The Seven Theses of “The Monster”

The word “monster” comes from the Latin word monstrum which means something that reveals or warns. A monster exemplifies a particular cultural moment between which there is a difference between when it is conceived and the time it reveals itself to society. It represents a combination of desire, fear and anxiety, all of which are revealed at this singular cultural moment.

Thesis II: The Monster Always Escapes

       No matter how hard society may try to exterminate monsters, this is never achieved. Whenever attempts are made to destroy the monster, it disappears to another place whereat it recreates itself through assuming another form. In order to fully understand monsters, one needs to appreciate the systems that create them fully. These include social, cultural and historical aspects, all of which are closely intertwined. Cohen alludes to the vampire, which, even though it may be “killed” at some point, it returns in another form, with different clothing. It fits into that particular moment in which it returns.

Thesis III: The Monster is the Harbinger of Category Crisis

       In reference to Thesis II, monsters escape because they are difficult to fit into any acceptable categories (Cohen 6). The monster threatens to break the barriers of definition, where the existing systems in society leave them hanging on the peripheries of norms.

Thesis IV: The Monster Dwells at the Gates of Difference

       The best description of a monster is the “outsider”. Due to society’s inability to fit them into any particular categories, they exhibit differences in regards to cultural, racial, political, sexual and economic norms. Cohen provides the examples of Muslims at the time of Crusades and Native Americans in the Manifest Destiny period. The monster’s differences with society are in themselves monstrous.

Thesis V: The Monster Polices the Borders of the Possible

       The very existence of the monster sets the borders which society must not cross. The borders in this sense may be intellectual, sexual or geographical. An attempt by someone to step outside these borders would be tantamount to becoming monstrous themselves (Cohen 12). In essence, the monster is an existing contradiction. A certain element in their being tells the story of how the monster grew to their present condition, while another aspect elucidates their role in society – perhaps to warn others not to break the rules, which would create the monsters in them.

Thesis VI: Fear of the Monster is Really a Kind of Desire

       While the monster represents the fear of becoming ostracized from the larger society, there is a simultaneous desire of people to explore it, the dangers notwithstanding. Certain parts of the world, such as Africa, Scandinavia and South America represent this monstrosity in their non-conformity statuses. However, they provide the possibilities of exploring sexual fantasies. Monsters naturally worries and fascinates society at the same time (Cohen 18).

Thesis VII: The Monster Stands at the Threshold of Becoming

       Although society goes to great lengths to push monsters out of their geographical and normal discourse, they do return. When they do so, they usually have a fuller knowledge both of themselves and of society (Cohen 20). They understand the history of the place from which they were chased better, more so because their knowledge is now influenced from the “Outside” from which they return.

Analysis of the Monster Culture (Seven Theses) by J.J. Cohen

Jeffrey Jerome Cohen articulates the monstrous dialect by remarking on its proliferation during the techno and media culture age and the ubiquity of the Frankenstein syndrome. Cohen highlights seven theses that depict the characteristics of the monster and how its manifestation is exposed. The article deviates from the previous modes of cultural studies. Cultures have different ways in which they carry out their activities; as such, the writer highlights the need for understanding them through their monsters. The author describes seven elements within the essay that hypothesizes the relation between the monster and the culture. The theses offer an understanding of the particular cultural moments through which the monster is illustrated.

In many societies, the monsters are a personification of a cultural instance. According to the first thesis, as a cultural body, a monster does not represent what it seems. The writer notes that the monster’s body is a character that incorporates the aspects of fear, anxiety, desire, and ataractic fantasy that offer them mysterious independence. The author compares the space occupied in culture by the monster's body with the Derrida's familiar chasm of difference. The monster implies something different from what is known as it is shown to inhabit the disparity between the time of disruption that caused it and the period into which it is time-honored to be reborn.

The second thesis explains the monster’s ability to break away from a particular place only to resurface elsewhere. Over the previous times, the monsters have found their place repeatedly in the society. Monsters can be explored and comprehended following the social and historical characteristics of culture such as the common gender issues. The relations that generate the monsters always change. It is important to review every time a monster reappears against the current social relations.

In the third theses, the Monster is the Harbinger of category crisis. The monster refuses characterization due to its ability to appear and reappear hence making it difficult to apprehend its status. The monster’s body is incoherent with the normalcy and expectations of the societal concerns. The thesis conveys the point that monsters are different from each other and difficult to understand. The monsters slip away hence making it difficult to categorize them within the various categories. In addition, monsters change concerning the demands of people across a particular region. The fourth thesis highlights the existence of the monster in the gates of difference. The author depicts that monsters are born out through cultural differences. The amplification of cultural difference into monstrous peculiarity is familiar. In the fifth thesis, the monster policies borders of the possible, the monster is a counsel against potential exploration that hinders sexual, geographical, and sexual mobility. The monster restricts the societal space in which humans can move as it enforces the law of exclusion.

The sixth thesis regards the fear of the monster as a kind of desire. It highlights that concern amongst individuals in a culture is not only a kind of hope but also rather a form of freedom. Monsters are depicted as creatures that cause panic and fear among the people who interact with them in their cultures since they can change their appearance and traits, which form a good source of power amongst individuals. Lastly, the thesis portrays monsters as creatures that learn their ways of life from the very humans within their reach. In case we try to get rid of them, they reform and come in ways that are more different.

Finally, Cohen’s theses imply that monsters are half animals and half creatures that do not fit into the social system of the human existence and which can prevent us from being defined as coherent species. Throughout the essay, the author highlights the need to appreciate the monsters in our cultures and the role they play in defining our cultural status of existence. It illustrates that the same creatures that we make or formalize to exist among us are the same animals that come to haunt our ways of life thus creating fear and discomfort amongst us.