from mythical monsters to future horrors: towards an understanding of the function of monstrosity:

From mythical monsters

to future horrors:

Towards an understanding of the function of

monstrosity

Tabish Khair

Isak Zachariasen, 20073113

Abstract:

Denne bachelorafhandling undersøger monstrets funktion over tid, fra 500-tallet til i dag, med

særligt fokus på om, og hvordan, denne funktion har ændret sig. Til dette formål analyseres

tre udvalgte tekster, ’Beowulf’, ’The Island of Doctor Moreau’ og ’The Calcutta

Chromosome’, med et snævert fokus på hvordan monstrene i de udvalgte tekster fungerer og

er beskrevet. Der redegøres for antropologiske, filosofiske, historiske og litterære tilgange til

monstret, som herefter i et vist omfang inddrages i analysen af de udvalgte tekster.

Efterfølgende analyseres teksterne i kronologisk rækkefølge, med særligt fokus på monstrenes

funktion, skildring og lokalitet, med hovedvægt på monstrene i ’The Calcutta Chromosome’.

Dernæst foretager jeg en sammenlignende analyse af monstrene i ’Beowulf’, ’The Island of

Doctor Moreau’ og ’The Calcutta Chromosome’, denne gang med fokus på monstrenes

geografiske lokalitet, og dennes betydning. Sluttelig forsøges fremsat en mere teoretisk

underbygget analyse af hvad monstret gør i litteraturen, med særlig fokus på dets symbolske

funktion. Her sammenfattes den teori som blev fremlagt i det redegørende afsnit til et

argument for, at monstret grundlæggende har flere forskellige lag af funktioner. Der

argumenteres derforuden for, at monstrets funktion har flere forskellige facetter, såvel

symbolske som konkrete, og at det fornægter enhver klar definition. Dette underbygges med

McCormack’s påstand om, at monstrets grundlæggende kendetegn er, at det ikke tilhører en

egentlig kategori. Dette bruges til at underbygge påstanden om at monstret er grundlæggende

flertydigt.

Gennem hele opgaven argumenteres der for, at monstret er en grundlæggende

kompleks størrelse. Derfor vil ethvert forsøg på at tilgå monstret fra en enkelt teoretisk vinkel

være ude af stand til at beskrive og analysere denne kompleksitet.

Det konkluderes, at min tese om, at monstret hele tiden har opholdt sig hinsides grænsen til

dét vi kender, men at denne grænse har rykket sig, grundlæggende er korrekt. Det konkluderes

dog også, at dette kun er ét aspekt af monstrets flertydige natur. Yderligere konkluderes det at

monstret er en grundlæggende grænseoverskridende konstruktion, og at bruddet på grænser er

én af monstrets nøglefunktioner. Der tages højde for at der kun i begrænset omfang kan

drages almengyldige konklusioner på baggrund af det anvendte kildemateriale. Det

understreges ligeledes, at målet med denne afhandling i højere grad er at påpege en generel

tendens i skildringen af monstre på tværs af litterære perioder, end at fremsætte en

almengyldig konstatering i forhold til monstret som litterært begreb.

Table of Contents

1: INTRODUCTION: ........................................................................................................................................... 1

1:1 Thesis: ................................................................................................................................................ 1

2: APPROACHING MONSTROSITY: .................................................................................................................... 1

3: MONSTERS THROUGH THE AGES: ................................................................................................................ 4

3:1: Beowulf: ............................................................................................................................................ 4

3:2: The Island of Doctor Moreau: ............................................................................................................ 6

3:3: The Calcutta Chromosome: ................................................................................................................ 7

4: VARIATIONS OF MONSTROSITY: .................................................................................................................10

4:1: from Denmark to Calcutta: monstrosity through the ages: ................................................................11

5: WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE: ...................................................................................................................11

6: CONCLUSION:..............................................................................................................................................12

ABSTRACT: ....................................................................................................................................................... 0

WORKS CITED: ................................................................................................................................................14

1: Introduction:

“…monsters are the central characters of my story. Their favourite haunts are those

phantasmal boundaries where maps run out, ships slip moorings and navigators click their

compasses shut. No man’s land. Land’s end. Out there, as the story goes, ‘where the wild

things are’”(Kearney 2003, 3).

This BA thesis examines the function of the monster in literature, with particular

emphasis on the question of whether – and how – it has changed over time. I will apply a

mixture of literary, philosophical and anthropological approaches. Through these, I will

attempt to establish a theory of monstrosity – what one might term teratology. “The Greek

term τέρας (téras) indicates something that is an extraordinary sign and therefore monstrous,

marvelous and horrible at the same time” (Nuzzo 2013, 57).

