The Monsters in the Closet

 “’I have no leisure for such enquiries [sic] [of the mythical tales of monsters and the credibility of myths]; shall I tell you why? I must first know myself,…to be curious about that which is not my concern, while I am still ignorant of my own self, would be ridiculous” –Socrates (Asma 19).

            We see a shift in American fears from the 1600s to the 1800s; unlike the Puritans’ fears of an unseen, outside force of witchcraft and wizardry (as discussed in the previous blog post), the early Americans begin to comprehend and fear a possible, undisturbed ‘monster’ inside all of them--the oh-so easily influenced un-moralistic primitive who can be awakened in each and every one of their souls. But, what caused this shift? Once so keen on rooting out and punishing an actual damned human being, why is it now that they begin to recognize that there might be a damned witch lying dormant inside each of their own souls? Was it when they recognized their own fault in the Salem witch trials? Or…

            Did the shift begin when Puritans started interacting with the Native Americans, the first “other” human outsiders they encountered so different than themselves? Before they met the native people, the only people the Puritans would have personally known in this new land would be their white, English, Christian contemporaries. But, now there is a new group of people--a darker-skinned people who seem to have been forsaken by God and left to their own primal whims and pleasures. To the Puritans, this seems like a calling to 'rescue' these poor damned souls and incorporate them into society. But, that obviously didn’t work as planned. The Native Americans had a thriving culture, one which would be the envy of any starving Puritan (if any Puritan had the guts to recognize or verbalize that). Soon, the kidnappings started, warfare began, and people--Native Americans and Puritans alike--died in droves at the cold, clammy hands of disease and the cold, unfeeling hands of gunfire or arrow head.  In Mary Rowlandson’s account, A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration, the story of Mary’s captivity with the Native Americans is portrayed in such a way that the natives are made out to be a horrifying, deadly, disturbed, un-moralistic people. But, even if that was so (I’m purely speaking in theoretical terms; I personally think the Native Americans had a fascinating, family-centered, loving culture), why was it that ‘innocent’ white men and women ran back to their captors after they were returned to their white families? Historical records tell us that many colonists ran back home to their ‘Indian’ captors and immersed themselves in the culture, even marrying into the tribes (Stodola 6, Axtell 194). Was there a Native American, primitive, monster inside all people, even good Christian people, who could be awakened upon interaction with people who called that devil to the forefront of the captives’ personalities? I think the Puritans thought so. It’s Dances with Wolves; only for the Puritans, it’s ‘Dances with the Devil.’

Avatar: The new blockbuster representation of our monster within 

(Really, this movie is just Dances with Wolves starring aliens instead and with an environmentalist agena; yet...it's still one of my favorite movies) 

            As Asma says, Socrates believed that the “lowest part of the soul (the appetites) has become the ruling part of the soul” (Asma 18). As time progressed, I think that this belief in the dormant, uncontrollable devil in all souls took a firm hold on the fears of the early American settlers. Even after the Native Americans were eradicated (they really were eradicated…early American settlers were awful, selfish, narrow-minded bigots bent on destorying anything/anyone different from themselves--okay, I’ll get off my high horse), there was still this fear that the internal devil could rear his ugly head. And then, once someone let his/her inner devil take presedence over their moral self, it's just like Sean said in class: "If you let yourself slide into the devil's demise, you become a visible example of what the devil can do to even the most moral of people." You become the living example of a devil's possession on Earth. “The classicist E.R. Dodds [said] … internal forces, usually monstrous, sometimes benign, … rise their ugly heads during crisis points in our lives … [T]hey ‘are not truly part of the self, since they are not within man’s conscious control; they are endowed with a life and energy of their own, and so can force a man, as it were from the outside, into conduct foreign to him’” (Asma 20). For instance, take Nathanial Hawthorne’s story of poor Hester Prynne. Once an innocent, supposedly-widowed settler (even though we soon find out that isn’t at all true), she is ‘tempted’ into having an affair which results in a an unwanted pregnancy. Then, she and her baby are made a spectacle to warn the other Puritan settlers what can happen if you let your inner ‘monster’ remove your inhibitions and corrupt your morals and soul. Look at damned Hester--her ‘monster’ reared his ugly head and now she will be forced to wear that scarlet ‘A’ forever. Cue laughter from hypocritical Puritans. So, Hester of course things that “something doubtful, something…might be deeply wrong…beneath” (Hawthorne 1378). Even though Hester is talking about the joy she derives out of doing needlework, a supposedly “morbid meddling of conscience with an immaterial matter,” she does seem to think that there is something inherently wrong with her, something monstrous and sinful that lies beneath her once clean, white facade (Hawthorne 1378). The ‘monster’ has been awakened, and now she serves as an example of what can happen if others let their own ‘monsters’ awaken.

            Just like Socrates said, why trouble yourself with ‘monsters’ in the outside world when in fact the ‘monsters’ of our own souls are so unknown to us and demand our full attentions to keep quiet. The early American settlers discovered their ‘monsters,’ and tried desperately to keep them quiet. But, as they soon discovered, those monsters couldn’t always be silenced.

Asma, Stephen T. On Monsters: an Unnatural History of Our Worst Fears. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2009. Print.

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter. New York: Bantam, 1986. Print.

Rowlandson, Mary White. Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration. [S.l.]: Kessinger, 200. Print.

"White Indians" handout from class: Stodola/Axtell