An Essay on the Monstrous

 Copyright 2021 by Gary L. Pullman

Source: Public domain

What is “monstrous”? Does the concept change, thereby altering the understanding of the meaning of the term; do merely the specific instances, the incarnations, so to speak, of the monstrous change; or is there a modification of both the understanding and the incarnations?

 

Source: Public domain

Certainly, the idea of the origin of monsters has changed. Once, monsters were considered omens, or signs warning of divine displeasure, or anger, concerning various types of behavior. Later, monsters were regarded merely as mistakes, or “freaks,” of nature. The origin of monsters, once supernatural, became natural. The hermaphrodite became Frankenstein's creature; the Biblical behemoth became the great white shark of Jaws. (Between these extremes, perhaps, as the great white whale, Herman Melville's Moby Dick.)

 

 Source: Public domain

Prior to the shift from a supernatural to a natural cause of monsters, there had been a shift in the way in which the world, or the universe, was understood. When God had been in charge of the universe He'd created, the universe and everything in it had had been meaningful; in God's plan, there was a place for everything, and everything was expected to stay in its assigned place. The universe was an orderly and planned place, because it had been created according to God's plan, or a design, and existence was teleological. Monsters were beings or forces that disrupted the orderliness of the universe, sought to disrupt God's plan, or showed disobedience to God's will, either by tempting others to sin or by giving in to sin (and sin itself was, quite simply, disobedience to God's will). Anything that differed form God's plan was a monster or was monstrous.

Source: Public domain

When the idea of an accidental, mechanical universe replaced the concept of a divinely created and planned universe, only nature existed (or, if God were to be granted existence, He was seen, first, as indifferent to the universe, as the Deists viewed him, or as irrelevant.) Offenses became unnatural actions, behavior which was not grounded in nature. Anything that “went against nature” was a monster or monstrous. Indeed, a naturalistic understanding of the universe is seen in the change in viewing monsters and the monstrous that is indicated in the etymology, or history, of the word “monster,” which, according to the Online Etymology Dictionary, originally referred to a “"divine omen (especially one indicating misfortune), portent, sign” and, only about the fourteenth century became understood as meaning “malformed animal or human, creature afflicted with a birth defect.”

 Source: Public domain

Although some continue to believe that God exists, that He created the world and human beings, the latter in his own “image and likeness,” according to a plan and that the universe is consequently not only orderly, but purposeful, teleological, and meaningful, many others believe that God either does not exist or, if He does, His existence is inconsequential and that human beings must chart their own courses. In the former conception of the universe, wrongdoing is evil, and it is evil because it involves intentional disobedience to God's will; in the latter conception of the universe, wrongdoing is immoral because it is counter to that which is natural. In the former universe, the monstrous takes the form of demons and unrepentant sinners. In the latter universe, evil takes the form of “freaks” of nature, such as maladapted mutants, victims of birth defects, or the psychologically defective: grotesques, cripples, and cannibals.

Alternatively, in a naturalistic universe, monsters may be social misfits. Not only serial killers, sadists, and psychopaths, but also any group that is unconventional, or “other,” or is vilified or ostracized by the dominant social group (e. g., a community or a nation), examples of whom, historically, include homosexuals, Romani people, “savage” “Indians,” current or former martial enemies, cult members, and so forth.

 

Source: Public domain

Our line of inquiry leads, at last, a question and a conclusion. First, what happens when we run out of monsters? As our ideas of the monstrous change, monsters lose their monstrosity: homosexuals, Romani people, Native Americans, the nations that joined together as World War II's Axis powers, members of religious organizations once condemned as “cults” and “sects” have, today, become acceptable. Their members are no longer monsters. As the pool of candidates for monstrosity shrinks, what shall become of the very idea of monstrosity itself? Who will become the monsters of the future, when all the monsters of the present and the past are no longer considered monstrous?

 

Source: Public domain

 The answer to this question, it seems, is that we shall be left with the few actions that are universally condemned, that are unacceptable in all lands, everywhere. We might list among such behaviors incest, rape, premeditated murder that is unsanctioned by the state (that is not, in effect, condoned as a necessary wartime activity), child abuse, and, perhaps, cannibalism, which leaves, as monsters, the incestuous lover, the rapist, the murderer, the child abuser, and the cannibal. These could be the only monsters that remain in the future.

Source: Public domain

But they won't be. Here's why: horror is a type of fantasy fiction. As such, it includes characters, actions, places, causes, motives, and purposes that are unacceptable in more realistic fiction or drama. There is room for demons and witches, alongside werewolves and vampires, as well as the monsters embodying truly universally condemned behaviors and the people (or characters) who perform them. For this reason, horror fiction will never be without the monsters of old, even if, metaphysically, epistemologically, scientifically, and otherwise, they have long ago worn out their welcome. Fantasy has had, has, and always will have a home for them.