Using this teratology, I will analyze three monsters, separated in time: Beowulf, written

between the 8th and the early 11th century C.E., The Island of Doctor Morreau by H.G.

Wells, from 1896, and The Calcutta Chromosome by Amitav Ghosh, from 1995. A full

examination of every literary monster from the eighth century onwards is beyond the scope of

this thesis. Beowulf is one of the earliest surviving examples of overt monstrosity in English

literature. During the 19th century, monstrosity began to appropriate aspects of the burgeoning

science of the time, The Island of Doctor Moreau being but one of many examples. Like

Beowulf, it uses veiled description as a means of conveying monstrosity. The Calcutta

Chromosome not only deviates from Beowulf and The Island of Doctor Morreau, it also

seems to question what monstrosity is. This thesis will focus on the monsters, ignoring other

narrative elements, the aim being an attempt to approach an understanding of how the

monsters function, and how, and why, they have changed over time.

1:1 Thesis:

The Monster has, particularly over the course of the last two centuries, become more and

more displaced. However, what has changed is not the “space” occupied by the Monster – the

space “beyond the pale” of what we know – it is merely the border which has moved.

2: Approaching monstrosity:

This thesis examines the function of monsters in literature, with particular emphasis on how

this function has changed. This change will be illuminated through a variety of texts, tools

and theories. To start at the beginning: according to Beal, a “Monstrum” is

a message that breaks into this world from the realm of the sacred, even in the ancient

and extremely cruel notion of ‘monstrous births’ as revelations of judgment, the

Isak Zachariasen, 20073113, Bachelor Project Monsters, Money and Migration 2013 2

otherness of the mr is considered not only horrifically unnatural but also horrifically

supernatural, charged with religious import (Quoted in: Kearney 2003, 34).

This implies that monsters are more than figments of the imagination – their origin is

rooted elsewhere, and they have a function. “The evidence indicates that monsters are more

complicated than being reducible to the uni-dimensional id forces of sex and aggression.

However terrible, they are not just metaphors for beastliness: their vast powers inspire

veneration as well as repugnance” (Gilmore 2003, IX). The question becomes, then: what is

the monster? One answer is that the monster is one projection of otherness.

‘The Other’ has been a subject of philosophy since its inception. “The figure of the

stranger… frequently operates as a limit-experience for humans trying to identify themselves

over and against others” (Kearney 2003, 3). However, the monster is more than a

manifestation of the absolute other. “Even before being a device of knowledge/power, the

monster is the materialization of a space of experience in which thought tests its own limits.

To think of the monster and to think through the monster means to think of an experience of

the limit and to think of departures from such an experience” (Nuzzo 2013, 56). This pertains

to part of the thesis; that the monster resides beyond the pale. The pale, in this case, is the

limit of thought, guarded by the monstrous. The question remains: where does the monster

reside?

The Monster is born only at this metaphoric crossroads, as an embodiment of a certain

cultural moment – of a time, a feeling, and a place… The monstrous body is pure

culture. A construct and a projection, the monster exists only to be read… the monster

signifies something other than itself (Cohen 1996, 4).

Monsters, it seems, have always dwelled at the border separating the imagined from the

real. Monsters are a sign, a signal. The question of how they function, however, remains.

[This refusal] to participate in the classificatory “order of things” is true of monsters

generally: they are disturbing hybrids whose externally incoherent bodies resist attempts

to include them in any systematic structuration. And so the monster is dangerous, a

form suspended between forms, that threatens to smash distinctions (Cohen 1996, 6).

One function of the monster is that of breaking rules, thereby questioning and

challenging what is constructed and accepted as normal. So far we’ve seen examples of what

the monster is and how it works, but where does it come from?

Conceptually anomalous constructs like monsters, as well as anomalous but harmless

animal species, hermaphrodites, or organic deformities, are “interstitial”, [that is to say]

existing between and in contrast to normally existing categories. Because they conflate


or collapse cognitive boundaries recognized as the foundations of order, such deviations

are frightening (Gilmore 2003, 18).

Addressing the physicality of the monster raises the question of how the monster might

have arisen, as a concept. “Monsters in Europe are as old as humanity itself. Before emerging

from a world of illusion and enchantment into one of science, our ancestors needed some way

to rationalize the forces of nature that threatened them as well as a way of mastering the

frightening forces within” (Gilmore 2003, 23). The question is whether this notion of

supernatural hybrid creatures, might have been linked to the formation and development of

human intelligence – and that one might thus argue, that the monster is integral to human

identity. The “self” is dependent on the “other”, to rationalize its own existence.

