The Known and Unknown

Reading Angela Carter’s “In the Company of Wolves” and “The Lady of the House of Love” this week was a really great way to close a semester studying monsters, because they reflect two ways that ordinary people can protect themselves from the monster― and the anxiety or uncertainty it represents.

Little Red Riding Hood, Gustave Dore 

“In the Company of Wolves” is a pastiche which subverts the story of “Little Red Riding Hood”, featuring a girl who confronts and embraces (both physically and metaphorically) the werewolf who has consumed her grandmother. And my take-away from that as a reader is that though a monster may be threatening, and your culture or family may have stories about it that beg you to stay away, sometimes the best thing you can do is look a “monster”― or any issue― in the face and accept it for all of its disturbing traits. It’s the same way that in the Harry Potter series, the character of Dumbledore insists on saying the villain Voldemort’s name, stating that now oft-quoted phrase: “fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself” (Rowling, 298). This point, and I think Angela Carter’s as well can be interpreted as an acknowledgement that sometimes a subject becomes more frightening the more unknown they are, and that to make it more known takes away a large degree of its power. And I think this can also be seen in the gradual medicalization of monstrous births― the move away from viewing them entirely as “divine prodigies” to more “natural”, affected by conception results and practices as well as God (Park and Daston, Unnatural Conceptions, 1981).

Now obviously many monster stories play with the idea that the known is scarier than the unknown― and we see that in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, through both Jekyll’s terrible pursuit of scientific knowledge, and Dr. Lanyon’s death when he finally receives understanding. This is also the case in Frankenstein, though one could argue that Victor may have become less frightened of his creation if he had ceased to run away from it, and instead stared at its horrible visage and had a conversation.

Another element I think Carter plays with, this time in “The Lady of the House of Love” is that a monster can be resisted through a personal shield, or a kind of purity. This can perhaps explain why in Stephen King’s It, children are the only ones capable of defeating the monster― even when the characters return to Derry as adults, they revert to their childhood dynamics, habits, and memories to kill the creature. That is not to say all children are resilient; indeed, plenty of children have been sacrificed by authors to feed a monstrous appetite, so not all children are immune. 

But there is innocence, purity, and― in “House of Love”―specifically virginity that protects the soldier from the countess Nosferatu’s deadly appetite― making the conclusion of the story so much more poignant, as his leave for the war-front indicates an innocence that will be destroyed for an entire generation by World War I. Not to mention one has to wonder how many young (and perhaps legitimately virginal) men died in the war, having signed up through a childish naiveté. And their deaths, occurring before a proper transition to adulthood, would leave them frozen in youth forever to their families much in the way the countess has been.

The Teenage Soldiers of World War I (Getty Images)

And I think metaphorically in this story, the countess (and all the young men she consumes) stand as a metaphor for the war. Which is also perhaps why her innocent soldier is English, considering the enormous effort and sacrifice the English contributed to the First World War. Angela Carter herself was English and born after World War I, but before World War II, so it’s arguable that her pure, innocent, straightforward English soldier represented the barrier all British soldiers formed in their fight against frightening foreign powers.  And it was largely through their sacrifice, through the innocence and youth of all the allied powers that the wars were won.

Works Cited

Carter, Angela. "The Lady of the House of Love", and "In the Company of Wolves". The Bloody Chamber, 1979. PDF File. 

Little Red Riding Hood, by Gustave Dore. Digital Image. Owlcation. 7 March, 2019. https://owlcation.com/humanities/Angela-Carters-The-Company-of-Wolves-as-Folktale-Variation

The Teenage Soldiers of World War I. Digital Image. BBC News. 11 November 2014, https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-29934965

P 

Park, Katharine, and Lorraine J. Daston. “Unnatural Conceptions: The Study of Monsters in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century France and England.” Past & Present, no. 92, 1981, pp. 20–54. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/650748.

Rowling, J.K. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. New York: Scholastic Inc., 1998.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Stay Out of the Woods! ...And Mountains, Swamps, and Deserts too.

After listening to a representative of the Stó:lo nation this week who spoke on indigenous monsters in our community, I was struck by the cultural crossover― that is, the way that monster stories around the globe can play on similar concepts. Perhaps that’s an easy point to make, but it is nonetheless compelling when you consider the origins of these stories; we are forced to ask how so many communities from around the globe have reported similar monsters despite radically different climates, cultural practices, and belief systems.