Meanwhile, however, the history of horror fiction has provided a way to identify threats that, rightly or wrongly, dominant societies have considered dangerous to their welfare or survival, and these threats, once they are seen as no longer threatening, have likewise shown what perceived menaces, in the final analysis, are not dangerous to social welfare, just as they identify the true menaces, the true monsters, that are condemned not just her or there for a time, but everywhere, at all times.

Freaks of Nature (and Applied Science)

Copyright 2020 by Gary L. Pullman

Horror movies of the 1950s often feature bizarre freaks of nature, in the films' titles as well as in the movies themselves: The Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954), giant ants (Them!) (1954), Godzilla (1954), Monster from the Ocean Floor (1954), Tarantula! (1955), The Mole People (1956), Attack of the Giant Leeches (1959), The Alligator People (1959), The Wasp Woman (1959), The Return of the Fly (1959), and on and on . . . and on.

Victims include scientists' assistants, the expedition ship's crew members, and scientists, (The Creature from the Black Lagoon); a store owner, a state trooper, an FBI agent and most of his family (Them!), ships' crews, islanders, and residents of Tokyo (Godzilla), a diver (Monster from the Ocean Floor), a scientists and a laboratory assistant (Tarantula!), an archaeologist (The Mole People), an adulteress and her lover (Attack of the Giant Leeches), a hermit handyman and a newlywed bridegroom (The Alligator People), a cosmetics company owner (The Wasp Woman), a spy, and a scientist (The Return of the Fly).

Although some victims are simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, others are attacked because, as investigators or scientists, they play integral roles in the campaigns to stop the monsters or support such individuals, as the ships crews and lab assistants do. They are troops, as it were, in the perpetual war of science vs. nature.

The Creature from the Black Lagoon succumbs to massive gunfire. Sub-machine guns and flamethrowers dispatch the giant ants in Them! Godzilla is asphyxiated by a secret weapon that destroys oxygen molecules. A napalm attack, courtesy of a squadron of Air Force fighters, kills the giant tarantula of Tarantula. The Mole People find it difficult to withstand the debilitating effects of natural sunlight. Dynamite explosions end the menace of giant leeches. A faceful of carbolic acid and blunt trauma from a fall from a height is too much for the wasp woman. The Return of the Fly's human fly reverts to being only a human after the process that transformed him into a human fly is reversed. Only the fate of the alligator people is ambiguous.

These films suggest that freaks of nature are overcome—that is, annihilated—in one of two ways. Nature kills them, or they are destroyed by an application of human technology. While the Mole People are subdued by nature, the Creature of the Black Lagoon, Godzilla, the giant tarantula, the giant leeches, and the human fly are destroyed by human technology. The wasp woman is destroyed by both human technology (carbolic acid) and nature (gravity).

Interestingly, these films' freaks of nature are the spawn both of nature itself and of human technology. More often than not, the latter both produces and destroys these freaks. The theme of these movies seems to be that, yes, technology can backfire—it can produce monsters—but so can nature itself. In either case, though, technology can be counted on to destroy monsters, whether they are of natural or technological origin (or both). Through technology, even when meddling with nature itself causes monstrous results, science saves!

Scientists may not be gods. They err, because, well, to err is to be human. But they also know how to fix their mistakes. That's not ideal, these films imply, but it's the best we can do, and being a demi-god isn't half bad.

Oddities' Horror

Copyright 2010 by Gary L. Pullman

 

Eyes with vertical slits for pupils. Red irises. A third eye. Eyes in the back of one’s head. Eyes instead of nipples. An eye inside a navel. Eyes in kneecaps. Eyes that don’t belong. Fangs instead of teeth. Steel incisors among the enamel ivories. Teeth that glow in the dark. Extracted teeth. Teeth that don’t belong. Claws instead of fingernails or toenails. Elongated or serrated claws. Talons. Claws along the arm or leg. Nails that don’t belong. Although these are examples so extreme as to be unlikely, real-life counterparts do exist, such as supernumerary body parts (extra breasts or nipples, additional ribs, two penises, a set of both male and female genitals, additional teeth, an extra head, an extra arm or leg, more than two testicles, a third kidney, webbed digits, double vaginal canals or uteri). Although, fortunately, the public’s attitude toward such “freaks” (actually individuals unfortunate enough to have suffered a deformity as the result of a genetic abnormality, a birth defect, or a disease) has greatly improved since such conditions were regarded as proof of the devil or the wrath of God (see my article on “Teratology”] , horror maestros, both of print and film, continue to use them, both as sideshow performers or, more often, in cameo-style appearances which focus upon their oddities rather than their personalities. Depending upon their visibility and their extremeness, such “extras” may horrify us because they don’t belong. They are out of place. They defy the neat categories of existence and of understanding. They challenge the world as we know it, which is the world as it is supposed to be. They are signs of chaos, signs of the unraveling of the universe’s order, signs of the end, my friend. As children, we played a game, circling the one object that did not belong among the others of a set. Hence, we might circle the fish among the fowl or the mammal among the reptiles or the amphibians. The odd man out was odd; therefore, he was out, whether a carp among hens, an ape among frogs, or a troll among the Danes. That which doesn’t belong is horrific; it must be cast out, and it must be kept out. If it finds a way in, among us, there will be suffering, and there will be death. This is one of the basic principles of horror. Carrie White is an outcast who tries to get “in,” to become accepted by, if not popular among, the peers who reject her. Before she is admired by the prince, Cinderella is rejected by her stepmother and her stepsisters. Grendel attacks, kills, and devours the Danish warriors of Heorot hall because he envies them their camaraderie, which is denied to him, the ostracized son of Cain. If you’re in need of something monstrous for your next short story, novel, or film, seek that which is lost, and give it a home among those who have banished, exiled, evicted, or dispossessed it. Then, things will get interesting.

