ENGLISH 400: MONSTER THEORY
Sierra McCollum
Research Paper Abstract
"Cultural Anxieties: How Class and Status Overpower Love"
This paper will talk about how social status and class in Marie de France’s twelfth century audience creates cultural anxieties that we can see in some of her Lais. Why isn't Le Fresne able to be with her lover in that titular story, and why was it so important to marry someone of the same rank? "Le Fresne" focuses on a baby girl who is given up, raised in poverty, but gets reunited with her family and reclaims her social status at the end. During the time period when Marie de France wrote these lais, nobles rarely married for love, instead they married for economic and political reasons beyond their
control. Examining textual instances where class and status details appear in “Le Fresne,” we can begin to see how Marie’s stories express the desire for escape from such constraining social expectations, and how cultural anxieties give rise to monster and shapeshifter stories. We can see these anxieties through questionable acts such as the noble woman giving up her child in the beginning. As a result, the girl’s lost status prevented her from being with her lover because he too had a higher status than her. I argue that social norms of class were the reasons why nobles were pressured to keep a certain image, which resulted in them doing extreme actions in order to uphold their image.
Capstone Presentation
"The Devourers in their true form: The Second Self and what it means"
I will be focusing on the book, The Devourers, and the concept of the second self and what it means. One way that the second self can be seen is as a metaphor of being “in the closet” and hiding one’s self. One of the devourers, Gevaudan, had never shown his second self to any human and we witness this moment of vulnerability when he transforms in front of Cyrah (a human woman). Cyrah was able to get a feel of what Gevaudan’s truest, or “second,” self was like, even if she was blindfolded. We are also welcomed into this intimate moment as Cyrah describes her experience of Gevaudan’s monstrous hidden self as beautiful and “honest.” Together, we will unpack this moment between two very different creatures to see what we can learn about intimacy and vulnerability, and making connections with radical otherness.