As Andre Gide, a prominent French author, once said, “There are very few monsters who warrant the fear we have of them”. This is perhaps due to the fact that many of people’s perception on monsters are skewed by prototypical stereotypes. Nonetheless, monsters have played a significant role in modern society. Whether it’s literal monsters or symbolic monsters, they tend to be a topic of interest to anyone as there seems to be an instantaneous repulsion and attraction to these monsters. Firstly, there’s the obvious fear involved because of the hazardous situation that monsters can create. Yet, there also seems to be some type of draw to these monsters at the same time. These ideas are further discussed and demonstrated in the novel “On Monsters," written by Stephen Asma. Asma perfectly illustrates the idea of the repulsion and attraction of monsters by bringing in a two examples from his life. The first one was about a little boy he encountered at the Hunterian Museum. The boy was walking along with his mother when he noticed one display case containing “tragically malformed babies” (Asma 5). Asma explains that although the boy was clearly frightened, when his mother asked if they should leave, the boy still wanted to stay and see more. The second example was about Asma’s 3 year old son and how he felt the same way as the boy …show more content…
Asma takes note of this when explaining the difference beween literal and symbolic monsters. Literal monsters are the reason kids often wake up in middle of the night and the ones people often see on movies or television shows such as The Walking Dead or Teen Wolf where there are supernatural creatures such as zombies and wear-wolves everywhere.However, symbolic monsters, Asma explains are way more relevant today. Asma explains how many people often label others who do evil and inhumane deeds such as murder as