essay on monster

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Monster Essay Samples

Type of paper: Essay

Topic: Fear , Individual , Monster , Emotions , People , Society , Perception , Evident

Words: 1800

Published: 03/08/2023

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Encounters between the self and other have a profound impact on both the identity of the individual and how they perceive the world around them. Fear, and the psychological conditions associated with it, can have create lasting repercussions that create problems for both the individual and society. What happens to us when we label things or people we fear as “monster” can only be understood in relation to the associations that can be assessed when making inferences concern others people or things. These inferences are often inherently disconnected from reality and can be seen to establish social and cultural norms that make it difficult for people to relate with one another. Nietzsche's philosophy brings to light a profound question regarding the nature of fear and the associations that result from labeling things in this way. His work seems to profoundly question the relationship between the person that is afraid and the object of their fear. Nietzsche asserts that ““He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster” (Aphorism 146). Labeling others as “monster” can, in this way, be seen to be a two-way process. When something becomes labeled, it often effects the underlying sense of reality that those associated with it experience. Whether the accusation that Nietzsche makes concerning the moral dilemma human nature based in truth is difficult to know for sure. It is evident that Nietzsche saw the underlying connection between fear and increasingly radical positions held by groups. Nietzsche states that madness “is something rare in individuals — but in groups, parties, peoples, and ages, it is the rule” (Aphorism 156). In this sense, it is at least evident that he saw that without the other fear is impossible. However, in order to perceive there must be some object outside the experience of the subject. The subject can, furthermore, never fully understand the object. For this reason, it seems that fear itself is a natural result of the basic dichotomy between subject and object. There are a variety of situations in which people come across difference in their daily lives. How they react to these encounters can have a profound effect on not only those that they perceive to be a threat, but on their own identities as well. What happens to an individual when they label others as monster can be expressed in relationship to a more thorough examination of the idea of fear in the modern world. While, historically, fear can be seen to be an essential part of human evolution, it is in the modern world that the expression of fear and its implantation onto another individual or object can be seen to dramatically alter their subjective nature of reality. In the modern world, it seems that people rationalize the experiences that they have “through the narrative of fear” (Furedi 1). This narrative is a necessary element in the cognitive processing of experience. It is through this processing that people are able to psychologically deal with the unknown. This is important, as their capacity for dealing with their fears can have major consequences in regards to the social constructs related to human interaction. It is evident that the level of fear that an individual perceives when encountering the unknown is primarily determined by “the self, and the interaction of the self with others” as well as by society, which “instructs people on how to respond to threats to their security” (Furedi 2). This is, in essence, a completely natural process, essential for the well-being of the individual as well as society. However, it is evident that the objectification of fear and its personification as “monster” are the result of encounters with the unknown. In many cases, fear can be considered a reasonable response to novel and unexpected changes. When society and the individual encounter fear in different ways, there can be a dichotomy in how the object of fear is perceived. In the modern world, rather than being shared collectively among cultures or societies, fear is “internalized in an isolated fashion” (Furedi 3). Fear then becomes a profoundly personal experience that can have profound consequences on an individuals outlook and overall level of happiness. The uncertainty of fear today presents a risk in and of itself. The personal nature of fear and the disassociation that that it results in “has important implications for identity, for how we see and understand ourselves” (Furedi 6). Feeling continuously at risk results in a constant sense of vulnerability. This vulnerability has a profound effect on the decisions that people make and the ideas that they associate with themselves and others. Why this happens is a fundamental question upon which the perceptions of fear abstraction can be seen to rely. Researchers assessing the risks of terrorism on the psychology of those that have been targeted by attacks have found that those that have negative attitudes towards even those that they fear can be profoundly effected in fundamental ways. Emotion is therefore a fundamental aspect of why an object of fear