Some of these drawings and scratchings on cave walls… may have expressed primitive

people’s awe of man-eating wild animals… but the… images tend to recombine such

natural forms in bizarre and imaginative ways, showing an aesthetic inventiveness

indicating some degree of visual dexterity in expressing fantasies symbolically as living

creatures (Gilmore 2003, 24).

So far, we’ve seen examples of what the monsters are, and where they might have come

from, theoretically and historically. A final question to consider is how monsters are, and have

been, understood. As the latter question forms the root of this thesis, I shall start with the

former: specifically, the postmodern theory of the Sublime. In the postmodern sublime: “the

upwardly transcendent finds its mirror image in the downwardly monstrous. Both extremes

are so marked by the experience of radical alterity that they transgress the limits of

representation” (Kearney 2003, 10). Specifically, the monstrous and the divine are two

aspects of alterity, which are ultimately similar, and located on the same axis. “That which is

beneath being rises up from its abyssal depths so high, so manic, so excessive and

transgressive that it passes beyond being altogether. From non-being (which precedes being

qua abyss) to non-being (which exceeds being qua excess)” (Kearney 2003, 91).

Before proceeding to the analysis, one key point of consideration remains. From the

Bible to Norse mythology, ancient texts abound with monsters to the extent that a thorough

overview is all but unattainable. As such, I will restrict myself to an overview of the ancient

Greco-Roman understanding of the monstrous, specifically, Aristotelian speculations on

monstrosity, as this forms the root of any investigation into the function of the monster.

“Literary interest in monsters begins with the ancient Greeks, especially Aristotle, who wrote

extensively about them in The Generation of Animals”(Gilmore 2003, 9). The question here is

how monsters were understood in antiquity and earlier times.


The Greeks sublimated many instinctive fears in the monsters of their mythology, in

their satyrs and centaurs, sirens and harpies, but they also rationalized those fears in

another, non-religious form by the invention of monstrous races and animals which they

imagined to live at great distance in the east, above all in India (Wittkower 1942, 159).

The following analysis will draw on aspects of the theory outlined above, taking as its point

of departure the Greek understanding of monstrosity.

3: Monsters through the ages:

I will now analyze three examples of monstrosity, separated in time, using various elements

of the theory outlined above. My treatment of Beowulf and The Island of Doctor Moreau will

be somewhat cursory. In effect, they will serve as another backdrop for my analysis of The

Calcutta Chromosome.

3:1: Beowulf:

Beowulf is one of the oldest surviving texts in the English literary corpus. It tells the tale of

the Danish warrior Beowulf, who in the course of his life fights and defeats Grendel, his

mother, and a dragon. For the purposes of this thesis, I will restrict myself to an analysis of

the monsters: Grendel, Grendel’s mother, and the dragon, in particular focusing on the ‘space’

these monsters occupy, and their role in the story.

In every cultural tradition, monsters are said to live in borderline places, inhabiting an

‘outside’ dimension that is apart from, but parallel to and intersecting the human

community. They often live in lairs deep underground, in an unseen dimension, as it

were, or in watery places like marshes, fens or swamps”(Gilmore 2003, 12).

This description fits Grendel and his mother perfectly, and even less is revealed about

the dragon. Grendel does not become a problem, until he crosses the border separating the

community from the outside. Here, “the outside” is literally beyond the pale, as it were, the

monsters prowling the very edge of the safe and the familiar.

Grendel is the first monster we encounter in the poem. He is “…a powerful demon, a

prowler through the dark”, who “nursed a hard grievance.” As soon as he enters the tale, he is

described in terms of physical excess: “Suddenly then / the God-cursed brute was creating

havoc: / greedy and grim, he grabbed thirty men / from their resting places and rushed them to

his lair,/ flushed up and inflamed from the raid, / blundering back with the butchered

corpses.” Able to grab thirty men, the size of Grendel must be considerable. However, no

physical description is given yet, beyond the fact that he is “grim”, and able to “grab… thirty

men.” Grendel’s figure is revealed in flashes, fragmented details. There is no overt


description, and nowhere is his size clearly defined. As such, Grendel is an inherently

indefinable figure. As we shall see, this lack of clear lines defining the monster could be a

defining characteristic of monstrosity, and integral to its function.

