Moral Monsters in The Mirror

“The concept of the monstrous and the figure of the monster have haunted western history from its earliest records” writes Margrit Shldrick in her book Embodying the Monster: Encounters with the Vulnerable Self. Monsters themselves are a very versatile concept.

The word “monster” is made up of many different things and is constituted by a number of variabilities. A monster can be, as it has been historically, a person that is malformed or suffering from lack of proper nutrition. A monster can be a person that is inhumane and has no morals or standards of right and wrong. A monster can be a theoretical illusion in our minds and thoughts, such as something we have assumed existed or were taught to be afraid of. In both the "Extraordinary Beings" and "Monsters, Marvels, and Meanings" articles, the authors constitute monstrosity as a form of opposition to societal norms, as well as mirroring the inevitable evils in humanity. The word "monster" is suggestive of the moral failure in society and should therefore not be disassociated with the nature of mankind.

Stephen Asma gives the example of being terrified of sea monsters that lurk in muddy, murky waters and how he has always had to deal with this “irrational fear”. To him, the monsters, even though they are not real or threatening, are composed of a sort of fear and alarming eeriness. In his article “Monsters, Marvels, and Meanings”, Asma explains how what humans have come to define a monster as is a “simultaneous lure and repulsion of the abnormal…”. To understand the term “monster”, it is appropriate to decipher what normality is. Understanding the natural human state requires a knowledge of what regularity is.

Normality is what is typical for a human to experience. Anything that threatens this typicality can be considered monstrous because it frightens the sense of security found in the expected and usual. As Christopher Dell simply put in his article over the history of monsters, “Monsters are creatures that go against the laws of nature”. Humanity does not naturally gravitate towards change or an opposition of these basic laws of nature and therefore does not conform well to anything outside a comfortable zone, so to speak. Monsters, however, are found challenging because they portray, whether metaphorically or realistically, things that are contrary to the normal state of being. The word monster itself comes from the Latin words monere and monstrare which means “to warn” and “to demonstrate”. What do monsters demonstrate? Natalie Lawrence, a professor at the University of Cambridge, states that monsters, “…reveal, portend, show and even make evident, often uncomfortably so”. Monsters commonly exist to demonstrate negative emotions and give evidence to fear. In doing do, monsters can also be used metaphorically to represent moral failures in society. When they are used metaphorically, monsters “act as lenses for filtering and organizing our experiences”. Therefore, monsters become an analogy and basic example of negligence in society. No matter what form they take, monsters “…challenge and resist normative human being…”.

There are many different categories that monsters could fit in, however. Greek mythology monsters differ from monsters of religion and biology. Monstrosity also changes as time progresses. For example, the once feared Loch Ness monster is now more of a form of entertainment or object of intrigue to people. Monsters appear everywhere, and they are always representing a breaking away of social norms. The commonality, then, or rather, “What links the monstrous other…is their unnatural and often hybrid corporeality” states Margrit Shildrick. Shildrick goes on to describe how all monsters can be compared on the most basic level because of their invoking of “normative anxiey”. The standard of fear becomes the most common relation to the word “monster”.

Stephen Asma makes the case that, “an action or a person or a thing is monstrous when it can’t be processed by our rationality, and also when we cannot readily relate to the emotional range involved. When something or someone is so far from what we can consciously relate to as “normal”, the human response it to label it monstrous, sometimes unimaginable, unthinkable, or implausible. What cannot be explained, or sometimes what can be explained but not understood, is easier to be labeled and glossed over than to be thought in depth about. In certain instances, humans apply this term to their own kind. In these instances, Asma says, “The term monster is often applied to human beings who have, by their own horrific actions, abducted their humanity”. Monsters can then, metaphorically, represent the inevitable evils that humans are exposed to. Monsters represent the natural emotions of anger, envy, greed, lust, or pride. Shildrick uses the metaphor of the human/animal hybrid and states that it “signaled not just absolute otherness, but the corruption of human form and being”. She continues, the monster occupies an essentially fluid site where despite its putative otherness, it cannot be separated entirely from the nature of man himself… The monster is not thereby the absolute other, but rather a mirror of humanity: on an individual level, the external manifestation of the sinner within. Given that all human beings were seen as more or less corrupted from a state of pre-lapsarian perfection, then the visible disorder of the monstrous body, and all the moral failings that it signaled, were a sign of the vulnerability of all men and women to a loss of humanity. It can be clearly seen that “monstrous” behavior is again excessive negative emotion — a deviation from normal, healthy emotions. Asma gives the example of calling someone a monster and explains that they are labeled this way when they are attributing “inhuman qualities”. Therefore, Asma argues that, “We perform a metaphorical operation that helps us to understand one domain of action by seeing it through another, more concrete domain of action.”

As society continues to use these metaphors to describe the humans that compose it, the term “monster” begins to reflect the moral flaws and failures. A society that is composed of monsters or monstrous people can only be as strong as its weakest component. A society cannot overcome the monsters or change them until it recognizes that they exist and are posing a threat. It is arguable whether a society can ever rise above the “evil” portrayed by those monsters, but when humanity makes a mistake, such as creating a monster, it should be held accountable for the responsibility of taking care of it and ensuring that it does not overtake the remaining goodness of that society.