I recently came across this link on Facebook; it is a collection of nine, two sentence horror stories (http://canyouactually.com/9-of-the-most-terrifying-two-sentence-horror-stories-ever-told/). Although all were eery, number two terrified me because it dealt with my long-lost (or so I had thought) fear of nightmares.

(You might want to read the second story before reading this!)

Number two describes a scenario where the author is met with a terrifying monster at 12:07 AM. When the monster starts to push her “long rotting nails” through the author’s chest, he or she wakes up. The author is relieved that it was only a nightmare but then notices that it is only 12:06 AM. At that moment, he or she hears the closet door creak open.

Ever since I was a little kid I was scared to go to sleep because I felt vulnerable to my mind. I had no way to defend myself against any of the terrifying images or scenes my mind would conjure up. Usually when people wake up from a nightmare, they are instantly comforted by the relief of knowing it was all fake. In my case, there was no relief when I woke up. In the darkness of my room, I felt my heart beating out of my chest and remembered the terror I had just experienced. In a sense, the author of this story shares a similar experience with me. He or she woke up from a nightmare only to find that he or she was still being terrorized by it. Although my nightmares obviously never materialized into reality (knock on wood), my mind was still centered around that feeling of horror.

I have not had any nightmares for years, so I had “forgotten” about my fear. However, this story has brought it back into my mind and I can’t help but wonder why I am so afraid of having a nightmare. Perhaps I am so scared of them because I do not know what provokes them. To me, they were always entirely unpredictable.

Can we actually conquer a fear? Or do we simply “forget” it until something triggers it? And more importantly, why did Facebook ruin my life?

Season three of American Horror Story begins with the introduction of a brutal monster- Delphine Lalaurie, an eighteenth century slaveholder who mercilessly mutilates her slaves. Not only does she regularly harvest her slaves’ organs to create an anti-aging face cream, she also  performs sick experiments with their bodies. For one of her experiments, she transformed a man into a minotaur by sewing a bull’s head to him (Would Carroll consider him to be a monster?). Unfortunately for Delphine, however, this man was the lover of Marie Laveau, an immortal voodoo queen. To punish Delphine for her evils, Laveau curses her with immortality and then buries her in a tomb where she is meant to spend the rest of eternity.

This is the minotaur Delphine had created. Does this qualify as a “fusion figure”?

In 2013, however, eternity is cut short when Delphine is prematurely exhumed by a witch named, Fiona Goode. Fiona operates a school of witchcraft and employs Delphine as a servant to her three students: Zoe, Madison, and Queenie. So that you may fully appreciate the irony, I will also tell you that Queenie is African American. Delphine is, to say the least, vocal about her unwillingness to serve Queenie, but this changes as the season progresses. As Delphine becomes acquainted with Queenie, she begins to recognize the evil she had done in the past and makes an active attempt to become a better person. Delphine and Queenie, in fact, form a beautiful friendship, each willing to risk her life for the other.

This is before Delphine changes her racist ways.

Delphine and Queenie after they became friends. 

This was a beautiful turn of events, but also the beginning of my confusion. Marie Laveau learns that Delphine was exhumed and begins to enact her revenge. She kidnaps Delphine and tortures her just as Delphine had tortured her slaves. This should be satisfying to watch, right? Wrong! I actually found it very difficult to not have sympathy for Delphine. This is because she had become a better person and so desperately wanted to prove this, especially to Queenie. Delphine’s situation raises some questions, such as: Can a monster really change and better itself? And, if so, can it ever be truly deserving of our sympathy?

Personally, I think that every book is didactic by nature, so after I read Frankenstein, I thought, “What is Mary Shelley trying to teach me?”. After much thought, I came up with this: be wary of blind ambition and be prepared to take responsibility for your actions. While I learned this through reading the novel, Victor Frankenstein had to learn it the hard way. Victor devoted several years of his life to the creation of his own worst nightmare. He spent months assembling the organs and appendages of various corpses and never seemed to realize what he was actually doing. Blinded by his own ambition, he was unable to see the gruesome being he was creating; he never chose to ask himself, “Why am I doing this?” or even, “What am I going to do when I give this thing life?”. His chance to consider these questions was dashed with the surge of electricity that brought the creature to life.

That electric surge served as a sense-restoring slap in the face to Victor. His creation, although wracked with hideous features, had the mindset of a newly-rescued puppy. It simply wanted some sense of belonging to the world it was so abruptly thrust into. In his terror, Victor abandoned his creation failing to realize that it had a beautiful capacity to feel and empathize. Alone, the creature quickly realized that no matter how benevolent its intentions, it would always be abhorred. It grew increasingly bitter towards human beings, but especially bitter toward its creator. Victor inadvertently became the sole recipient of his creation’s vengeance. His neglect transformed an otherwise peaceful being into a merciless serial killer.

Although Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is a fictional work, there is nothing fictional or furtive about the link between parental neglect and serial killers. In fact, in a study conducted of thirty-six murderers, all possessed a history of parental neglect and abuse (https://www.ncjrs.gov/App/Publications/abstract.aspx?ID=182592). This begs the questions: “Does a lack of responsibility create monsters?” and, “Are we, in fact, the creators of our own monsters?”.