Monstrosity In Frankenstein

Towards the beginning of the twentieth century, ‘monstrosity’ underwent a significant shift; from externalised representations to largely internal manifestations. From the Victorian vilification of the social and cultural ‘Other’ as an antithesis to morality and human civilisation, the monster grew to embody a more relativistic and ambiguous identity in the twentieth century paradigm. American Psycho’s Patrick Bateman, and Monster’s Aileen ‘Lee’ Wuronos, are two quintessential monsters of the ‘serial-killer-as-protagonist’ trend that proliferated in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. In these eras, the binary opposites of ‘human’ and ‘monster’ became almost synonymous due to the ostensible absence of moral absolutes.

Composed in a
In such passages, Ellis effectively parodies the superfluity of consumer culture, and its mindless ethic of disposal and repurchase. The absurdity of investing ‘two hundred dollars’ in a ‘shoe-horn’ aptly encapsulates Patrick’s myopic zeal to fashion his self-worth and dignity by attaching material value to every conceivable aspect of the quotidian. To do without extravagance is to fail in projecting that imperious image of perfection, and this imperative to abide by that implacable rule is what sustains Bateman’s
After insisting that she will pay for their meal with her “Platinum American Express Card”, Patrick senses “violent convulsions at hand”, which prompts “a sadistic, acidic, gastric reaction.” In a horrific murder scene later in the chapter, Patrick violently reasserts the supremacy he has lost by “shooting nails into her hands” and “with scissors, cut[ting] out her tongue”, at last, silencing the unbearable