Understanding the Monsters

In his Monster Culture, Jeffrey Jerome Cohen comes up with seven theses toward understanding cultures through the monsters they bear. I believe the seven-theses list is by no means an exhaustive one due to the simple fact that the paper is a study on the existence/popularity of the existing monsters and there is the never-ending creation of new monsters going on everyday. Meanwhile, since we all have different definitions of monsters or fear, not every thesis is applicable to every single monster and all monsters do share something in common. For example, thesis I, the monster’s body is a cultural body, is one of the universal theses. I chose Delphine LaLaurie as my monster, who was once a real Louisiana-born socialite and serial killer known for her torture and murder of slaves from 1770s to 1840s. She enjoys sadistic torment to her slaves. She serves as “an embodiment of a certain cultural moment” in which a human being kills and tortures another human for fun and the time when racists prevailed in the world. Just like what Cohen says in his paper, she “signifies something other than herself”. She is not a socialite or even a human being. She signifies all the wicked serial killers who kill for sports and are sadistic of torment to others as well as a true racist. Meanwhile, Delphine Lalaurie is quite a popular character in folklore. The most recent reference is from American Horror Story 3: Coven. This exemplifies Cohen’s second thesis—the monster always escapes. In the TV show, Delphine LaLaurie is cursed to be immortal and buried under her infamous property on Royal Street for more than 300 years, which is her first escape. She comes back to the modern life because the clairvoyant hears her muttering under the ground and Fiona, one of the best witches, desires a way of immortality. So Fiona digs her out and LaLaurie is officially back to normal life. At the end, she is sent to hell but as audience, we do not know what happens after she is in hell. We have no idea whether she escapes or she makes a contract with the death deity to walk in the world again. This is her second escaple. This also exemplifies Cohen’s seventh thesis: the monster stands at the threshold of becoming. “Monsters are our children. They can be pushed to the farthest margins of geography and discourse, hidden away at the edges of the world and in the forbidden recesses of our mind, but they always return.“

Even though what Cohen tries to insinuate in his third thesis is that monsters are usually deformed creatures which is beyond our knowledge or understanding, I do think my monster Delphine LaLaurie gives rise to a category crisis. I cannot identify her as a human being while she is a socialite at her time and she functions exactly the same as everyone else does. There is something evil, different, and transgressive about her that makes me unable to categorize her as a human being. This also leads to Cohen’s fourth thesis – the monster dwells at the gates of difference. A monster does not have to be physically different. A monster is still a monster when it takes sadistic pleasure and has morbid interests.

However, I found Cohen’s fifth and sixth thesis not applicable to my monster because LaLaurie does not have superpower and nobody would enjoy LaLaurie (I think…..).

In general, just like what I mentioned at the beginning of the post, the list of Cohen’s seven theses is definitely not exhaustive and not every thesis is applicable. However, it does give us a way to summarize the rationality of the existence of various monsters. I think there is no need for such an exhaustive list. However, it is important for us to understand the fear behind a monster and what keeps it lingering around. Then we can understand our culture better through these findings.