A Thing of Extremes
The monster is used in different ways in horror fiction, but perhaps the two poles of monsterdom are: the monster as mortal threat; and the monster as metaphor. All uses fall somewhere within this spectrum—I suppose that spectrum being from least metaphorical to most.
Monster as mortal threat is the simplest of the two, and perhaps the easiest to understand because it resonates with us on a primal, emotional level. We fear death, and the monster is the agent of death. The mortal monster takes many forms, from the alien bent on swallowing us whole, to the serial killer who thinks in ways we can’t understand. The monster here is the Other, and we will never understand the Other. This is why it’s monstrous, why it’s frightening. One cannot reason with the mortal monster. All one can do is fight or run and hope to not die.
Monster as metaphor operates on a different, more abstract and intellectual level. The monster here does not necessarily intend to harm you. The metaphorical monster is an idea, frightening only because it is something too raw or too tangled to present to the reader in a literal sense. The monster doesn’t bring death, not always. This monster brings instead a reflection of knowledge we don’t have and can’t learn because that knowledge, presented nakedly, wouldn’t be absorbed. So, instead, the monster is that knowledge, abstracted enough that we allow it past our initial walls and defences. We let the monster in under the portcullis because we don’t realize it’s a Trojan horse. The metaphorical monster means to do more than harm us. It means to remake us through revealed knowledge. In some ways, perhaps it’s the more dangerous of the two.
But, as I suggested, these are opposite ends of the spectrum. Are there any mortal monster stories told in contemporary times that aren’t metaphors to some degree? I wonder sometimes how aware some authors are of the metaphorical potential inherent in the creatures they dream up, those things that live at the extremes.
Because isn’t that what every monster is? A thing of extremes? Whether it’s a physical extreme—too large, too small, too ugly, too pretty—or an extreme in action or viewpoint, what we consider monstrous is that which is as far from “us” as possible—the Other now becomes ourselves exaggerated beyond recognition. Us in caricature. But there’s also danger in this depiction of the monster. Showing us at our extremes potentially threatens to open minefields, especially when what is us is too narrowly defined. For exaggeration to work, there must be some baseline of what normal is, and all too often and for far too long that normal has revolved around Western ideals, most especially those centred around straight white men.
I’m not suggesting all monsters are limited because of this—the metaphor makes universal many concerns that affect more than just Western men—but it is still the case that there remains a very specific lens through which the world is being portrayed, and even if it’s not blatant this worldview inherently defines as monstrous anything that deviates from the norm. This is how we end up with overweight monsters like Annie Wilkes, or mishappen monsters like Quasimodo. Would Dracula have been so terrifying were he from England and not some “foreign” country? Would a one-armed man still be the villain in both The Fugitive and Twin Peaks on television and in film?
So what do we do? How do we tell stories about monsters without giving in to our base human fears about people who don’t conform to society’s vision of normal? Perhaps it’s best for writers to focus on universal extremes that don’t single out a specific group. The monster made of too much love, the monster born of too much pain, the monster inhabited by too much anger. Or perhaps the issue can be solved by introducing as many new and different viewpoints into the genre as possible with the hope that this will dilute the one worldview with the many, and that diversity will mitigate the potential of any one overwhelming the genre. But in practice we know from experience that people are resistant to such change, especially when they are the ones who benefit most from the imbalance. We may never reach this aspirational utopia, so for now maybe the best course of action for writers is to tread carefully and with added awareness when it comes to monsters and make sure they aren’t thoughtless exaggerations of real conditions that affect real people with real feelings. We must be aware of what our monsters are and why we consider them monsters, regardless of which pole of monsterdom they bend toward.
You can see, though, how this sort of potential trap is inherent in a genre that trades in fear. What we fear is what’s different. What’s other. But we needn’t be fearful, nor should we. The monster is a valuable tool in generating that layer of abstraction needed to process complex ideas—namely what is our world and what is our place in it? I don’t mean this in the conventional sense necessarily. There have been books written about how fictionalized horror helps us deal with real world horror such as environmental issues and war, but it also helps on a more philosophical level, helping the reader better make sense of the more existential threat their material selves present to the unseen world around them. Monsters help concretize these things and allow us to at times better understand them while at other times actively find ways to combat them. Or, on occasion, join them. In this way, the monster is as therapeutic as it is dangerous.
All that said, despite the added weight metaphor brings, it’s almost incidental to the way the monster story works. Most readers see the monster as nothing more than the fur on its back, the teeth in its mouth. It acts in ways that betray our inner selves and fears, but we don’t see it as such, not in the moment. When we find ourselves confronted by these impossible beasts, no matter how ordinary or bizarre, we feel the same things the characters about which we’re reading feel. Excitement and dread. Fear and wonder. That’s what makes a good monster, after all, and what keeps these creatures fresh no matter how old and decayed they are underneath those rotting features. §