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The first result I found when I googled monster was for Monster.com.  It is an online “employment solution” which helps people build resumes and find employers who need someone to work for them.  They work on a global scale and can help someone find almost any professional job.  They believe their success is based off of innovation and constantly changing and improving not only their site but how people see employment.  Personally it just sounds like an average job finding site which I guess is doing pretty well.

Don’t worry this post isn’t a plug for them and I am not getting anything for talking about their website.  However I find it interesting that a job search company decided to use the word “Monster” as their name.  A word that has almost nothing to do with finding a job other than working in some line of horror whether it be a haunted house or a scary movie.  Not only that but the fact that this business was able to get the domain name of www.Monster.com.  I would have thought something more related to the topic of actual monsters would own www.Monsters.com.  Instead it’s some job site that in all honesty I will probably use when I’m older.

Perhaps the creators of this business do not find the word to represent scary and horrible beasts.  Instead it may mean just something unusual and large.  Those aren’t two words that are bad for describing a business.  Large being almost always a good thing and unusual or not the norm can be a good term to separate one’s business from the rest.  When I think of the word monster being used like this I also think of Monster Cookies which, If you can find the right recipe and use the proper ingredients, taste amazing and are fairly large.  Does the word “monster” have much less of a negative connotation in contemporary society?  Is it the meaning of the word monster that has changed? Or is it how people feel about the word that has changed?  Maybe as we age and mature as individuals the word monster scares us less?  I really don’t know here is the song I listened to on repeat until I finished this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLp_Hh6DKWc

Another

The first horror anime I ever watched was called Another.  It was incredibly good and I highly suggest it.  The premise is that a certain class at a high school is “haunted” by a former student who died an untimely death.  Now the students in the class die untimely deaths about once a month until its figured out how to stop the curse. Its really good and all the deaths are final destinationish and the finale is really good. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwUzWZBN7CE that’s a link to the first episode on you tube if you are interested.

I really like that through out the whole series there is never a definite monster.  All these horrible things keep happening to members of the class and their family members but there isn’t a set evil doer.  The sense of mystery and suspense is great throughout the entire series.  Feeling like anyone of the characters could die at any moment kept great suspense and horror throughout.  The extremely gory deaths helped too.

This “monster” has very little known about it and is extremely dangerous.  Despite that it fits very well with Carroll’s theory.  First it is extremely dangerous in a physical way.  Second it represents his idea of impurity.  The monster is a dead school girl yet she can still interact with the physical world.  This shows the fusion Carroll talked about in regards to his impurity.

I find it very interesting and intriguing that a Monster who is never seen or shows any sense of existing besides killing people can cause so much horror.  It seems the less one knows about a monster the scarier it is.  Is it simply just a fear of the unknown?  The kind that stopped explorers from initially crossing the Atlantic.  Fears of sea monsters that didn’t exist.  Or rather is it that the human imagination that makes monsters scarier than they are?  That really the only thing we have to fear is fear itself, and umbrellas. (watch Another to understand that)

Human Beings

I never watched horror movies as a kid or even read scary stories.  The only “horror” movie I remember watching was Phantom of the Opera.  I slept with my hand on the side of my neck after it.  Besides that most of my childhood centered around kids movies and nature documentaries and so I never had one set monster I feared.  That is until I left my window open.

My family goes camping a lot and for long periods of time.  One summer we went out for a week and a half to upstate New York and enjoyed being out in the woods of Robert Treman State Park.  When we got back it turned out that I left my window open like the little air head I was.  Everything seemed fine nothing was stolen or moved.  However under closer examination of the window the screen was raised which was weird because at the age I couldn’t lift them by myself.  Then with a sick feeling in my stomach I realized that there were ten holes the size of fingertips poked through the screen.  It was horrifying and needless to say I slept on the floor of my parents room that night.

I have never been afraid of monsters and have seen them as whimsical in a way.  However I believe that human beings definitely have the ability to act in monstrous ways.  Since that day I have been more afraid of burglars and murders than the boogey man and werewolves.  Personally I think that there are terrifying people who fit the description we had for monsters on the board.  What is more terrifying than the monster that looks like you?  One that doesn’t have the warning signs of big teeth and horns but instead a clean cut and a toothy smile.  So I don’t have a monster from my childhood that talked me from a silver screen.  Instead its the monsters of men that scares me the most.

Also being an avid fan of Law and Order doesn’t help this at all.

Below is a link to a writing prompt on reddit about a monster.  Its pretty interesting.

[WP] A monster is experiencing agonizing pain, and is convinced that killing you is the only way to relieve it. Write from the monster's perspective.
byu/Red_lotus_ inWritingPrompts