Bukwas Mask

For example, our indigenous speaker Alfred “Sonny” McHalsie discussed at length the Pacific North West’s familiar monster: The Sasq'ets, or Sasquatch as he’s become more commonly identified. Here in the Fraser Valley, particularly if you head closer towards Harrison and Boston Bar, you’ll see Sasquatch signs, statues, and even restaurants capitalizing on the monster’s image and rumoured locality. 

Harrison Hot Springs Tourism Ad

And as McHalsie explained, the Sasq'ets have been spotted by members of the Stó:lo nation for ages, some of whom claim to have photographs. But the belief isn’t new; as Edward Simon writes in his article, “Why Sasquatch and Other Crypto-Beasts Haunt our Imaginations”:

Since the 15th century, and possibly earlier, there have been accounts of hairy, nude, and tremendously strong people living in the more obscure corners of the Caucasus. Called “Almas,”… Across the sunbaked Eurasian steppe and high in the Himalayas, there is the white-furred Yeti, the abominable snowman of hikers’ accounts. Six thousand miles away, the socalled “skunk-ape” skulks among the swamps in between Florida strip-malls… Australia’s outback has the “Yowie”; in Indonesia, there is the jabbering, tiny, orangecolored “Ebu Gogo,” or the “Grandma who eats anything."

Now it’s too simple to say all these creatures are hallucinations, or misidentified animals. Maybe they are, but ultimately, like all monsters, they’re a stand-in for an underlying anxiety.

So what can they possibly represent to us? One might wonder if, before the boom of agricultural, globalization, and the foresting industry, the wild, untamed landscapes of these areas induced fear in the peoples of the regions. It is reasonable to assume that in the backwoods of the Pacific North West, where several apex predators such as bears and mountain lions roam, a reasonable person might be apprehensive every time they slipped among the trees. There’s also the fear of getting lost, or dying of exposure, all which have occurred undoubtedly countless times over the last thousand years. 

So perhaps that is what the Sasquatch and all its contemporaries symbolize: a fear of the unknown, the untamed. This could be why these creatures are always wild, hairy, and unnaturally strong too; as both inhabitants and representatives of an uncontrollable region which exists outside of ordered society, they must be more animal than man.  

As well, these fears are a natural deterrent; regardless of whether or not these creatures exist, the territories they are said to inhabit are statistically and historically dangerous. High mountains, deep woods, wild outback, swamps― could these monsters not, then, represent both a community’s anxiety about an area, and a desire to keep all but the most experienced away from it?

In this vein then, we must consider that the descriptions of the Sasq'ets appearing as a kind of ape-man, a humanoid creature who walks upright may be a result of those who have disappeared into the forest. Their meaning can be twofold: they exist both as a representative of one who becomes lost from their society, and also as a warning to be cautious and respectful when entering an untamed territory.

Works Cited

Harrison Hot Springs Tourism Ad. Digital Image. Tourism Harrison. 8 November 2014, https://www.tourismharrison.com/blog/newsletter/cat/Hiking/page/1

Simon, Edward. “Why Sasquatch and Other Crypto-Beasts Haunt Our Imaginations.” Anthropology of Consciousness, vol. 28, no. 2, Fall 2017, pp. 117–120. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1111/anoc.12072.

Tom Paterson Bukwas Mask. Digital Image. Cryptozoonews. 15 May 2014, http://www.cryptozoonews.com/sasqets-mask/

Monstrous Births and Modern Day "Freak" Shows

After watching Tod Browning’s 1932 film Freaks this week, in which actors with real disabilities portray characters in a circus, one is forced to consider why they are relevant in a discussion of monsters and metaphors. Of course, the fact that the movie poster exclaims, “Can a Fully Grown Woman Truly Love a Midget?” Is a clear indication that, at least at that time, those with medical dwarfism were not considered human in the same context that a person of regular stature would be. And if they were not considered human, then they would be perceived as inhabiting a separate category, or standing somewhere between humanity and the monstrous other.

"Freaks" Movie Poster, 1932

And unfortunately, this idea has historical roots, and hasn’t changed much even in our era― indeed, The Learning Channel (TLC) regularly produces reality shows around families of short stature, attempting to both normalize the condition while capitalizing on its modern “freak show” style. Undoubtedly the mystery of conception and birth, as well as cultural fears and anxieties around pregnancy― and its sometimes surprising results― claim partial responsibility for this phenomenon.

