In one of his theses, Cohen mentioned the idea of the attraction of the monsters (Thesis VI: Fear of the monster is really a kind of desire). That opened up a lot of questions for us to think about monsters in a totally different way. How are monsters attractive? Why are they attractive? Is it possible for them to be concurrently attractive and fearsome? Why do we desire monsters?
One of Cohen's answers is that monsters are something that is bound to the forbidden, which makes them appealing to the rest of the world. They rarely appear in the practices, and hence become the mythical and the admirable to us. In addition, for instance, we can say that the serpent-like monster has sublime beauty in a literary way since they are huge, they are unique and they are just natural to the world. Some of the civilizations call them their gods and even make sacrifices monthly or annually for peace and prosperity. Moreover, we fear their abnormal powers but we also respect that power with the hope that they would not put their wrath upon us.
Furthermore, the monsters are usually connected to the fantasies because, as Cohen said in the last thesis, they stand at the threshold of becoming (or come back). The access to these monsters is forbidden and they can return in no time. It is them who have control over us, which makes their tales even sacred and appealing. Therefore, we always desire to learn about them, and hence, our curiosity demands their returns.
One of Cohen's answers is that monsters are something that is bound to the forbidden, which makes them appealing to the rest of the world. They rarely appear in the practices, and hence become the mythical and the admirable to us. In addition, for instance, we can say that the serpent-like monster has sublime beauty in a literary way since they are huge, they are unique and they are just natural to the world. Some of the civilizations call them their gods and even make sacrifices monthly or annually for peace and prosperity. Moreover, we fear their abnormal powers but we also respect that power with the hope that they would not put their wrath upon us.
Furthermore, the monsters are usually connected to the fantasies because, as Cohen said in the last thesis, they stand at the threshold of becoming (or come back). The access to these monsters is forbidden and they can return in no time. It is them who have control over us, which makes their tales even sacred and appealing. Therefore, we always desire to learn about them, and hence, our curiosity demands their returns.
I think you bring up a interesting point tying Cohen's 2nd Theses and 6th Thesis. The desire to become a monster might be a possible reason that the monster always seems to come back in one form or another. Human desires transcends history so it makes sense some of the monsters that represent this theses would reappear throughout history. But without tying in the 6th thesis what do you thing the political/social reason is for a serpent like creature to constantly return. In the 2nd Thesis, Cohen often mentions that the monster returns to push a social/political agendas.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I totally agree with you that the monsters always return for certain reasons. According to the Cohen, they escape and return all the time because of our desire and admiration for them. However, in the last thesis, Cohen also pointed out that the monsters come back to our world to ask us to reexamine our culture's values about race, gender, sexuality and our other perceptions. In this case, we can say that the serpent-like monster is there for us to reconsider our exploitation of the marine environment. Moreover, they might be the representation of the consequences of human activities over the marine life (e.g the use of nuclear power recently).
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