Romanticizing Monsters in Literature Essay Example

Why does society romanticize the mysterious and ruthless monsters? Society is a world full of entertainment that revolves around the viewing of protagonists and antagonists and picking which side they will appeal to. It has become a trend that society romanticizes these individuals or ideas and favors the qualities an author or writer depicted to be unappealing. Monsters act as points of conflict to push along the narrative of a story. The audience is meant to hate them—maybe even love to hate them, which lead to fans romanticizing and empathizing with Monsters. Society tends to side with the monster and make light of it, which happens through natural human tendencies, individual opinions and overall, how the writer portrays the ruthless antagonists.

In society, feeling for your fellow man is often practiced and usually without thought.  Sympathizing and emphasizing with one is a common feeling and often done with individuals one may not know personally. In literature and in television programs, it is common that one may feel the tendencies of compassion and is most readily done with individuals who are brought out to be unfortunate and possible senile. In pieces of literature such as J.K Rowling’s Harry Potter, one often sympathizes with the known child bully Draco Malfoy because of his family upbringing. Individuals do not blame Draco for his actions but side with the ideas that it was his family and not simply that Draco was just a villainous bully. Draco was there as a complex antagonist rather than a character that would be pulled apart and made good. Same idea is divulged in Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein, the reader sympathizes with the monster due to his creator despising him. The same tendencies are shared between the two, they feel bad for the antagonist who was written in senile light, however, due to their compassionate human tendencies, individuals make good of the ruthless monster.

Doing something for entertainment might be one of the most readily done things in society. A person reads a book or watches TV for entertainment, which triggers perceptions and feelings about it. When doing something for entertainment one may feel something about the show or book that is in their own opinion. One may watch a show and simply side with the mean cruel person because they believe, on behalf of their own opinion, that their actions are right or justifiable. In literary merits such as Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, society tends to possible side with Mr. Darcy because of his attributes. Even though the ending claimed something different, and his character ended to be such a romantic hero, through-out the novel some may have sided with Mr. Darcy because he was rich, noble, and very good looking, even when he was underlying portrayed as arrogant. One may believe the qualities that Mr. Darcy possessed were valuable and thus sided with proud and arrogant man Darcy was at the beginning of Pride and Prejudice. These tendencies carry over immensely to the screen where a person may romanticize an individual for surface ideas rather than their actual characteristics. In the show, You, people tend to romanticize Joe Goldberg because he is charming, funny, and is not bad looking, even though he stalks and kills people. Why are those tendencies even valid? It all is within the opinions of an individual.

Both of those ideas all come into the funnel of how the writer portrays these individuals and ideas. In the novel, The Things They Carried, Tim Obrien does not romanticize the war to any extreme and does a very exquisite job portraying the war, however; he does romanticize the ideas within. He portrays war to be a place full of gruel but also adds in the touch of friendships he experienced, which lightened up the moral ideas and made out war to be not as gruesome as it is. As you progressed, you learned that the whole romanticizing of friendship and the lighter scenes in the book were all fake and none was true. Through the utilization of power, the writer can screw around the plot which thus indicates that the writer can be credited with people siding with the villainous war and that good things can come out of it. When authors write the villain to be the most normal appealing person it could be, they are appealing societies want to be “like a character” or “what character am I”. Writers write these villainous characters in a way that one can relate to. People are drawn to villains and the ideas of it, and when there is any notion of good within, people are hooked!

It has been known that there are tendencies within American society to appeal to the monster and not the hero. When the natural human tendencies and opinion of an individual and also the grave effect an author has upon their characters, one may rightfully side and possibly go against the whole meaning of the monster. It is not bad to side with the villain, but it is unusual and maybe quite scary that people love the villain and not the hero.