And though today the process of birth has become overwhelmingly medicalised, there are still things we don’t know or understand about it; even throughout the last century, the practice has changed drastically. The ideas and rules about pregnancy, delivery, and childcare are constantly shifting― what may have in your mother's time been considered safe, or even ideal, may in your own be seen as dangerously ignorant or neglectful. As a mother myself, I remember the often unsolicited advice I was given for what to eat, how much to move, which way to sleep, which vitamins to take, and countless other pieces intended to bring about a "healthy" child― the definition of which is also constantly changing.

What also makes birth so mysterious is that sometimes the very attempts to ground and medicalise it, to unpack the mystery or control the unknown have in themselves created frightening or monstrous consequences. In the 1950's and 1960's for example, the drug Thalidomide was given to women as a tranquilizer for morning sickness symptoms; it was advertised as “completely non-poisonous, completely safe” (Klausen and Parle, 735) but caused massive birth defects. Consequently, thousands of children around the globe were born partially disabled, often missing limbs. 

Thalidomide Advertisement, 1959

These “thalidomide babies” became an international phenomenon; as Klausen and Parle describe in their article “'Are We Going to Stand By and Let These Children Come into the World?' The Impact of the ‘Thalidomide Disaster’ in South Africa, 1960-1977”:

Descriptions of deformed infants and parents’ shock struck fear into the hearts of many about the prospect of having a severely disabled child. And at least in the USA, popular magazines like Time and National Enquirer published photographs of thalidomide babies; the latter peddled images and descriptions of the children as ‘freaks’ to be gawked at and feared. (746)

To me, this stands as another example of a parallel between birth, fear, and monstrosity. And while today, a routine pregnancy scan allows a technician to photograph, measure, and determine the health and gender of a child in utero, there is still a mystery there― both in the womb itself, and in the varied children it produces. It is one we will probably always be fascinated by, even if we were to enter an era in which babies were only produced in laboratories. Conception and birth are difficult for us to understand― we can't pin them down, and our attempts to do so are often disastrous. Consequently, as monsters are often both metaphorical representatives of cultural fears, associated with both the known and unknown, science and nature, and will “always come back” pregnancy and creation are a perfect vehicle for them.

Works Cited

Klausen, Susanne M. and Julie Parle. “‘Are We Going to Stand By and Let These Children Come Into the World?’: The Impact of the ‘Thalidomide Disaster’ in South Africa, 1960–1977.” Journal of Southern African Studies, vol. 41, no. 4, Aug. 2015, pp. 735–752. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1080/03057070.2015.1047181.

“Freaks” Movie Poster, 1932. Digital Image. The Original Underground. 2019. https://theoriginalunderground.com/products/freaks-movie-poster

Thalidomide advertisement, 1959. Digital Image. Developmental Toxicology. http://developmentaltoxicology.weebly.com/thalidomide.html

Snow and Secrets: The Monsters of Disney's "Frozen"

Superhero: Elsa shoots ice out of her hands in an attempt to freeze the ocean.

With the arrival of Disney’s Frozen II in theatres this month, and as a mother of two young girls, it seemed only natural to me to write a blog post about the monsters (and metaphors) in the popular animated films. A quick glance at Wikipedia will tell you that the first Frozen film was inspired by Danish writer Hans Christian Anderson’s short story The Snow Queen; as Carolyn Giardina writes in her article “Making of Frozen”,

In Frozen, fear paralyzes Princess Elsa (voiced by Idina Menzel) and her Norwegian kingdom of Arendelle. Elsa was born with the power to control ice and snow, but she's never been able to harness this power. The fear of losing control has caused her to distance herself from everyone, even her sister. And when she does lose that control, her magic dooms her realm to a wintry eternity, and it falls to Elsa's sister, Anna (Kristen Bell), to save her sister and the kingdom. (1)

And indeed, when Elsa distances herself in the first film, she does it by creating an ice palace in the mountains near their kingdom, accompanied by an enormous snow monster who chases away her sister and friends when they come to find her. And here, this monster easily represents the enormity of Elsa’s fear and anger at the secret she’s been forced to keep for years. In the story, as a child Elsa’s magic powers frightened her parents and they taught her to supress them, isolating her with the secret from her sister and her community. As an adult, and reigning queen of Arendelle, Elsa’s anxiety about her powers enable them to control her, and in a moment of distress she reveals her magical abilities to a thoroughly non-magical community. Naturally, her subjects are terrified.

