The Graveyard Book and Monster, Term Paper Example

Introduction

There is always a continued fascination with narratives associated with monsters. The enduring impact of Neil Gaiman’s “The Graveyard Book” and Walter Myer’s “Monster” spans a plethora of genres and subjects in themes and imagery and raises different questions of death, origin, birth, identity, and contradictory monster qualities. Monsters are regarded as metaphors for anxieties of innovation and aberration. According to Stephen Asma (12), monsters represent moral transgression or evil. The Graveyard Book and Monster explore how cultural and social threats are embodied in the monster figure, and their actions literalize individuals’ deepest fears. In contemporary culture, monsters have increasingly become humane than before. Monsters are regarded as sly, creative, resilient, and strong creatures. Through their invigorating and playful energy, they can be perceived to unsettle and disrupt. However, they still create an appetite for horror. This analytical essay will explore the concept of ‘monstrosity’ or ‘monster’ in the narratives, The Graveyard, and Monster.

Summary of The Graveyard Book

Neil Gaiman’s novel “The Graveyard Book” is a stupendously and well-crafted narrative that gives extensive details about the life of Nobody Owens, also known as Bod. The book breaks down the borderline between the living and dead world. Bod is a boy whose entire family has been cold-bloodedly slaughtered. A mysterious man known as Jack enters Bod’s home at night and ruthlessly murders his father, mother, and sister. At this time, Jack realizes that there is another baby (Bod) in the house. Bod escapes towards the graveyard as Jack tries to pursue him. He crawls to a nearby graveyard, where inhabitant ghosts adopt him.

At the graveyard, a kind ghost couple known as the Owenses discovers Bod. They identify Jack searching for the baby and realizes his bad intentions. Bod’s murdered parents appear as flickering shadows or ghosts and beg Mrs. Owens to adopt and take care of their son. Mrs. Owen agrees to their request and chases away the mysterious Jack. The graveyard ghost holds a poll on whether the Owenses should raise bod. In the process, Silas, a mysterious creature who chases Jack away from the graveyard, agrees to be Bod’s guardian. Besides, the Owenses are given the duty to raise the baby. Bod is granted the graveyard’s freedom that endows him to some capabilities of the ghosts.

The Graveyard Book explains the life of Bod in the graveyard and provides various representations of monsters. These monsters that raise Bod include the characters of Ghouls, Werewolf, and Vampire. Bod lives with the monsters until the time he decides when to join his kind, the living. These monsters create a new representation different from the one in the Gothic era. Typically, monsters’ creation and presence during the Gothic Era target spreading terror and horror, while monster representation in The Graveyard Book is different. They are exemplified as kind and harmless creatures.

Analysis of The Graveyard Book

Horror narratives is a literary genre that creates an emotion of shock and terror to readers. They focus on emerging the reader’s fear. Horror imagery in these narratives aims to create a scary feeling and threats (Pujiati, et al., 2). The object used to cause emotions comes from the characters, creatures, houses, and the setting. These characters are usually in the form of monsters. In the past, monsters were pictured as evil, alluring, threatening, and powerful. However, today, monsters are depicted differently as it exists in Neil Gaiman’s “The Graveyard Book.” Instead of being frightening or scary, monsters are displayed as sophisticated and kind. They have transformed their representation. In The Graveyard Book, the monsters that were initially monstrous and hideous have transformed into being caring and harmless creatures. The novel exemplifies monsters as essential components of horror fiction.

Although the representation of monsters has transformed from classical to postmodern, their figure has not changed. The monsters in Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book are flawed of the classical monsters. For instance, Silas has a similar character as that of Dracula, indicating the representation of a classical vampire. However, Dracula is exemplified as an evil, violent, and cruel creature, whereas Silas is represented as a kind and harmless vampire (Pujiati et al., 4).

Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book presents monsters imaginatively and powerfully. The novel does not lie to the reader about monsters’ nature or deny the truth about its brutality. The graveyard world where the child hero faces lively ghost or monster figures refocuses the reader’s attention from the parents’ brutal murder to a peculiar graveyard illumination, as the environment where the baby survives. The graveyard is a lyrical and unique world. Although the child hero, Bod, has to come back to the “real” world, he is encouraged by life’s reversal in death.