A critical point concerning Grendel is that he leaves “the marshes… and the desolate

fens”, invading the hall of Heorot. “So Grendel waged his lonely war/ inflicting constant

cruelties on the people, atrocious hurt. He took over Heorot.” The other transgresses the pale,

and only once this transgression occurs, does it become a problem. Grendel appears to act

without motive, driven by greed. He is described variously as “God-cursed” and “Demonic”

(Beowulf 86-87, 120-25, 164-66).

Grendel’s mother, unlike her son, acts out of a motive that would have been fully

comprehensible to the poem’s contemporaries: the need to avenge the death of her son.

Grendel and his mother do not turn or become monstrous at any particular point in the poem.

They are perceived from the start, as descendants of an almost primordial race of monsters, as

old as mankind itself. Grendel, and by extension his mother, is said to belong to “the banished

monsters/ Cain’s clan, whom the Creator had outlawed/ and condemned as outcasts for the

killing of Abel”. These banished monsters are said to be “ogres and elves and evil phantoms/

and the giants too, who strove with God” (Beowulf 105-7, 112-13). It is worth noting that

Grendel’s mother remains nameless throughout the poem, identified only by extension,

through her relationship with Grendel. Most importantly, Grendel’s mother is a monstrously

strong, powerful, independent woman, more than capable of taking what she wants. One

might argue that to some extent, this very masculinity contributes to her monstrosity, at least

as she would have been seen by the poem’s contemporaries.

One final monster must be considered, before we move on to the 19th century: The

dragon, which appears towards the end of the story. The section of the poem concerning the

dragon is split into two segments: “[THE DRAGON WAKES]”, and “[BEOWULF

ATTACKS THE DRAGON]”. The dragon, like Grendel’s mother, responds to provocation.

The dragon is driven into rage, as a slave “fleeing the heavy hand of some master” steals a

“gem-studded goblet.” The description of the dragon is even thinner than that of Grendel and

the mother. It is described as “an old harrower of the dark… the burning one who hunts out

barrows/ the slick-skinned dragon, threatening the night sky/ with streamers of fire.” Further

down, the dragon is described as “The hoard-guardian”, “the guardian of the mound”, and

“the hoard-watcher”. It is possible to infer that the dragon lives with his hoard, whence “he

would dart before daybreak” Here, Beowulf ventures beyond the pale, facing whatever terrors

thence abide. Beowulf, like the dragon, responds to provocation, though they do not provoke

each other. He is “given the bad news,/…his own home,/ the best of buildings [have] been


burned to a cinder”. As such, both Beowulf and the dragon are provoked, though not by each

other, or for the same reason. Beowulf boasts that “…I pursue this fight/ for the glory of

winning, if the evil one will only/ abandon his earth-fort and face me in the open”(Beowulf

2199, 2509, 2271, 2271-75, 2293, 2302, 2303). Thus, I would argue that Beowulf is

simultaneously aggressor and victim. On the one hand, he pursues the dragon for glory - on

the other, he avenges the attack on his home. Beyond the epithets “hoard-guardian”,

“guardian of the mound” and “hoard watcher” (Beowulf 2293, 2302, 2303) nothing is revealed

of the dragon’s origins. In the case of Grendel and his mother, it is at least evident that they

live in marshes and fens, beyond the reach of civilization, but not even this can be inferred of

the dragon. All three monsters in Beowulf reside beyond the borders of civilization, and only

once they cross these borders, do they become a threat. This transgression is important across

all the texts I’m investigating, and, I would argue, critical to the very function of monstrosity.

3:2: The Island of Doctor Moreau:

I will now proceed to analyze 19th

century monstrosity, specifically, The Island of Doctor

Moreau. The 19th century abounds with monsters to the point where choosing any single

sample becomes difficult. From Dracula to Frankenstein, monsters seem all but ubiquitous in

the literature of the period. What sets the monsters of the 19th

and early 20th

century apart

from the monsters of Beowulf is that, firstly, many of the monsters are linked with the

burgeoning science of the period, and, critically to this essay, the monsters have been pushed

back to the few areas of Earth, not yet fully discovered. The Island of Dr. Moreau tells the

story of Edward Prendick, who is marooned upon a mysterious island, somewhere in the

pacific. Here, he encounters Doctor Moreau and the mysterious creatures, created by the

doctor through vivisection, which is surgery without anesthetics.