might be perceived as “monster”. In the assessment of risk, it is evident that “positive emotions trigger more optimistic risk assessments and negative emotions trigger more pessimistic ones” (Lerner et al., 2003, p. 1). This demonstrates the effect that labeling has on the management and adaptation of successful risk response measures. In extrapolating these responses, it seems that fearing others can have a profound effect on not only the underlying identity of the individual but also on the responses that they have in encountering those that they consider to be “monster”. These encounters will be fundamentally challenged by the emotional state of the individual and the way that they deal with their fear. Studies demonstrate that the use of fear and anger in making judgments can result in “altered beliefs and attitudes” (Lerner et al., 2003, p. 5). Emotion can therefore be seen to be a strong factor in the decisions that people make about those that they fear. The alteration of perceived values resulting from the tenuous emotional state that has been exacerbated by unconditional fear present the underlying cause of the attribution of “monster” to these objects of fear. Whether this response should be considered good or bad has profound implications for the underlying emotional psychology and the value that is placed on its development. Fear itself is not a bad thing. It is evident that it was necessary for the survival of the human race, and likely many other species. However, the nature of fear as an emotion makes it dangerous to assess criteria on such a non-measurable response. Fear can be understood as an “automatic emotion based on past and present affective experience” (Jarymowicz & Bar-Tal, 2006, p. 368). The compounding nature of fear dictates that past emotional experiences are likely to inform those in the future. This indicates the more sustained and prolonged states of fear are the more objects of attribution are going to likely become labeled as “monster”. This indicates that, while fear itself is not a bad thing, unconditionally labeling others as “monster” in response to fear will likely have poor results. Emotions play a strong role in the adaptation of fear, however, when the object of fear becomes exemplified in a singular form evidence suggests that it can lead to “mal-adaptation by eliciting dysfunctional reactions in certain situations, characterized by irrationality and destructiveness” (Jarymowicz & Bar-Tal, 2006, p. 369). This demonstrates the hazards of attempting to objectify fear in a specific form. In the past, fear was generally considered to be a more general idea. It was useful to both the individual and society as it provided a collective form of relief from the unknown world. This fear worked to unite those within society, giving them the capacity to extrapolate the dangers that they faced in the past and project the likelihood of such dangers into the future. “Threats and dangers, which can be detected in present situations or generalized from past experiences, can be related specifically to a particular individual or be evoked in collective situation” (Jarymowicz & Bar-Tal, 2006, p. 371). However, in modern society, as many of these collective threats have diminished, fear has become much more isolated and personal. The experiences that a person has in relation to fear can have a profound effect on the decisions that they make. Due to the fact that fear allows an individual to make judgments that are based off of past experiences, memory can work to “influence appraisal of a particular situation” (Jarymowicz & Bar-Tal, 2006, p. 372). If making these appraisals based on unsolicited fear then threats can begin to be perceived where there are really none. This can not only serve to cause undue stress and anxiety but it can also isolate the individual from those that do not perceive these threats. In any case, it is evident that “the necessary condition for fear is perception of threat” (Jarymowicz & Bar-Tal, 2006, p. 374). These perceptions can have a profound impact on the underlying conditions for the objectification of fear. It is evident that the values and beliefs are a major source of justification for how fear is processed by the individual. When these values become disseminated to a wide enough population it can “constitute a major influence on the emotional functioning of society members” (Jarymowicz & Bar-Tal, 2006, p. 376). In this way, the labeling of other people or objects as “monster” can have profoundly negative consequences. The significance of this is that by labeling an individual person, group, or object as “monster” the associations that are made in the future will be effected. These encounters can lead to further extrapolation, which can then become a part of the social values that people live by. Fear is then compounded into everyday ordinary subjects, which then themselves become the objects of fear. This demonstrates a profound concern in regards to the capacity of fear to begin to dictate more important areas of life. The fact that decisions made in emotional states that are associated with fear are generally made poorly demonstrates that the implications of labeling people or things as “monster” can result in the degradation of the individual's and society's capacity to make sound judgments when faced with the unknown.

