It seems that a common theme that is emphasized throughout all of the various philosophies we've encountered thus far is the idea that what is scary is what plays upon our conceptions of what is right, normal and natural. Our mode of operation, when it comes to the biological and socio/psychological stance, is to categorize the world we live in and to assign labels with which we associate a certain set of values, emotions and preconceptions. it's a survival mechanism and a key component of our ability to make and maintain relationships. Via this approach to the world, we are able to say whether things are good or bad, safe or unsafe, familiar or unfamiliar -or can we? And it's this last question "or can we?" that authors of horror exploit.
Carrol presents us with the criteria, he claims, are necessary for a monster. A true monster -on that evokes within us fear and terror- is one that elicits disgust, that we believe to be impure, and that is impossible as far as we know. But that's just it. As far as we know. The disruption to the natural order that Carrol claims makes a monster disgusting is simply the violation of our preconceptions of what the world should be like. Who's to say a person can't be covered in slimy purple fur and have six arms? Well, we do, because as far as we know, what we define as a "person" has to meet a certain set of criteria that, up until the point of encountering a monster, all humans we have met do have. A monster is only "impure" because we associate a certain set of things with what is good, and anything outside of our understanding of what is normal and good must somehow be bad. Finally, we are scared of something that is likely not to exist because the very fact that it seems to is a violation of all that we know of the world. In short, we know what the world's supposed to be like, and the monster forces us to question our perception of our reality.
The same can be found within Freud's "uncanny." Playing upon the associations and categorizations that we make in our world, Freud simply shakes the floor beneath us that we thought was so solid. Take, for instance, a mother. Every person who's ever encountered a mother has created a certain set of beliefs about what a mother should be like. We've a a certain set of emotions and thoughts and images with which we associate a mother figure. These are fixed and, in large part, go unchallenged in our everyday lives. And then, we encounter the uncanny. We encounter a mother that we know to be a mother, but whose every action and very existence challenges anything and everything you thought you knew about mothers. All of the associations you once made with "mother" are not applicable and now something that you once thought you were so sure of is upended and you are confronted with a perversion of that which you had once been able to define.
Lovecraft goes even deeper into this interpretation by claiming that there's a sense of something greater, of something cosmic and awe-inspiring that each individual has an intuitive sense of, but which we don't encounter in our everyday lives. And so we proceed to live the way that we do, categorizing and labeling and assigning value to things and ideas accordingly. And then we happen upon something horrifying which evidences that which we knew to be true all along. It's unsettling in the fact that it violates the plane upon which we accustom ourselves to operating, but we are drawn to this idea that the forces behind the terrible events witnessed are bigger, are part of some vast unknown of the universe and that put us in our rightful place as very small beings. And so we fear it, but seek it out, for we like being reminded that it's true and that there is something larger and more powerful than we.
It all comes down to worldview and how one regards one's place in the world. Once you think you've got it all figured out, you're utterly terrified when you are made tangibly aware that you are, indeed, sorely mistaken.
Carrol presents us with the criteria, he claims, are necessary for a monster. A true monster -on that evokes within us fear and terror- is one that elicits disgust, that we believe to be impure, and that is impossible as far as we know. But that's just it. As far as we know. The disruption to the natural order that Carrol claims makes a monster disgusting is simply the violation of our preconceptions of what the world should be like. Who's to say a person can't be covered in slimy purple fur and have six arms? Well, we do, because as far as we know, what we define as a "person" has to meet a certain set of criteria that, up until the point of encountering a monster, all humans we have met do have. A monster is only "impure" because we associate a certain set of things with what is good, and anything outside of our understanding of what is normal and good must somehow be bad. Finally, we are scared of something that is likely not to exist because the very fact that it seems to is a violation of all that we know of the world. In short, we know what the world's supposed to be like, and the monster forces us to question our perception of our reality.
The same can be found within Freud's "uncanny." Playing upon the associations and categorizations that we make in our world, Freud simply shakes the floor beneath us that we thought was so solid. Take, for instance, a mother. Every person who's ever encountered a mother has created a certain set of beliefs about what a mother should be like. We've a a certain set of emotions and thoughts and images with which we associate a mother figure. These are fixed and, in large part, go unchallenged in our everyday lives. And then, we encounter the uncanny. We encounter a mother that we know to be a mother, but whose every action and very existence challenges anything and everything you thought you knew about mothers. All of the associations you once made with "mother" are not applicable and now something that you once thought you were so sure of is upended and you are confronted with a perversion of that which you had once been able to define.
Lovecraft goes even deeper into this interpretation by claiming that there's a sense of something greater, of something cosmic and awe-inspiring that each individual has an intuitive sense of, but which we don't encounter in our everyday lives. And so we proceed to live the way that we do, categorizing and labeling and assigning value to things and ideas accordingly. And then we happen upon something horrifying which evidences that which we knew to be true all along. It's unsettling in the fact that it violates the plane upon which we accustom ourselves to operating, but we are drawn to this idea that the forces behind the terrible events witnessed are bigger, are part of some vast unknown of the universe and that put us in our rightful place as very small beings. And so we fear it, but seek it out, for we like being reminded that it's true and that there is something larger and more powerful than we.
It all comes down to worldview and how one regards one's place in the world. Once you think you've got it all figured out, you're utterly terrified when you are made tangibly aware that you are, indeed, sorely mistaken.
No comments:
Post a Comment