As with the monsters of Beowulf, the Animal-human hybrids of The Island of Doctor

Moreau are seldom clearly described. There seems to be deliberate gaps in the descriptions,

leaving room for interpretation. My treatment of The Island of Doctor Moreau will again be

somewhat cursory, focusing on the monsters, with particular emphasis on the final scene. The

first time we encounter the beast-men, they’re described in flashes and glimpses, vaguely

reminiscent of the description of Grendel in Beowulf:

In some indefinable way the black face thus flashed upon me shocked me profoundly…

The facial part projected, forming something dimly suggestive of a muzzle, and the

huge half-open mouth showed as big white teeth as I have ever seen in a human mouth.

His eyes were bloodshot at the edges, with scarcely a rim of white around the hazel

pupils.


This description is vaguely reminiscent of a horse, but it seems unclear where the

human ends and the animal begins. “They seemed… to be brown men, but their limbs were

oddly swathed in some thin dirty white stuff, down even to the fingers and feet… They wore

turbans too, and thereunder peered out their elfin faces at me, faces with protruding lower

jaws and bright eyes”(Wells 1896 12, 32). The description is glimpses and flashes, vague and

indefinite. We saw earlier that the monster is “a form suspended between forms, that threatens

to smash distinctions”(Cohen 1996, 6). This becomes exceedingly evident here.

In the final scene of the book, Mr. Prendick returns to London. “I could not persuade

myself that the men and women I met were not also another, still passably human, beast-

people, animals half-wrought into the outward image of human souls, and that they would

presently begin to revert, to show first this bestial mark, then that.” Prendick goes on: “I

would go out into the street to fight my delusion, and prowling women would mew after

me… weary pale workers go coughing by me, with tired eyes and eager paces like wounded

deer dripping blood…”(Wells 1896, 183, 185). This scene hints at the notion that the monster

hides in each of us, and I would argue further, that this refusal to be categorized and

systematized, is part of the monster’s enduring attraction – for the monster attracts us, even

while being repulsive, as it always has, and this duality is essential to the function of the

monster. The object of this inquiry seems to have two answers, in the case of The Island of

Doctor Moreau: On the one hand the monstrous is internalized, found in the depths of the

human soul, on the other hand, the monstrous is externalized, banished to the few unknown

reaches left. In the case of The Island of Doctor Moreau, “the Lady vain was lost… when

about the latitude ɪ o s. and longitude 107

o w.”(Wells, introduction 1) Moreau’s “Fictional

Island… is placed in the vicinity of the Galapagos, islands that Darwin visited and made

famous.”(Glendening 2002, 572) The connection to Darwin bears on other issues within the

text, which are irrelevant to my line of inquiry. The key point here is essentially that, like

Grendel, his mother and the dragon, Moreau’s island lies at the edge of what constituted the

known world at the time.

3:3: The Calcutta Chromosome:

The Calcutta Chromosome tells three separate stories across three separate timelines, which

seem to merge and cross throughout the novel. One is set in the late 19th century, another in

1996, the third in the near future, and this is where the story begins.

Part of the reason why I’ve chosen the text is because it problematizes what the monster

is. The novel is exceedingly complex, and as such, one might discuss whether or not the very

structure of the novel appropriates monstrous attributes, refusing any classification or

structuration (Cohen 2003, 46), but I shall postpone this argument for now.


This analysis is an investigation of whether or not The Calcutta Chromosome contains

any possible candidates for monstrosity, as outlined above.

AVA, the computer system assisting Antar in his work, is the very first thing we

encounter in the novel. It is denoted initially as “The system”, a name which crops up before

the first protagonist is even introduced. The AVA systems posses what Antar terms “a

simulated urge for self-improvement”, however, where AVA takes on monstrous attributes, is

through the surveillance aspect of her function, reminiscent of Orwell’s 1984: “He was

reading, staring at the wall, when she went deadly quiet. Then suddenly warnings began to

flash on his screen. He whisked the book away but she already knew something was up.” Part

information system, part surveillance, AVA seems to be something like an AI, which has

access to literally all data in existence. “…AVA began to spit out translations of the Arabic

phrase, going through the world’s languages in declining order of population: Mandarin,

Spanish, English, Hindi, Arabic, Bengali…”(Ghosh 1995, 3, 4, 7). AVA is something which

appropriates traits normally associated with humans, in particular, inquisitiveness and

curiosity. However, being some sort of artificial or virtual entity, she is neither exactly one

nor the other, and it is precisely this ambiguity, which makes my understanding of

monstrosity applicable to AVA. Furthermore, AVA fits the understanding of monsters as