Works Cited

Furedi, Frank. The Only Thing We Have To Fear Is The ‘culture Of Fear’ Itself. Human Thought and Action. 2007. Print. Jarymowicz, M. & Bar-Tal, D. (2006). The Dominance Of Fear Over Hope In The Life Of Individuals And Collectives. European Journal of Social Psychology. No. 36. 367-392. Lerner, J.S., Gonzalez, R.M., Small, D.A., & Fischhoff, B. (2003). Effects Of Fear And Anger On Perceived Risks Of Terrorism A National Field Experiment. Vol. 14. No. 2. American Psychological Society. Nietzsche, Friedrich. (1966). Beyond Good and Evil. Trans. Walter Kaufmann. New York: Random House.

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Essay: A ‘Monster’ and Its Humanity

Reading Frankenstein, now 200 years old

Published Dec. 22, 2017

The Creature as shown in the 1831 edition of Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus.

The British Library Board

Ronald Levao

Professor of English Susan J. Wolfson is the editor of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein: A Longman Cultural Edition and co-editor, with Ronald Levao, of The Annotated Frankenstein.  

Published in January 1818, Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus has never been out of print or out of cultural reference. “Facebook’s Frankenstein Moment: A Creature That Defies Technology’s Safeguards” was the headline on a New York Times business story Sept. 22 — 200 years on. The trope needed no footnote, although Kevin Roose’s gloss — “the scientist Victor Frankenstein realizes that his cobbled-together creature has gone rogue” — could use some adjustment: The Creature “goes rogue” only after having been abandoned and then abused by almost everyone, first and foremost that undergraduate scientist. Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg and CEO Sheryl Sandberg, attending to profits, did not anticipate the rogue consequences: a Frankenberg making. 

The original Frankenstein told a terrific tale, tapping the idealism in the new sciences of its own age, while registering the throb of misgivings and terrors. The 1818 novel appeared anonymously by a down-market press (Princeton owns one of only 500 copies). It was a 19-year-old’s debut in print. The novelist proudly signed herself “Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley” when it was reissued in 1823, in sync with a stage concoction at London’s Royal Opera House in August. That debut ran for nearly 40 nights; it was staged by the Princeton University Players in May 2017. 

In a seminar that I taught on Frankenstein in various contexts at Princeton in the fall of 2016 — just weeks after the 200th anniversary of its conception in a nightmare visited on (then) Mary Godwin in June 1816 — we had much to consider. One subject was the rogue uses and consequences of genomic science of the 21st century. Another was the election season — in which “Frankenstein” was a touchstone in the media opinions and parodies. Students from sciences, computer technology, literature, arts, and humanities made our seminar seem like a mini-university. Learning from each other, we pondered complexities and perplexities: literary, social, scientific, aesthetic, and ethical. If you haven’t read Frankenstein (many, myself included, found the tale first on film), it’s worth your time. 

READ MORE  PAW Goes to the Movies: ‘Victor Frankenstein,’ with Professor Susan Wolfson

Scarcely a month goes by without some development earning the prefix Franken-, a near default for anxieties about or satires of new events. The dark brilliance of Frankenstein is both to expose “monstrosity” in the normal and, conversely, to humanize what might seem monstrously “other.” When Shelley conceived Frankenstein, Europe was scarred by a long war, concluding on Waterloo fields in May 1815. “Monster” was a ready label for any enemy. Young Frankenstein begins his university studies in 1789, the year of the French Revolution. In 1790, Edmund Burke’s international best-selling Reflections on the French Revolution recoiled at the new government as a “monster of a state,” with a “monster of a constitution” and “monstrous democratic assemblies.” Within a few months, another international best-seller, Tom Paine’s The Rights of Man, excoriated “the monster Aristocracy” and cheered the American Revolution for overthrowing a “monster” of tyranny.

Following suit, Mary Shelley’s father, William Godwin, called the ancien régime a “ferocious monster”; her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, was on the same page: Any aristocracy was an “artificial monster,” the monarchy a “luxurious monster,” and Europe’s despots a “race of monsters in human shape.” Frankenstein makes no direct reference to the Revolution, but its first readers would have felt the force of its setting in the 1790s, a decade that also saw polemics for (and against) the rights of men, women, and slaves. 

England would abolish its slave trade in 1807, but Colonial slavery was legal until 1833. Abolitionists saw the capitalists, investors, and masters as the moral monsters of the global economy. Apologists regarded the Africans as subhuman, improvable perhaps by Christianity and a work ethic, but alarming if released, especially the men. “In dealing with the Negro,” ultra-conservative Foreign Secretary George Canning lectured Parliament in 1824, “we are dealing with a being possessing the form and strength of a man, but the intellect only of a child. To turn him loose in the manhood of his physical strength ... would be to raise up a creature resembling the splendid fiction of a recent romance.” He meant Frankenstein. 