Had Elsa been raised to embrace her powers, it is likely that they could have been moderated by trust, as well as the warmth of close family and friend relationships. It is called Frozen, after all, which hardly applies solely to the snowy landscape. If given this opportunity, Elsa could have been a less angry, anxious adult, and subsequently may not have created a guarded isolation from which even her sister is prohibited. And when the snow monster violently pursues Anna and her companions down the mountain, wreaking havoc on the landscape, we see it as a metaphor for Elsa’s rage, and the damage such enormous secrets can wreak on the lives of an entire family.

To make realistic looking snow, the filmmakers behind Frozen asked mathmaticians for help.

This idea is replicated in Frozen II, when Anna and Elsa discover that a family member betrayed a local indigenous tribe, and the forest which the tribe traditionally inhabited has become filled with angry wind and fire spirits, as well as rock giants. Elsa and Anna’s paternal grandfather, the former King of Arendelle, built an enormous stone dam that he claimed would help the tribe, while knowing it would in fact weaken them and damage their way of life.

Here, the rock giants represent the secret of Elsa and Anna’s grandfather’s deceit; not only did he build the dam out of stone, but the rock giants are, in the end, the ones who destroy it, freeing both the tribe trapped in the forest and the women from a dangerous history that threatens their kingdom. In the end of both films, the message seems to be that knowledge is in fact the way to eliminate a monster (rather than create it, as we’ve seen in the works of Robert Louis Stevenson and Mary Shelley). That deceit, and lack of knowledge creates a monster which cannot be supressed forever, and it is better to open up and “let it go”.

Works Cited

Giardina, Carolyn. “Making of Frozen: Disney Is Gunning for Its First-Ever Best Animated Feature Oscar with This Lush Adaptation of a Classic Hans Christian Andersen Fairy Tale--Which Boasts Kristen Bell and Idina Menzel Voicing the Lead Princesses and Songs from a Book of Mormon Tony Winner.” Hollywood Reporter, no. 43, 2013, p. 70. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edsggo&AN=edsgcl.354086102&site=eds-live.

Wikipedia contributors. "Frozen (2013 film)." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 24 Nov. 2019. Web. 25 Nov. 2019.

Superhero: Elsa shoots ice out of her hands in an attempt to freeze the ocean. Digital Image. DailyMail.co. 11 June 2019. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-7128609/Elsa-sets-action-packed-journey-new-trailer-Frozen-2.html. JPEG File.

To make realistic-looking snow, the filmmakers behind Frozen asked mathematicians for help. Image: © The Walt Disney Co. Digital Image. ScienceNewsForStudents.org. 6 March, 2015. https://www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/article/science-hollywood. JPEG File.

Sexuality Part 2: The Victorians

Victorian Britain Sexuality

      It is impossible to talk about monsters as metaphors without referencing Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde; a regular man bringing out his darkest desires in the form of a violent villain is, in itself, clearly a metaphor for repression and inner urges. This is particularly important given the historical time in which Jekyll and Hyde was written, as the Victorian culture was all about presenting an image of control and propriety, particularly in regards to carnal impulses. As Morse Peckham writes in “Victorian Counterculture”:

Thus, if we look at Victorian culture, we see a public culture of sexual restraint, a remissive culture of sexual license, and an emerging culture, eventually to be reasonably successful… of sexual repression. (4)

      This idea ties into an earlier blog post I wrote about monsters and sexuality; Dr. Jekyll is a classic example of a man unable to achieve moderation for his less savoury urges due to the culture he lives in, and thus must create a monster through which those urges can be carried out. And though the monster is himself, unlike Dr. Frankenstein’s creation whose form is separate, perhaps this is what makes Mr. Hyde much more satisfying, or more tempting of a monstrous double than Frankenstein’s ever could be. In the chapter, “Henry Jekyll’s Full Statement on the Case” of Jekyll and Hyde, we hear the doctor describe exactly why he felt as though he had to pursue his repressed urges so catastrophically:

In this case, I was driven to reflect deeply and inveterately on that hard law of life, which lies at the root of religion and is one of the most plentiful springs of distress. Though so profound a double dealer I was in no sense a hypocrite; both sides of me were in dead earnest; I was no more myself when I laid aside restraint and plunged in shame, than when I laboured, in the eye of day, at the furtherance of knowledge… I thus drew steadily nearer to that truth… that man is not truly one, but truly two. (73)

      Had Jekyll been born into a different culture, his repression and pursuit of this knowledge might have been unnecessary; in the same vein, Stevenson’s story may never have been written had the author known a different era. And in this way we can see that, like the Ancient Greeks I wrote about initially, the Victorians were as obsessed with sexuality as those before them, and their repression and shame towards it created a new kind of monster: the duplicitous double, the wolf in sheep's clothing; the Mr. Hyde. 

