (appearance versus reality). One of the major themes and the one This paragraph talks about is A.V.P. There are multiple examples of this, but one I found really good was on page 1 “When I look into the small rectangle…….” The small rectangle being a mirror “I see a face looking back at me but…… It doesn’t look like me”. This is an appearance versus reality because to Steve, the main character of the book, the appearance is he doesn’t think the face he sees in the mirror is him but the reality is it is him.…
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.…
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.…