![]() ![]() Vampires, in particular, are often seen as sexual beings, alienating them from both humanity and God and providing a violent lesson on the consequences of lack of control. In Victorian literature, monstrosity was often equivalent to sexuality, particularly in women, thus dehumanizing anything that possessed strong primal instincts. It is also possible, as in ‘Dracula,’ 2 that the creature is by nature unable to make a moral connection of a religious nature and is therefore labelled both godless and monstrous as a consequence of that nature. In this article, monstrosity is also connected with godlessness, or a distinct amoral nature, doing things directly against what would be considered the good, “godly” thing to do, and instead of acting in favour of violence or complete lack of moral fibre. This is most apparent in ‘Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde’ 1 for, although human, Mr Hyde does numerous terrible things and would be considered a monster for doing so. Thus, this paper explores monstrosity as a form of “otherness” whether the individual is technically human or not does not matter as much as their actions and motivations for said actions. However, that definition is oddly vague and does nothing to explain the many human “monsters” within history and literature, such as people who kill for money or do terrible things for horrible reasons. Monsters are most often defined as anything that is not human and that is consequently frightening.
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