Mary Shelley heard about this reference, and knew, moreover, that women (though with gilding) were a slave class, too, insofar as they were valued for bodies rather than minds, were denied participatory citizenship and most legal rights, and were systemically subjugated as “other” by the masculine world. This was the argument of her mother’s Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), which she was rereading when she was writing Frankenstein. Unorthodox Wollstonecraft — an advocate of female intellectual education, a critic of the institution of marriage, and the mother of two daughters conceived outside of wedlock — was herself branded an “unnatural” woman, a monstrosity. 

Shelley had her own personal ordeal, which surely imprints her novel. Her parents were so ready for a son in 1797 that they had already chosen the name “William.” Even worse: When her mother died from childbirth, an awful effect was to make little Mary seem a catastrophe to her grieving father. No wonder she would write a novel about a “being” rejected from its first breath. The iconic “other” in Frankenstein is of course this horrifying Creature (he’s never a “human being”). But the deepest force of the novel is not this unique situation but its reverberation of routine judgments of beings that seem “other” to any possibility of social sympathy. In the 1823 play, the “others” (though played for comedy) are the tinker-gypsies, clad in goatskins and body paint (one is even named “Tanskin” — a racialized differential).

Victor Frankenstein greets his awakening creature as a “catastrophe,” a “wretch,” and soon a “monster.” The Creature has no name, just these epithets of contempt. The only person to address him with sympathy is blind, spared the shock of the “countenance.” Readers are blind this way, too, finding the Creature only on the page and speaking a common language. This continuity, rather than antithesis, to the human is reflected in the first illustrations: 

In the cover for the 1823 play, above, the Creature looks quite human, dishy even — alarming only in size and that gaze of expectation. The 1831 Creature, shown on page 29, is not a patent “monster”: It’s full-grown, remarkably ripped, human-looking, understandably dazed. The real “monster,” we could think, is the reckless student fleeing the results of an unsupervised undergraduate experiment gone rogue. 

In Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein pleads sympathy for the “human nature” in his revulsion. “I had worked hard for nearly two years, for the sole purpose of infusing life into an inanimate body. For this I had deprived myself of rest and health ... but now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart. Unable to endure the aspect of the being I had created, I rushed out of the room.” Repelled by this betrayal of “beauty,” Frankenstein never feels responsible, let alone parental. Shelley’s genius is to understand this ethical monstrosity as a nightmare extreme of common anxiety for expectant parents: What if I can’t love a child whose physical formation is appalling (deformed, deficient, or even, as at her own birth, just female)? 

The Creature’s advent in the novel is not in this famous scene of awakening, however. It comes in the narrative that frames Frankenstein’s story: a polar expedition that has become icebound. Far on the ice plain, the ship’s crew beholds “the shape of a man, but apparently of gigantic stature,” driving a dogsled. Three paragraphs on, another man-shape arrives off the side of the ship on a fragment of ice, alone but for one sled dog. “His limbs were nearly frozen, and his body dreadfully emaciated by fatigue and suffering,” the captain records; “I never saw a man in so wretched a condition.” This dreadful man focuses the first scene of “animation” in Frankenstein: “We restored him to animation by rubbing him with brandy, and forcing him to swallow a small quantity. As soon as he shewed signs of life, we wrapped him up in blankets, and placed him near the chimney of the kitchen-stove. By slow degrees he recovered ... .” 

The re-animation (well before his name is given in the novel) turns out to be Victor Frankenstein. A crazed wretch of a “creature” (so he’s described) could have seemed a fearful “other,” but is cared for as a fellow human being. His subsequent tale of his despicably “monstrous” Creature is scored with this tremendous irony. The most disturbing aspect of this Creature is his “humanity”: this pathos of his hope for family and social acceptance, his intuitive benevolence, bitterness about abuse, and skill with language (which a Princeton valedictorian might envy) that solicits fellow-human attention — all denied by misfortune of physical formation. The deepest power of Frankenstein, still in force 200 years on, is not its so-called monster, but its exposure of “monster” as a contingency of human sympathy.  

