in “What is a Monster?” by Natalie Lawrence, she talks about the how society dictates what a monster is. By using Walter Palmer’s shooting of Cecil the lion and European discovery of the dodo birds, she is able show how our ideas of monsters has changed based on time. Palmer killed a lion and was deemed a monster, while the dodo was a bird that defied what they classified as a bird. She therefore classifies a monster as an oddity that can be sold to the public as entertainment.

I think that Lawrence is right that we as a society tend to now blow up events where we think that someone who is a monster is involved. The news would plaster the face of a killer all over television, showing everyone the person killed, motive, etc. Learning that monsters were being used as a selling point for the masses at things like freak shows doesn’t surprise me. It just shows how drawn we are to look at monsters and try to understand them. We want to know how they work. People like Palmer that were deemed monsters my never be able to live it down. Monsters now may never live down that stigma.