Gothic Monsters

"As we grow older, we transform into something monstrous. Our minds begin to fail us, as do our bodies. No one escapes the indignites and terrors of old age, physcial decreptiude and death. 

We have met the enemy, and he is us" - Walt Kelly

What is a monster?

• A distortion of something that is normal, non-threatening form.
• Beyond the pale of what we consider normality
• Demonation of what we consider normal and therefore safe
• Often abandoned

Zombies

• 'A corpse said to be revived by witchcraft, especially in certain African and Caribbean religions.'
• '(in popular fiction) A person or reanimated corpse that has been turned into a creature capable of movement but not of rational thought, which feeds on human flesh.' - Oxford definitions
• They have become a symbol of exploitation and social decay
• Zombie films have become a response to ageing societies 
• Contagion is the dominant horror of the 21st century, an era marked by epidemics of terror, war and economic crisis. Fear of contagion dominates recent pop culture in the form of apocalyptic zombie plagues, viral pandemics, infectious vampires, parasitized bodies and microbe-caused mutations.

               

Ghosts

• 'An apparition of a dead person which is believed to appear or become manifest to the living, typically as a nebulous image.' Oxford definition
• Spirits of the dead
• Demons are deadly spirits
• Some may describe ghosts as people who were afraid of dying so carry on living on the earth or some ghosts may have unfinished business
• Some modern films demonstrate ghosts functioning with humans in normal life

                   

Vampires

• '(in European folklore) A corpse supposed to leave its grave at night to drink the blood of the living by biting their necks with long pointed canine teeth.' Oxford definition
• Originated from Bram Stoker's Dracula. Count Dracula planned to infect London's society
• Vampires can be viewed as consumers
• Capitalism and consumerism are political issues that vampires are compared too
• High amounts of adaptations of Dracula and vampires in the 80's raised awareness of AID's in the 80's. At that point, human sexuality is linked to disease and death.
• A more recent version on a vampire story is Twilight. The roles are swapped and the human is chasing the vampire to achieve her desire to be 'one of them'. The vampires in this movie sparkle and glimmer in the sunlight, as opposed to burning, and this can be interpreted as a modern fear of ageing. 

                   

How is Miss Havisham a Gothic Monster?
Following our seminar with Kat, I thought it extremely interesting but did not feel it would be relevant to my chosen story that has no supernatural creatures. However, after looking at the traits and reseaching these characters further it can be interpreted that Miss Havisham is  a ghost of her own past. It is almost as though Miss Havisham died on the day her fiance abandoned her as she is wearing the same clothes, hairstyle and shoes for the next twenty or so years. It was described that ghosts may be people who are afraid of dying or have unfinished business are the ones that continue on as ghost and, for me, Miss Havisham builds the rest of her life seeking revenge. She only finally lets go and dies once she realises her mistakes and seeks forgiveness - much like ghosts can be percieved in films to 'let go' once they have completed what they came back to do. It will be a fun element to explore making Miss Havisham more ghost like and explore how this element of her character could be translated into makeup.