Published in the Jan. 10, 2018 , Issue

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How to Write a Monsters Essay?

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Writing an essay about monsters is not a walk in the park. It is a deeply creative and difficult piece of academic work in terms of cultural, psychological, and societal analyses it stipulates. Students tasked with an essay devoted to monsters need to show a thorough cultural understanding of the topic of their essay, be it about a folkloric monster character or a fantasy one.

In this article, we will tell you what makes a monster essay so special, and guide you on how to write a decent essay on monster of your choice, apart from providing some original ideas on possible topics for this kind of essay.

How to write a monster essay

An essay about these creepy creatures – monsters, is not much different from any other college essay when it comes to structural composition and other formal requirements, including length. A typical high school or college paper about monsters as the main theme is 2–3 pages long, and it is usually an open-topic type of paper, i.e., you are responsible for choosing the topic. This freedom is both good and bad news since modern and classic literature and cinema offer us a whole army of monsters to choose from. Check out the very last chapter for some original ideas on topics of essays about monsters.

Meanwhile, you can try out [Company] for immediate and high-quality help with writing your essay assignment. This is a trustworthy academic support agency capable of writing a great essay devoted to the topic of monsters, as well as providing any other academic assistance, including editing, counselling, proofreading, grammar and format check & cleanup, etc.

If you are resolved on writing an essay by yourself, however, below please review several important steps you should consider taking:

• Define a promising topic. Unless you already have a brilliant topic idea in mind, this step may require you to conduct thorough research – recalling the latest fantasy movies you’ve watched about monsters, checking out your folk literature, going online, and generating a couple of relevant search engine results. The result should be an interesting topic, that you find inspiring and can talk about describing its cultural significance, and societal meaning.
• Make a thesis statement. Even an essay about such a popular topic as monsters must have a clear thesis statement. It can be your personal claim, an intriguing opinion you might have about your topic or an assertion that you can prove with reasoning and logic (it would be naïve to expect facts in connection with a fantasy topic).
• Develop a good outline. For your writing to run smoothly, you need to follow a clear plan or an outline. A monster outline essay is equally important as the text of your essay.
• Introduction (including some background information about the topic and a clear thesis statement);
• The main body, which consists of arguments in the form of logic or reasoning. The main body is also the place to “present” your monster, and talk about its place in the society (culture, whether global or local).
• Conclusion – reflect on the chosen topic and its cultural significance. Talk about how you managed to prove/disprove the central point you made in the introductory paragraph.
• Check and edit. Give some time to carefully read your essay, perhaps after a small break. Edit and proofread your text.

We cannot stress enough that your writing would be easier if you spent a little time researching the topic. Even though your favourite monster may be “famous” and you may have plenty of information about it, some background research and extra online reading would always bring additional details (often unexpected), highlight the historical context, and open up new aspects and dimensions.

Monster essay topics

Below, please find several ideas for topics of essays on monsters. You are welcome to change and modify them should you find promising topics for your essay that you’d like to adjust and improve.

• Vampires: discuss the historical origins and cultural connection of the vampire monsters. How they came into being, and what continues to make them an interesting topic for modern book and movie plots.
• Zombies: explore the fears that zombies represent in the global culture. If you are knowledgeable in the local cultural aspects of the zombie phenomenon – that would make up an excellent essay topic!
• Ghosts: what makes the fear of ghosts so ubiquitous? Pick up and explore a ghost story of your choice that is different from the mainstream ghost stories often presented in Hollywood movies.
• Bigfoot: the fictitious and non-fictitious aspects of the Bigfoot. Which cultures and nations are more susceptible to the sighting and stories about Bigfoot, and why?
• Loch Ness Monster: what does the Loch Ness Monster represent? Is it more of a legend or a scientific phenomenon? Talk about the origins of this legend/phenomenon.
• Sirens: what is the exact mythological symbolism of sirens, and why stories about them were so popular during the age of Great Discoveries on the Sea?

Monster essay examples

To aid your writing work, we have located a couple of great examples of essays about monsters online. Check them out below.

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