Monster-human relations in stories define several social aspects of society. Every monster story has a unique representation regarding the origin, appearance, thinking inclinations, and behaviours that characterize monsters. The high-level human fascination toward monsters throughout several historical periods underpins multiple interdisciplinary explorations regarding monstrosity. Mary Shelley’s 1818 Frankenstein is an important cultural reference point across many genres that continue to evoke contemporary reactions. Frankenstein has undergone subsequent retellings in sequels from the 1950s onwards. For instance, several films from 1950 onwards have incorporated Frankenstein’s name to represent grotesque and horror figures. Hybrid film genres like science-fiction horrors adopt concepts from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein to depict the paradoxes of humanity in monsters and monstrosities in humans. Society, nature, laws, and systems provide a frame of reference for monsters—similarly, the three intermingling facets shape intra- and extra-human interactions in a given environment.
Monsters’ ubiquity shows that they are common phenomena in world societies. They exist in dreams, children’s readings, power interactions across men and women, and perceptions regarding the dead, disabled, the elite and the underprivileged. As such, it becomes apparent that individuals hold divergent views concerning what constitutes a monster. Despite their representation, often grotesque, the defining features of monsters in popular culture have little essentiality because of lacking a common base. Patricia McCormack defines a monster as an element occurring outside the observer’s frame of reference to produce a new perception or event with unlike participants (Erle and Hendry).
For this reason, it is possible to consider monsters as catalysts that propel productive encounters. Monsters drive change in society as follows; they create room for new possibilities within human interactions. They embody uncommon and unacceptable behaviour or conduct because their activities and thoughts embody what humans consider moral transgressions.
The question regarding what defines a monster remains has clashing responses. Definitions encircling the term vary but identifying common subtexts across a few definitions can give an idea regarding what makes up a monster. This juncture reveals strange perspectives owing to its volatile definitions depending on the context, time, culture, beliefs, tradition, and cross-gender power relations across cultures (Merkelbach). In the first place, grotesque figures have traditionally represented monsters in several cultures. The choice of grotesque and overemphasized human features among varying techniques to show a difference between monsters and humans had this rationale. Cultural educators sought to espouse new perspectives, consolidate the existing ideas encircling acceptable human behaviour, and bridge gaps in cross-gender and power relations in society.
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein had a monumental impact on views regarding monsters. Her story methodically reinforces, breaks down and reconstructs traditional constructs about monsters. An overview of her story presents monsters as a human creations. The author also stresses the traditionally known influence of monsters on humans. Monsters remain dissimilar from humans in terms of bodily characteristics. However, an overemphasis on physical appearance shadows the stories’ main objective, inducing fear to discourage certain behaviours (Knight, 2020). Consequently, the other predominant feature surrounding monsters covers inhumane (culturally unacceptable) behaviour. As such, the definitions of a monster heavily rely on context and historical period.
Monsters in literature, popular culture and social contexts function as metaphors to solve individual and social challenges. Monstrous characters and gothic themes keep growing in popularity across several disciplines in the scholarly world. Evolving society needs underlie the manifold and luxuriant definitions of monsters. The relationship between monsters and humans occurs across several facets, including identity, gender, and even race, among numerous social issues. Consumers of monster stories in films, novels, and other forms of popular culture coalesce around the definitions of the figures and form discussions surrounding the writer’s concept. These discussions may go far and wide to the extent of causing hierarchies between fandoms.
The hierarchies are a microcosm of classifications within societies throughout several traditional and modern cultures-some. African monster stories include ancestral spirits, whose existence of community members is considered transcendental; these societies formed community hierarchies around monstrous ghosts of ancestral spirits. The deities (gods) occurred at the top of the pyramid; rulers, elite, soldiers, traders, elderly, common population, children, and enslaved people followed that salient order. Rulers had religious duties in many African cultures and were thought to have access to spirits, whom they would occasionally manipulate. The initial arrival of European into African mainland Africa created a perception of white-skinned ghosts. Ghosts would occasionally visit the living for communion, and appeasing sacrifice ceremonies would occur. Such stories about ghosts passed generations through oral traditions, implying that they could change to fit prevailing needs.
Society propagates itself by penetrating the individual consciousness of individuals and reconstitutes its elements in tandem with the collective consciousness. Most modern laws, notions, and systems have social origins. Monstrous stories have played significant roles in society throughout its evolution. The most critical utility of monster stories is their ability to reshape human thinking and perspectives in the long run, depending on how narrators shape ideas and concepts within the stories. The interactions between humans and monsters in stories have shaped modern society by introducing new dynamics regarding the origin, description, and redefinitions of what constitutes acceptable human behaviour.
Works Cited
Erle, Sibylle, and Helen Hendry. “Monsters: interdisciplinary explorations in monstrosity.” Palgrave Communications 6.1 (2020): 1-7.
Knight, A. (2020). Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Disability, and the Injustice of Misrecognition. Disability Studies Quarterly, 40(4).
Merkelbach, Rebecca. “Monsters in Society.” Monsters in Society. Medieval Institute Publications, 2019.