Our Inner Demons - Term Paper Example

Our Inner Demons What is a monster? Characters in novels are sometimes categorized as monsters without any exact definition of what a ‘monster’might be. In a social context, a monster might be deemed a person who is detrimental to the social collective in the most extreme sense, such as a murderer or a rapist. However, even this social definition of monster has nuanced complexities dependant on personal beliefs and perspective. For example, often groups with opposing beliefs will categorize their opponents as monsters. We see this constantly in the news with gay rights and abortion, contentious issues currently in the forefront of US politics, in the newspapers and on television. When applied to literature, the idea of a ‘monster’ becomes even more complicated because of the figurative and metaphorical and imaginative applications allowed by prose; a novel might contain a beast that is literally a monster in the most common use of the word, a fantastical creature with frequently violent and frightening attributes. In this essay, I will examine the works of three authors and the monsters within them: Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. To begin, it is important to deconstruct the common associations and applications of the term ‘monster,’ the first of which is that monsters are emphatically and definitively bad, which, again is a subjective term open to personal interpretation and evaluation against a particular standard of moral ethics and beliefs. Because ‘bad’ is subjective, it stands to reason that making a blanket definition of monsters as ‘bad’ is not only reductive but also markedly untrue and simplistic. A careful reading of these three novels supports this claim. The monsters in these novels are not simply “bad,” but rather are malleable authorial devices used to shed light on a particular thematic or social concern. Another important consideration is author intentionality. What did each of the authors intend for the reader to believe about monsters? Stoker offers a distinct element of reality by presenting Dracula within the framework of an epistolary novel supplemented by newspaper clippings and journal entries. The multiple narrators serve as almost a scientific peer review, each of the independent voices reaffirming the existence of Dracula. The realism adds to the fright. The novel highlights and plays upon a common fear of the time, which was an invasion of England or the modern, civilized Western world and society, by suspect exotic forces. This emphatically xenophobic attitude has pervaded countless societies over history as it uses the most primal sense of conflict: us versus them. Stoker, is, in effect, utilizing the character of Dracula to reinforce our fear of “the other” or “otherness” in order to engage reader involvement in the novel as a whole. This fear of otherness recurs again with the sexuality of Stoker’s vampire brides. In this sense, Dracula is a classic Victorian novel, rife with sexual repression. By using vampire brides, Stoker can titillate his audience with the sexual wantonness of these ‘monsters’ without straying from the bounds of moral constraints and strictures. The vampires enact the repressed sexual impulses of the Victorian times, so to categorize them as ‘monsters’ relieves the reader of any guilt for enjoying the erotic thrill in much of the novel’s action. The reader’s moral fiber remains intact. The sexuality is frequently sadomasochistic, thrilling in the helpless loss of control, the helpless loss of morality with the bite of a vampire and subsequent thirst for both sex and blood, two of the most primal survival instincts of the human race. Here, this sexuality is palpable: “The fair girl went on her knees and bent over me, fairly gloating. There was a deliberate voluptuousness which was both thrilling and repulsive, and as she arched her neck she actually licked her lips like an animal... I could feel the soft, shivering touch of the lips on the supersensitive skin of my throat, and the hard dents of two sharp teeth, just touching and pausing there” (Stoker, 56). The overt sensuousness of this passage is due to not only her beauty and inhibition, but also the danger of her teeth, thrusting the reader into the cusp between reserved and moralistic Western society and the uninhibited, exotic vampires. The danger of control, of being controlled and losing one’s inhibitions is both exciting and freeing as well as frightening. Even the way Dracula is referred to as “Master” (Stoker, 109) and the way the pronoun ‘you’ or possessive pronoun ‘your’ are capitalized in reference to Dracula reveal Stoker’s knowledge and use of a sadomasochistic trope. Though we view our contemporary society as one of relative sexual freedom, sex is still very much a taboo in everyday life and thus the inhibited sexual freedoms of the vampires is still as enticing as it was when the novel was written in the tight-laced Victorian Era. If Dracula gives a social warning against wantonness and exoticism, then the monster in Frankenstein functions as part of a cautionary tale with regards to the Industrial Revolution. Again, like Dracula, Frankenstein utilizes an epistolary framework in order to legitimize the ‘reality’ of the monster and to imbue the novel with credibility to increase the frightening effect of the ‘monster.’ The fact that the Frankenstein never names his monster is a telling sign, a sign that the ‘monster’ is a blank, a space for projection and a representative figure for the flaws of Frankenstein, the human. The fault of the tragedies done by the monster belong to Frankenstein, who through his singular vice, over ambition and pride, created ‘a monster’ capable of murder, emotion, and an increasingly violent proclivity toward revenge. Frankenstein created, in the ‘monster’ an amalgam of his own vices and problems. The “abhorred devil” (Shelley, 68) is his own creation. Frankenstein provides an excellent platform to meditate on the idea that the true ‘monsters’ are not the creatures themselves, but rather the humans who create them, the humans who have a moral responsibility to tend to their creation. This argument can be applied contemporarily to the global warming crisis, as the creators of technological wonders we have the responsibility to care for them and the effects that they cause to the world as a whole. Shelley alludes to the Industrial Revolution, a time of great change in industry and in the mindset of Western society. The Industrial Revolution was the age of the machine in many ways and the critics of the movement wondered if man might eventually be overtaken by the machines that he created. There is also the Marxist critique of the Industrial Revolution to be contended with, which is that machines detract from the common man’s ability to have control of his means of production, essentially enslaving him to a machine and the elite upper classes who own, run, and manage the machines. Now, while arguing that Shelley had a subtle Marxist agenda is an interesting point of contention, it is more of a corollary to the main argument, which is a moral one, an argument regarding responsibility and fallibility of man. Frankenstein falls squarely into the category of immorality by virtue of neglect. Frankenstein finally voices an acknowledgement of his own failures and pride when he says that his own search for “knowledge and wisdom”(Shelley, 128) was gratified as a “serpent to sting [him]”(Shelley 128). The work of Frankenstein is repented as it becomes clear that the monster is a creature bent on revenge and not simply a misguided monster. Frankenstein and the reader have ample time to consider the foolishness of interfering with the natural order and the necessity of death. Frankenstein’s bold attempts to essentially play at being God and reverse death itself turn out predictably terribly. The essential message of the novel that pride and ambition can fuel man to go beyond his means and create evil even with the best and most honorable intentions. Frankenstein is concerned with an unchecked ambition and the results of human vice and pride, and similarly, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is concerned with repression in a similar manner to Dracula. Dr. Jekyll cannot acknowledge both his good and bad parts and thus the ‘bad’ part of his personality is repressed begins to emerge as Dr. Hyde even when Dr. Jekyll doesn’t want to transform into Hyde. Jekyll cannot accept that he has a ‘bad’ side to himself and because he is unable to accept this side of himself, his evil attributes are projected on to another entirely separate persona in a classic Freudian example of the unconscious mind motivating the behavior of the conscious mind, an impossible and senseless separation. Like Frankenstein, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is also concerned with human vice. In Frankenstein, Frankenstein believes that he can defy death, going against Christian dictates. In The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Jekyll cannot acknowledge or face his sins and vices, locking them away in Hyde, and in doing so, cannot fully repent; Jekyll falls into the Christian sin of pride, believing himself to be without evil, beyond reproach and already saved by Jesus. Like in Dracula, Jekyll at first revels in the inhibitions allowed to him by becoming Hyde; he can do and be what he likes without any control or knowledge of consequences. This inhibition is highly dangerous in the heavily controlled and monitored Victorian society and thus eventually the inhibition takes over Jekyll and he can no longer control his own being, transforming into the evil Hyde without any sense of control. Mirroring the story of Satan’s fall from Heaven, Jekyll cannot admit that he is not perfect, is not God, and has evil within himself, so his vices and pride overtake him. Jekyll realizes that the reason he can become both these personalities is because he is “radically both” (Stevenson, 167). The fact that the Jekyll/Hyde character is based on a real person who lived in Edinburgh, an honorable locksmith by day and thief, drunkard, and gambler by night, reveals yet another message of the novel, that each of us have monsters within us, that no one is safe and we should be wary of Satan, of evil in even the most noble of people because everyone has some of the Devil in the them, everyone is made up of a duality of beneficial good and destructive evil. To conclude, the definition of a monster may not be as simple and easy as one might think. After examining these three novels, the clear conclusion is that within man himself there is the greatest potential for monsters and for evil. The uninhibited freedom of evilness reflects a society that didn’t allow for a great deal of freedom, both for the self and for the self to express sexuality even in a private way. Like Jekyll and Hyde, man has the potential for both good and evil, hero and monster, and the choices of a life lead either to unleashing the monster within or taming it. A monster is something that eludes an exact definition besides that a monster is someone who is going against the cultural and social dictates of the time, someone who defies and subverts the commonly accepted beliefs and structures of the social system as a whole. Read More