“conceptually anomalous constructs”, conforming, as well, to the notion that they are

“interstitial”, and in particular, AVA “conflate[s] or collapse[s] cognitive boundaries

recognized as the foundations of order”(Gilmore 2003, 12). AVA is but one candidate for the

monster. As we shall see, the candidates grow increasingly elusive, as we move on. One

might argue that ‘Silence’, as defined by Phulboni in the novel, is yet another construct which

fits the structures of monstrosity I’ve so far established. “Mistaken are those who imagine that

silence is without life; that it is inanimate, without either spirit or voice. It is not: indeed the

Word is to this silence what the shadow is to the foreshadowed, what the veil is to the

eyes…”(Ghosh 1995, 27). As we shall see, Silence as a concept is critical to the novel, and I

shall return to it later. The description of the silence here is elusive and incomplete, as were

the descriptions of the animal/human hybrids in The Island of Doctor Moreau, and Grendel in

Beowulf.

Through Phulboni’s words, we see an indication that Calcutta itself appropriates

monstrous attributes in the novel. “The silence of the city… has sustained me through all my

years of writing… I have wandered the darkness of these streets, searching for the unseen

presence that reigns over this silence, striving to be taken in… before my time runs out”

(Ghosh 1995, 31). However, the question of whether Calcutta is a monster, is one I will

postpone for the time being.


As the novel progresses, Silence transforms from the ramblings of an old writer, to the

key tenet of an elusive counter-science. Our first glimpse of this counter-science is faint

indeed. At the next point of interest, we’re in the middle of a discussion between Antar and

Murugan in the near-future timeline, Murugan having introduced himself as “the only show in

town”, as far as Ronald Ross is concerned. Following a lengthy discussion detailing the

origins of Ronald Ross and his early research on malaria, Murugan remarks: “If someone was

watching – let’s just say if – if someone was watching, if someone was looking for a research

scientist… then this is when they would have picked up the buzz.” I would argue that this

“someone” appropriates traits attributable to monstrosity as I’ve outlined it above, that,

perhaps, this “someone” could be said to be a monster. However, this argument must be

further substantiated. After a lengthy discussion, Murugan remarks: “Here’s Ronnie, right?

He thinks he’s doing experiments on the malaria parasite. And all the time it’s him who is the

experiment on the malaria parasite.” This raises the question: who’s doing the experiment?

Whoever or whatever is conducting the experiments, by this very elusiveness, appropriates

aspects of monstrosity. However, as this argument is constructed from deductions based

on what has so far been written between the lines, I shall substantiate it further. As the

conversation proceeds, Murugan explains:

‘…let’s say there was something like science and counter-science… wouldn’t you say

that the first principle of a functioning counter-science would have to be secrecy?…it

wouldn’t just have to be secretive about what it did… it would also have to be secretive in

what it did. It would have to use secrecy as a technique or procedure. It would… have to

refuse all direct communication… because to communicate, to put ideas into language, would

be to establish a claim to know, and that is the first thing that a counter-science would

dispute’(Ghosh 1995, 50, 74, 78, 103).

By this very refusal of direct communication and the elusiveness with which this

counter-science is presented, it appropriates many of the aspects of monstrosity I’ve outlined

above – so much so, that one might dare conjecture that this counter-science is yet another

manifestation of monstrosity. Murugan continues: “Maybe this other team started with the

idea that knowledge is self-contradictory; maybe they believed that to know something is to

change it, therefore in knowing something, you’ve already changed what you think you know

so you don’t really know it at all: you only know it’s history.” The counter-scientists are

described as “marginal types; …so far from the mainstream you can’t see them from the

shore”. They seem to be hidden, veiled, indefinable, and it is through this, coupled with their

approach to science, that they start to take on monstrous attributes. I am arguing that this

counter-science could be seen as an ever-changing, indefinable, mutable construct, and it is


through these attributes, that it begins to appropriate monstrosity. This is extended, when

Murugan guesses at their real goal: “What these guys were after was much bigger; they were

after the biggest prize of all, the biggest fucking ball game any human being has ever thought

of… immortality”. Suddenly, we are talking about a group of possibly immortal counter-

religious people, using counter-science as their operational method. Where the monster pokes

out its head, however, is in the function of this immortality: what Murugan terms “a

technology for inter-personal transference” This is explained further: “Now what would you

say… if all of that information could be transferred chromosomally from body to

body?”(Ghosh 1995, 103-4 105 106 107). This counter-religious group could be viewed as a

constantly mutating, never clearly definable construct – in effect fitting the understanding of

monstrosity that I’ve applied to AVA, the animals of Doctor Moreau and Beowulf’s

antagonists.