Monsters primarily influence Bod’s life. For instance, during his adolescence, he makes friends with a human girl, assists a witch spirit, dances the Macabray, unlocks and escapes a ghoul-gate, and attends school way from the graveyard. At school, he confronts the bullies. Characters in his life are influential and unique. Silas, his guardian, exists in two worlds, the dead and the living, and moves fluidly in the two to provide him with necessities and food to survive. Throughout the novel, Silas does not appear in the sunlight. One can refer him to a vampire that depends on the energies of souls. Vampires dislike sunlight rays. For instance, “he would be there waiting at sunset, just Silas awakened” (Gaiman 37). Additionally, Bod is taught by a wolf woman, Miss Lupescu, who teaches him crucial life lessons. All these characters can be regarded as a monster, but they impact Bod’s life positively. Bod is an unusual child who is given the freedom of the graveyard to do extraordinary things, including walking through walls and fading out of view. With time, Bod learns more about the outside world. The Graveyard Book presents a substantial dose of supernatural creatures, leaving the reader with an unforgettable experience.

The Graveyard Book explores several teachings and advice that are given throughout the course of the Book. The Book revolves around the advice Bod transfers to his audience. Bod rejects the lessons from Miss Lupescu as she taught him on lists. Later on, Bod learns Miss Lupescu’s lessons’ importance despite the initial disregard of the lessons. The lessons are important in his journey to the ghoul gate. The Graveyard Book also retells Bod’s expedition at Abanazer Bolger’s shop after coming from the graveyard. Previously, Bod had been warned not to travel outside the graveyard. Throughout the story, Bod appears like a determined soul as he purchases the headstone for his friend Liza Hempstock who is a witch. The decision makes Bod reflect his decision-making techniques as he resolves to explain himself to the Mister while he seeks not to justify his position to Silas. Therefore, The Graveyard Book illustrates the importance of listening to advice and acting according to one’s consciousness. The theme is reflected through the character of Bod, who illustrates the different facets of decision making.

A recurring message in The Graveyard Book regards the communal efforts and undertaking that seeks to ensure all members achieve similar objectives. When Owen wants to single-handedly raise Bod, Silas disagrees, and points out that it takes more than the activity of good-hearted individuals to raise a child (Graiman 23). Silas’ statement is illustrated throughout the story as the Book as the graveyard’s ghosts play their role to raise Bod. At the time of raise upbringing, he is small and helpless. The Graveyard Book teaches the importance of collective duty for proper upbringing. In the Book, where some characters are involved in Bod’s upbringing, others, such as the ghost, guide him. Through Bod, all the dead are brought together to establish a communal effort for raising Bod in a way that ensures he will have an impact on society.

Summary of The Monster

Walter Myers’s Monster is a novel that explains about an African American and sixteen-year-old teenager, Steve Harmon, on trial for murder. Through this novel, Walter Myer has won the Printz award and the Coretta Scott King Award. Monster is set in Harlem, New York, in 1997. Steve Harmon regards himself as the monster after getting into trouble. Steve describes his and James Kings’ murder trial for killing a drugstore owner, Mr.Nesbitt, in a failed robbery. Through screenplay and his notes in his notebook, Steve Harmon narrates the period between the beginning of the case and the jury’s verdict, which entails eleven days. He is also in trial together with two other boys, Osvaldo Cruz and Richard ‘Bobo’ Evans. As the murder trial begins, Steve reminisces about a movie he had seen during his school film club, and which offered the notion of predictability. Steve labels the screenplay as “monster,” which is a word that he was called in court by Sandra Petrocelli, a state prosecutor. Petrocelli deems James King as a ‘monster’ and accuses him of encouraging Harmon to join him in the robbery.  Kathy O’Brien, Steve’s lawyer, inquiries about his innocence but works hard and persistently to defend him.