Horror Subsets

Copyright 2010 by Gary L. Pullman

In Terror Television: American Series, 1970-1999's "Commentary" on The X-Files, John Kenneth Muir offers a helpful classification of the show’s “subsections of horror,” breaking the types of antagonists that the FBI’s Special Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully face each week into ten groups:

1. “Trust No One,” which involves “secret experiments” that “the U. S. government. . . is conducting on its own people”
2. “Freaks of Nature,” which presents “mutants and monsters,” some of which are “just beasts,” others of which are “evolutionary nightmares,” and still others of which are “genetic mutants”
3. “Foreign Fears,” comprised of “ancient ethnic legends” which happen “to have a basis in fact”
4. “From the Dawn of Time,” featuring prehistoric “creatures” which “reassert themselves in present time”
5. “Aliens!,” or “extraterrestrial creatures”
6. “God’s Masterplan,” which is replete with “elements of Christian religion/mythology” which are “explored as ‘real’ concepts”
7. “The Serial Killer”
8. “Psychic Phenomena,” such as “astral projection. . . clairvoyance. . . soul transmission,
   and. . . the effect of heavenly bodies on human bodies”
9. “The Mytharc”/”Conspiracy,” comprised of “the history of the government’s association with aliens”
10. Tried-and-trued “Standards” of the horror genre, which is populated by “the vampire. . . the werewolf. . . ghosts. . . crazy computers. . . matters of time. . . succubi. . . cannibalism. . . tattoos. . . Evil dolls. . . and the like” (353).

“In addition to these ten plots,” Muir observes, “The X-Files has also showed a commendable dedication to asking the great questions of our time, and telling stories about the most puzzling mysteries humankind has yet faced,” so that an eleventh “subsection of horror” discernable in the series is the episodes that center upon “The Mysteries” (354).

Muir’s categorization of the types of threats that the series’ protagonists face is interesting in itself, but it is also interesting because it represents an approach that writers of horror may adopt for themselves in the writing and development of their own oeuvres. A writer who writes a series, whether of television episodes, novels, or even short stories that are unified by a theme, as those, for example of Ray Bradbury and H. P. Lovecraft sometimes are, can take a leaf from Muir’s classification of the “subsections” common to The X-Files’ exploration of the horror genre.

Just as a literary genre tends to develop stock characters and characteristic settings, it also tends to evolve typical themes and situations. These situations, in fact, can, and should, support the themes, as those of The X-Files do. For example, Muir assigns the following X-Files episodes to the “Trust No One” category: “Eve,” “Ghost in the Machine,” “Blood,” “Sleepless,” “Red Museum,” “F. Emasculata,” “Soft Light,” “Wetwired,” “Zero Sum,” “The Pine Bluff Variant,” “Drive,” and “Dreamland (I & II)” (353). Taken together, he says, these episodes express “paranoia” which results from the government’s violations of “its sacred trust to represent the people,” as its agents seem “capable of any atrocity, including murder and cover-ups” (353). Eugenics experiments, bioengineered disease, experiments with dark matter, mind control, bee-delivered plague, and the like are enough to make paranoia a rational, rather than an irrational, response to the an unscrupulous government that is clearly out of control.

Muir points out eleven sources for horror; others might be space, crackpot theories or visions, the biochemical foundations of animal and human existence, arcane and mystical traditions and lore, religious cults, alternate histories and universes, conspiracies and cover-ups, dangerous self-fulfilling prophecies, solipsism, actual unsolved mysteries of crime or history (what really became of the Lost Colony of Roanoke?) and, always, of course, the seven deadly sins.