Abstract
The Making of a Monster focuses on depictions of monstrosity in literary devices throughout the ages, specifically on how cultural and societal norms shape these “monsters” as villainous while questioning the validity of the accounts presented by the narrator/author who employs classic silencing techniques to these – often eponymous – characters. To do this, I focus on how monstrosity is used as a means of isolating specific transgressive and deviant characteristics in a specific group of peoples while discussing its relevance in today’s current society by utilizing JJ Cohen’s critical text, "Monster Culture" which serves as the foreground to my research regarding society’s othering of marginal groups and how this imposed alterity leads to the vilification of otherness, namely bodily difference represented through gender/sexuality, race/ethnicity, illness, and religiosity. This difference is mutable, it is never static, and it is often located in the state of in betweenness these people occupy.
Presentation
Research Paper