The remaining question is whether the Silence as understood by Phulboni could be

construed as monstrous. Phulboni personalizes Silence, and he shows up at various times in

the novel. “For more years than I can count I have walked the innermost streets of this most

secret of cities, looking always to find her… Silence herself. I see signs of her presence

everywhere I go, in images, words, glances, but only signs, nothing more…” Here, Silence is

not only capitalized, it is personified, and it is this which opens it up to interpretation. Silence

appears to leave “signs of her presence everywhere… in images, words, glances, but only

signs…” (Ghosh 1995, 22). So we are dealing with something not directly approachable,

something yet permeating the city, which I assume to be Calcutta. This Silence becomes a

mutable, changing construct, refusing all attempts to constrain it – as we have already seen, a

defining characteristic of monstrosity (Cohen 1996, 6). As the Silence is personified, it fits

my understanding of monstrosity. A final thought: As The Calcutta Chromosome tells three

stories across three eras, blurring the lines between them, one might argue that the novel

itself, by its very structure, appropriates monstrosity. As opposed to Beowulf and The Island

of Doctor Moreau, the monsters of The Calcutta Chromosome are not banished to any

particular geographical region, as there are no geographical unknowns left. I shall expand on

this in the following chapter.

4: Variations of monstrosity:

One might suggest that the influence of improved transportation upon our perception of

distance has had a pervasive impact, upon the locus of the monstrous. In other words: our

perception of what may properly be termed “far away”, has changed over time due, in part, to

improved transportation. That is to say, “far away” could have had three distinct and fairly

different meanings in the eras of the novels I am discussing. My point is that while in


Beowulf, “far away” was a few hundred miles at most, and in The Island of Doctor Moreau,

“far away” was the Galapagos Islands, by the late 20th century, “far away” has ceased to be a

geographical location at all. This raises the question: where is the monster now?

4:1: from Denmark to Calcutta: monstrosity through the ages:

The monsters I’ve analyzed above have fulfilled fairly different functions, depending on the

era in question. However, their “locus” has remained the same. Whichever era you consider,

monsters have always patrolled the border of what is known, daring us to go further. Borders

are critical to the function of monsters. Not because they hinder them or keep them away, but

because they are part of what the monster transgresses. Here I’m referring simultaneously to

physical and conceptual borders. Only once Grendel invades the hall of Heorot does he

become a threat. The hybrids of Doctor Moreau are frightening because they transgress the

borders separating animals from humans (Wells 1896, 32). One might perhaps speculate that

this transgression of borders is another component of what makes the monster monstrous. The

question becomes, then: what borders are transgressed in The Calcutta Chromosome? AVA

transgresses the boundary separating human from machine. The transmigrating counter-

scientists transgress the boundary delineating the human body, in effect morphing into some

obscure collective construct (Ghosh 1995, 106, 107). The Silence seems to creep in

everywhere, defying any borders set before it, and it is through this, that it appropriates

monstrous attributes.

5: Where the wild things are: Where and what is the monster now? If anything is to be gleaned from my analysis of

monstrosity as a concept, it is that the monster is a complex construct, demanding a multi-

facetted approach. Part of the reason why I touched upon the Sublime earlier, is that it yields

an unbiased framework, free of the “good/evil” axis, through which to evaluate monsters

(Kearney 2003, 88-99). The point being that Gods and Monsters are essentially two extremes

on one axis, extreme to the point where they meet again and become indistinguishable

(Kearney 2003, 88). Monstrosity in all its horror is an experience so extreme that it defies

understanding or conceptualization.

If the focus is geography, the answer to the above seems to be that since the Earth has

been fully discovered, monsters are no longer geographically bound. Indeed, if my analysis of

The Calcutta Chromosome is even partially correct and AVA, the counter-scientists and

Silence can all be viewed as monsters within the context of the novel, the Monster has lost all

relation to geographical boundaries. However, the transgression of borders is still critical. The

only thing that has changed is the nature of the borders being crossed. The borders here are


the borders separating man from machine in the case of AVA, the borders separating souls

and lives in the case of the counter-religion, and eras, in the case of Calcutta itself.

5:1: What the monsters do:

Monsters have been ubiquitous throughout history, pre-dating written sources (Gilmore 2003,

24). This seems to suggest that they fulfill a role disconnected from their time of origin. They

do not comment upon specific events or developments, though this is part of their function.

