The Democratization of Monsters as Characters :: Monsters Literature Novels Essays

The Democratization of Monsters as Characters Proportion and distortion are not just irrelevant to monstrosity. Monsters are not weird or wrong versions of ideal forms, and the monstrous is not that which violates the rules of the game or calls boundaries and order into question. There are no necessary narratives that are inevitably reacted to (making it just a question of how). At the same time, this is not an anarchist thesis. At one level, monstrosity is obviously that which is called monstrous. However, there must be something too it. Right? Ways of writing, reading, or thinking monstrosity enact monstrosity, just as an era’s critics often embody their culture better than the society they critique. What is interesting instead is how to react to monstrosity in its face today. Proportion is certainly not the issue. Pro portions look for portion and then compare them, without offering criteria for comparison. Elementary definitions of simile and metaphor are not instructive in this regard. A simile is a metaphor with ‘like’ or ‘as’, and both are comparisons, but comparisons are acts or statements of comparing. To compare is to describe as similar, equal, or analogous. First, similar means alike but not identical, and alike means having close resemblance – which is the state or quality of exhibiting similarity or likeness too. Second, equal means having the same measure or value. Same means being the very one, identical – which means being the same, exactly equal, or just indistinguishable and so interchangeable. Third, analogous means â€Å"similar or alike in such a way as to permit the drawing of an analogy†, and analogy means â€Å"similar in some respects† or a â€Å"comparison b ased on such similarity†[1]. The whole batch of words that try to explain comparison end up relying on the exhibiting of similarity to come from the object, measurement to be intrinsic to the object, interchangeability to be possible by inability to distinguish, and objects with respects that can be the previous things. Exhibition is not a one way street by which objects strike passive actors. Equal means having the same measurement.