Rhetorical Analysis of Jerome Cohen's Monster Culture: Seven Theses

Name College Writing I Professor Assignment 1 Word Count: 1101
Rhetorical Analysis
Humans fear the unknown and this is part of human nature, humans want to be familiar with everything around them and be aware of the happens around them. When faced with uncertainty, humans typically react with fear and anxiety. Jeffrey Jerome Cohen monster theory helps us analyze how we view the world by questioning who we are and how we define ourselves.
Cohen presents the monstrous nature of humans using examples to depict how monsters are a symbolic expression of culture that causes discomfort in the society. According to Cohen, it's the monster in us that shapes the society's collective behavior (Cohen 3).
Jeffrey Jerome Cohen's essay titled "Monster Culture: Seven Theses," explain the nature of humans and the influential factors as he proposes seven theses of understanding culture through monster to reflect human desires, anxiety fears, and fantasies. His main argument of these theses is to unveil the monstrous nature of human existence, which cannot be hidden or destroyed (Cohen 4).
Using examples of historical monsters, Cohen describes people's fascination with atrocious behavior based on their desire to explore disparity and limitations. In Cohen's book, monsters are defined differently based on their appearance, character, and representation. In one of his thesis, monsters are presented as a symbol and a representation of certain culture because they invoke certain feelings of his audience when describing certain time and period (Cohen 5).
Using a formal tone, Cohen argues that monster rises at the intersection of culture to portray the difference that emerges and how anxiety is heightened (Cohen 4). The monster represents the differences in several areas including ideologies, culture, racial and cultural difference that invokes a sense of fear and uncertainty (Cohen 7). The term monster as “disturbing hybrid" that is always rebelling against nature (Cohen 6), shows how monster forces make people rebel.
Cohen proposes that to control the monstrous nature of humans, there should be a standard code.
From the first page, Cohen builds up the anxiety and fear brought by monsters. Using a serious and stiff tone, Cohen describes his objective clearly when he use phrases like a ‘sudden raid to destroy the protective walls of convention and comfort” (Cohen 3), to describe some of the monsters characters.
In the first thesis, Cohen describes the monster body as a cultural body when he states that " the monstrum is an etymologically ‘that which reveals,' ‘that which warns,' the monster signifies something other than itself," (Cohen 13). The quote proves that monster masquerade as something that people often fear. His language and tone slowly depart from the academic tone, when he combines a serious and playful attitude that provokes his audience.
His ironic sense of humor is well hidden under his use of language when describing the medieval stories of vampire and other heroic chronicles (Cohen 5). Cohen uses humor to portray specific contemporary issues. The stories of Bram Stoker ‘Dracula portray dictatorship and desire that cause corruption in Nosferatu (Cohen 5).