Jayden Zhou, PD 6, 11/6/23

Modern Mythology 2024

Topic: Literacy and Learning


What exactly is a monster? Is it something/someone that is big and ugly? Is it something/someone that looks deformed in some sort of way? Is it something/someone that is inherently evil and violent? Is it a combination of whatever that is listed above? Or is a monster something else?

There really is no definitive answer to what a monster is. However, there is one thing for certain: a monster has a negative connotation of something/someone being bad.

Take Medusa, for example. In Greek mythology, she is one of the three Gorgons (the others being Stheno and Euryale) ever born. She is often portrayed as a crazy, evil-looking woman, with hundreds of venomous snakes as her hair. Anything that looked into her eyes would instantly turn them into stone. Such descriptions can characterize Medusa as a monster: she looks evil, can kill people with her gaze, and is probably dangerous to society (if she was real).

Now take Perseus, a demigod and a hero. In Greek mythology, he is the son of Zues, and is most famous for slaying Medusa by cutting her head off. He is also famous for saving Andromeda from The Kraken, a terrifying beast from the ocean. Such actions do not really characterize Perseus as a monster, due to the fact that he rescued a princess and slayed a monster in the process.

Now, here is my question: why is it that Medusa is portrayed as a monster and that Perseus isn’t one? Why do we rarely associate Perseus as a monster for killing Medusa? I am not an expert in psychology or anything, but maybe we tend to think in a fixed mindset. We tend to think that something/someone bad will do only bad things and that something/someone good will only do good things. We do not really consider the fact that something/someone bad can do good things or vice versa.

Imagine this scenario: a group of people snuck into a wealthy person’s house and killed him in cold blood. News spread quickly about this murder and it turns out that the group of people responsible for the murder have a reputation of being savages, who targeted this particular person because they wanted his/her skull. In this scenario, the group of people are most likely viewed as “monsters” by the public (us), and that there is no good justification for committing such a crime.

Now, reimagine this scene, but this time, the victim was also identified. It turns out that he was a corrupt businessman, who stole billions of dollars from the public. In this context, are these savages considered “monsters” now? In our minds, the answer is most likely no, because they did something good, and they will probably even be viewed as heroes. However, that does not change the fact that they killed a person, which is something a “monster” would do. Therefore, if these savages are neither a monster or a hero, then what are they?

Perhaps, we are just stereotyping what is or is not a monster without even noticing and glossing over how perspective can change the way we see things.