Analysis of The Monster

Typically, a monster is referred to as something monstrous; specifically, a person of extreme or unnatural wickedness, ugliness, cruelty, or deformity (Radonjic 3). Based on this definition, Petrocelli suits to refer to Steve, Osvaldo, and Bobo as monsters. However, Kathy O’Brien does not believe Steve should be considered a monster even though he could have been James King’s accomplice. In fact, Steve’s father gets confused and fails to understand whether he son should be referred to as a monster as he cannot imagine him being involved in such trouble when he states, “I never thought of seeing you –you know- seeing you in a place like this. It just never came to me that you’d ever be in any kind of trouble…” (Myers 112). Besides, Detective Karyl also claims that Steve should be labeled a monster. For one’s personality to be associated with being a monster, then society must influence individual identity. It is crucial to understand how a person’s identity is described by the individuals they interact with since they affect their physical and mental development. Hence, Steve’s personality has been influenced negatively or positively by his criminal associates.

Throughout the Monster, Steve plays various roles: the monster, filmmaker, innocent, guilty, and the defendant. This range of functions makes the novel’s readers confused if the detective and the prosecutor are justified in referring to Steve as a monster, despite being on trial. It important to recall that Steve Harmon is still the defendant; thus, he is being assessed whether innocent or guilty. Steve fails to understand the reasons he is serving jail time. Considering guiltiness and innocence, it is vital to view Steve’s character as an innocent boy or an accomplice of murder. Hence, the reader can determine whether he deserves to be referred to as a monster. Though the trial less challenges him, his worries are primarily psychological as he attempts to assess whether he deserves being labeled a monster. As Petrocelli continually called him a monster, Steve confesses that the pretty juror’s attitude towards him makes him feel like a monster. Steve claims that every person around him, except his mother, have a negative attitude towards him, he says “I lay down across my cot. I could still feel Mama’s pain. And I knew she felt that I didn’t do anything wrong. It was me who wasn’t sure…” (Myers 149). Hence, psychologically, Steve feels like a monster. Through the definition of a monster, the novel gives an in-depth evaluation to reflect how Steve Harmon may be the monster.

The Monster explores aspects of human life, such as the way deceit can be pervasive and the structure of the family. Monster revolves around deceit and its effects on society. At the first pages of the novel, it is difficult to ascertain whether Steve is innocent through examining the journal entries. In court cases, there is a dilemma of ascertaining the character that is telling the truth. The witnesses’ testimony is not as reliable as they are not honest. Deceit is pervasive, and the inhumane nature of the prisons serve to educate members of the public. The survival tactics deployed in the novel illustrate the immoral actions by their prisoners to preserve their sanity and safety (Myer 140). Monster the story of the American justice system and gives insight into the family. Steve’s actions apparently affect all members of the family. Steve’s alleged role in the crime seems to affect all his family members. His younger brother, Jerry, has to deal with his absence as he was his best friend. Even though Mrs. Harmon maintains that Steve is innocent, she incessantly worries about his well-being and safety. Steve’s mother cannot accept his involvement in the crime. Mr. Harmon cannot accept Steve after the involvement in a crime as he considers him deviant. Steve would later embody self-hatred feeling as he feels his family will never accept and love him again.

Conclusion

Monsters are regarded as horror fiction and are transforming their role and appearance. The conventional monsters were represented as powerful and scary creatures with hideous appearances, whereas the postmodern monsters are portrayed as kind and good looking. Neil Gaiman’s “The Graveyard” and Walter Myer’s “Monster” depict many genres and subjects in themes and imagery and raise different questions of death, origin, birth, identity, and conflicting monster qualities. They also explore how cultural and social threats are exemplified in the monster figure, and their actions literalize individuals’ deepest fears.

Work Cited

Asma, Stephen T. “Monsters and the moral imagination.” Chronicle of Higher Education 56 (2009): 11-12.

Gaiman, Neil. The graveyard book. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2009: 1-312

Pujiati, Hat, and L. Dyah Purwita Wardani. “The transformation of monsters representation in Neil Gaiman’s the graveyard book. 2015:1-4

Myers, Walter D. Monster. 2001. Amistad; Illustrated edition: 1-281

Radonjic Strid, Ginger. “The Nameless Monster in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein: An Analysis of The Unnameable Monster’s Monstrosity.” (2020):1-27