The aim of this exercise is to better understand “Monster Culture (Seven Theses)” by identifying the main idea in one section of the essay.
Estimated time: 30 minutes – 1 hour
Due by 9:30 a.m. Thursday, February 1st
Part 1: Reading
Carefully read “Thesis II: The Monster Always Escapes” in “Monster Culture (Seven Theses).” In your class journal (hardcopy or online), take note of no more than eight difficult but important words you encounter. “Important words” are words that might be often repeated or are located in places where it seems Cohen is explaining his main idea. Research and write down their definitions. Also try to write down ideas and questions that you have in response to specific parts of this section. Bring your annotated copy of this essay to class on Thursday, February 1st.
Part 2: Writing
Find one (1) sentence that you think expresses the main point of Thesis II. Write it out and then explain what it means in your own words. Try to be as specific as possible. Post your sentence and explanation below as a comment to this post. (To be able to post, you need to go to qwriting.org and sign up for an account using your QC email address ending in @qmail.cuny.edu. Once you have an account, join the site by using the link on the right.)
The sentence I felt best expressed the main point of thesis two is “Each time the grave opens and the unquiet slumbered strides forth (“come from the dead/ Come back to tell you all”), the message proclaimed is transformed by the air that gives its speaker new life.” (Cohen 5). The sentence means that the monster always avoids its complete stop, it always has a way to come back and leave a cliffhanger such as it revived or its left unfinished business. So with that cliffhanger, it gives the monster the ability to come back in a new form and keep living on and on until its never ending cycle is broken. Yet, its a never ending cycle so the monster will always come and go.
“In each of these vampire stories, the undead returns in a slightly different clothing, each time to be read against contemporary social movements or a specific determining event”, in my opinion, best expresses the main idea of Thesis II, “The Monster Always Escapes”. This sentence refers to the title of the thesis which points to the immortality of the monsters. A monster never dies, it just changes from one form to another in stories to reflect the social and the cultural situation, and the literary movement of the time. The original concepts of the monster are recycled, re-used and modified to fit into the context of where and how it’s reborn, allowing the idea of the monster to never truly die, or escape the mind of people through cultures and generations.
I believe that the sentence, “In each of these vampire stories, the undead returns in slightly different clothing, each time to be read against contemporary social movements or a specific, determining event” best expresses the main thesis of Thesis II. I believe this because this sentence relates almost directly to the title, “The Monster Always Escapes”, because the sentence is saying that no matter what time period or what events or social movements may be happening in the world, the monster still returns. The monster may return in a different style of clothing to appeal to the audience of the time period in which the story is being read, but the monster is still the main character and point of the story no matter what era it is told in. It may speak differently to different peoples and different cultures, due to their traditions but the monster remains in the story.
I believe the sentence which can express the main idea of second the theory is that ” in each vampire stories, the undead returns in slightly different clothing, each time to be read against contemporary social movement or a specific, determine event: la decadence and its new possibilities, homophobia, and its hateful imperatives, the acceptance of new subjectivities unfixed by binary gender, a fin de siecle social activism paternalistic in its embrace.” It locates in the middle of the contents. Actually, this sentence is a transition of the whole theory because it points out the idea of the author and implies that the monster will present in people’s world over and over no matter in which worlds or time. The monster always is given new definition and meaning by contemporary events and cultures so that it looks slightly different even its characteristic has been known long before by all around the world. Monster never die, it lives in public minds and it will reappear in the different cultures with various postures.
“The anxiety that condenses like green vapor into the form of the vampire can be dispersed temporarily, but the revenant by definition returns.” In my opinion this is the sentence that expresses the main idea because the monster doesn’t die, just disappeared momentarily base on cultural or social needs and reappears again in different form but with similar meaning when it’s needed.
I believe the sentence that expresses the main point of Thesis II is “… the undead returns in slightly different clothing, each time to be read against contemporary social movements or a specific, determining event; la decadence and its new possibilities …,” telling us that monsters come back into mainstream culture during the major movements and events in history (Cohen 5). The monster’s tale may die over time but comes back into popularity by retelling with layers of social constructs and new ideas. This cycle of fading away then coming backing into different times ties exactly into the thesis’ idea of escape.
“We see the damage the monster wreaks the material remains ,but the monster itself turns immaterial and vanishes to reappear somewhere else.”
This sentence summarizes thesis two as the main idea.
In thesis two ,the author gives many examples of how a monster at a point in time later appears as something else with an entire new identity. For example the the yeti in mid evil times and the giant In biblical history. The author continues to expand more on the idea that the monster always disappears only to reappear later on as something or someone else.
From my perspective, this sentence “The anxiety that condenses like green vapor into the form of the vampire can be dispersed temporarily, but the revenant by definition returns.” expressed the main idea, letting us know that the monster does not die. The monsters temporarily disappear based on social and cultural needs. However, monsters regain consciousness when needed, coming to us in different forms.