Works Cited

Peckham, Morse. “Victorian Counterculture.” Victorian Studies, vol. 18, no. 3, Mar. 1975, p. 257. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=30h&AN=6882128&site=eds-live.

Stevenson, Robert Louis. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Other Stories. United States of America: Barnes & Noble, 1995. Print.

Victorian Britain Sexuality. Digital Image. Victorian-Era.org. February 2, 2017. http://victorian-era.org/sexual-repression-in-the-victorian-era.html/victorians-britain-sexuality. JPEG File.

Monsters and Halloween

Classic Universal Movie Monsters

As October winds down, and Halloween approaches, one can't help but wonder about the significance of the event and the monstrous costumes and themes that often accompany it; what is it about subversive holidays or celebrations that we find so appealing?

In the Western world at least, the month of October and Halloween often indicate a permission to explore and decorate with that which would normally be perceived as strange or even threatening. Houses are adorned with images of death, such as skulls, gravestones, corpses, and coffins, and also with monstrous elements like witches, ghosts, oversized spiders and bats. Pumpkins are carved with leering faces and placed, candle-lit on the porch, and candy- something which is generally perceived to be perhaps not ideal for a child's diet- is handed out in droves to some as young as one or two years old. And while some children (and adults) choose costumes that might be more fantasy than monstrously inclined, such as princesses, Greek gods, or superheroes, the most dark and frightening outfits are not only accepted but also expected, as are those which glorify notorious villains. Dracula, Frankenstein's monster, rotting mummies, Jack the Ripper and the Devil are all fair game on Halloween in a way they would not be at any other time of the year. 

            And in trying to explain this to my young daughters who find some Halloween decorations understandably disturbing, I found myself using the term "safe scary" as a way to designate the difference between harmless thrills and real, dangerous terrors. And this brings to mind Edmund Burke's "A Physical Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful" in which he discusses that very human need to feel awe and terror; as Simon Court says in his article, "Edmund Burke and the Sublime": "The sublime, then, is our strongest passion, and it is grounded in terror. Yet it is not exclusively an unpleasant emotion, for danger or pain can, in certain circumstances, give us delight" (1).

And it is this very delight that we seek on Halloween, perhaps to placate the terrible fears we might otherwise have about the very real and often inevitable threats in our lives such as disease (zombies, and in some cases, mummies); old age (rotting masks with white hair, wrinkled, warty witches); death (ghosts, the Grim Reaper, skeletons); violence (Jack the Ripper, Sweeney Todd, Freddie Kruger/Jason/Michael Myers, axe-murderers, etc.); technological advancements (mad scientist, Frankenstein's creature, IPhone costumes, and the like); Seduction and temptation (Dracula, vampires, the Devil, sexually-provocative outfits) and the Unknown, which is represented through obscure, frightening monster masks, haunted houses, and the event itself which takes place generally after dark. We need to play with these frightening ideas and themes, because otherwise they would overwhelm us, and we also need to accept them as potential realities in our lives. 

This is particularly why I consider Halloween to be such an important holiday, and why I insist my children experience it. I believe that our society today has become so removed from death and these other dark realities that they have become much more frightening than they would be if they were more regularly ingrained into our daily lives. A society in which a family is responsible for the caring and cleaning of a body of a relative or loved one, for example, may still fear death but will be less likely to fear a corpse. And this follows that graveyards and gravestones may be less likely to inspire foreboding when they are recognized as resting places and markers for those harmless, peaceful bodies. 

This is exactly the reason that today we often find Victorian post-mortem photography to be so disturbing, and often used as a trope in horror movies ("The Others", "A Haunting in Connecticut") rather than recognizing it as an attempt to remember a precious loved one in a time when photography was fairly rare. If we had more familiarity with bodies and with death, we would see these pictures as desperately sad and powerful mementos from grieving families, and grieve with them. Instead, we become preoccupied and frightened by the image of death, and dismiss their cultural significance.  