They violate the very rules around which they are constructed. Kearney develops a complex

argument, suggesting that monsters are tied by extension to a practice of scapegoating (2003,

23-46), which can be traced back to the earliest myths in existence. The monster speaks

directly to our most primitive impulses, impulses which are as old as human intelligence, and

this could be critical to their enduring attraction and repulsion. My initial investigation of how

to approach monstrosity showed that the origin of the monster is multi-dimensional – the

monster is rooted both in physical reality (Wittkower 1942, 159) and mythology (Beowulf),

and though it appropriates traits of whatever era spawns it, the monster questions and

challenges our preconceptions. (Nuzzo 2013, 56) The function of the monster, just like the

monster itself, is inherently multi-facetted, refusing any clear definition.

The primary element that defines monsters is that they are not not-monsters, not us, not

normal. They have no category of their own by which they may be recognized and thus

removed. To have an object… which cannot be described and placed alongside other

objects is the primary concept which structures all other elements of monstrosity – that

is the ambiguous, the neither-neither – neither this, nor that, but not “not” these

things(McCormack in Ashgate 2012, 293).

There might be a case for arguing that the monster is inherent ambiguity, and that this is

part of why the monster provokes such mixed response, and demands such mixed approaches.

A critical feature which emerges when looking across the monsters analyzed here, is that the

monster transitions from being real in Beowulf’, to being possible in The Island of Doctor

Moreau, to being fictive in The Calcutta Chromosome. But however real they are perceived to

be, they represent a fundamental challenge. “Through difference, whether in appearance or

behavior, the monsters function to define and construct the politics of the

‘normal’”(Punter&Byron, 2004, 263). The monster is not only different. It is transgressive

and grotesque.

6: Conclusion: In my thesis I stated that The Monster has, particularly over the course of the last two

centuries, become more and more displaced. However, what has changed is not the ‘space’


occupied by the Monster – the space “beyond the pale” of what we know – it is merely the

border which has moved.

While I believe that my thesis holds true for the monsters I’ve analyzed, it falls short of

encompassing the full complexity of the monstrous. The monster is an inherently

transgressive construct, and the transgression of borders is critical to its function. By

shattering these borders, the monster continually questions their validity.

More than anything, the monster is complex, demanding an array of theoretical

approaches. This implies, that any attempt to approach the monster through any one

theoretical framework, fails to encompass and appreciate the full complexity of the

monstrous.

I have touched upon Otherness, arguing that monsters may be seen as an instance of

alterity. In this function they question what separates us from them, while denying us any

direct answer.

Some allowance must be made for the fact that my sample has been limited. The aim of

this thesis has been to indicate a tendency across several literary periods and make some sense

of the monster’s complexity, not to reach any definite statement regarding the functions of the

monster.


Works cited:

Primary sources:

Books:

Beowulf. Trans. Seamus Heaney. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Gen. ed.

Stephen Greenblatt. 8th ed. Vol. A. New York: Norton, 2008. 41-108. Print.

Ghosh, Amitav: The Calcutta Chromosome, 1995, John Murray

Wells, H.G.: The Island of Doctor Morreau, 1896, Clayes ltd. St. Ives plc.

Secondary sources:

Books:

Cohen, Jeffrey Jerome: Monster Theory: Reading Culture, 1996, University of Minnesota

Press

Gilmore, David D. Monsters: Evil beings, Mythical Beasts, and all manner of imaginary

terrors, 2003, University of Pennsylvania Press

Kearney, Richard: Strangers, Gods and Monsters: Interpreting Otherness, 2003, Routledge

MacCormack, Patricia: ‘Posthuman Teratology’ In The Ashgate Research Companion to

Monsters and the Monstrous, Ed. Asa Simon Mitman with Peter J. Dendle, 2012,

Ashgate Publishing Limited

Punter, David and Byron, Glennis: The Gothic, 2004, Wiley

Journal articles:

Glendening, John: Green Confusion: Evolution and Entanglement in H.G. Wells’s The Island

of Doctor Moreau, Victorian Literature and Culture, 2002, Cambridge University Press.

Nuzzo, Luciano: Foucault and the Enigma of the Monster, International Journal of the

Semiotics of law, July, 2013

Wittkower, Rudolf: Marvels of the East, A Study in the History of Monsters, Journal of the

Warburg and Courtauld institutes, volume 5, 1942

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from mythical monsters to future horrors: towards an understanding of the function of monstrosity:

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