Vintage-Halloween-Costumes-Skeleton-Horses

So this Halloween, and every Halloween that I can, I will be decorating my home and sending my daughters out to celebrate the event with robust enthusiasm. It is only by recognizing what is "safe scary" that we can spot what is actually dangerous, and it is through an acceptance of unknown dangers that they become more familiar, and less anxiety-inducing; this is a concept I wish to instill in my children, and one that I hope our wider society continues to acknowledge as well. 

Happy Halloween!

Works Cited

Classic Universal Movie Monsters. Digital Image. Gunaxin, 31 October 2019. https://gunaxin.com/ranking-classic-universal-movie-monsters

Court, Simon. “Edmund Burke and the Sublime.” Dove Cottage and the Wordsworth Museum, n.d. 27 Oct. 2019. 

Vintage-halloween-costumes-skeleton-horses. Digital Image. Meghan Walsh Gerard. 26 October 2015. https://mwgerard.com/31-days-of-halloween-october-26/vintage-halloween-costumes-skeleton-horses/

Eyes and the End of the World

This week in our "Monsters In The Western World" class, we discussed the Book of Revelations and the apocalypse; and how early Christian fears of the end of the world made the terrors predicted in Revelations seem plausible. And this lead to a natural conversation about more modern ideas of the apocalypse- what or who our monsters are, and why the horrible, graphic demise of humanity seems to be such an appealing concept.

In the Book of Revelations, the monsters almost defy understanding; they are both human and animal-like, as well as composed of entirely abstract images like one might see in a Salvador Dali painting; when John, receiver of the prophecy hears a loud voice speaking to him in Chapter 1, he turns to see: 

someone like a son of man, dressed in a cloak reaching down to his feet, and gird around at the pecs with a golden sash, except his head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes like flames of fire, and his feet like bronze as if made to glow in a furnace, and his voice like the sound of many waters, and he was holding in his right hand seven stars, and out of his mouth was coming a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in the strength of it. (6)

Further on, when John discusses viewing the thrones in heaven in Chapter 4, he sees:

in between the throne and the circle around the throne are four living beings, full of eyes, front and back. And the first being is like a lion, and the second being like an ox, and the third being has a human face, and the fourth being is like an eagle in flight. And the four beings, every one of them has six wings each, which are covered completely around with eyes, even inward. (12)

And though we are clearly meant to understand that the presence of the incalculable eyes represents an all-seeing nature, one cannot help but feel disgust and revulsion at the idea of so many clustering eyeballs staring, blinking, emoting. And this idea is perpetuated in more modern monsters, with characters such as Henry J. Waternoose in Pixar’s “Monster’s Inc” to the so-called Angel of Death in “Hellboy 2: The Golden Army”.

Henry J. Waternoose- Via Google Images

The Angel of Death

The latter work, directed by Guillermo Del Toro is not his first to feature a monster in which their eyes are elements of horror and revulsion— in 2008’s “Pan’s Labyrinth” his monster The Pale Man has an eyeless face, and sees his prey by placing eyeballs in his palms, which he then holds against his cheeks like strange, blinking crabs.

The Pale Man

But what does this mean for us? What does sight have to do with monstrosity, and how does this relate to fears of the apocalypse?

Arguably, one could say that as the future and death are the two greatest human unknowns, anything all-seeing, or omniscient opens the door to a world we do not genuinely wish to see or understand. In the western world, we are culturally afraid of death and the uncertainty it denotes; therefore, whether it is the eye-encrusted monsters of Revelations, or the creatures in Guillermo Del Toro’s universe, they undoubtedly provoke anxiety and fear through both our physical disgust and mortal terror.

And we can tie this directly into the Apocalypse itself; if Apocalypse means an unveiling, then it indicates a revelation from blindness— a terrible omniscience we hope to never look at fully. And to reveal it reveals our doom.   

Works Cited

Henry James Waternoose. Digital Image. Fandom: Villains. https://villains.fandom.com/wiki/Henry_James_Waternoose_III

The Angel of Death. Digital Image. Cinemablend, 2017. https://www.cinemablend.com/news/1674579/where-hellboy-2s-angel-of-death-came-from-according-to-guillermo-del-toro

The Pale Man. Digital Image. Professor Ramos. 16 November 2018. https://professorramos.net/2018/11/16/the-realm-of-the-pale-man/