Cohen's Seven Monster Theses and the Dragons

For my Friday paper, I decided to write about the most famous monsters in the world: the dragons. Dragons are very broad category of monsters, and there are various versions of them across the entire world. Europeans have dragons that are four legged with wings and horns. Asians have long, snake like dragons. There are ancient cultures from Africa and South America that have tales of giant reptilian monsters in their myths as well. While all of these variations are quite unique, they are always reptilian in some way. They can also usually fly, emit deadly elements from its mouth, and are great symbols of power. Since the group of monsters called dragons includes so many different variations, they are excellent at providing examples for all of Jeffrey Cohen’s seven monster theses.

Cohen’s first thesis, The Monster’s Body Is a Cultural Body, suggests that a monster is created to be the “embodiment of a certain cultural moment” (Cohen, p. 4). In other words, they are created to fit the beliefs and unexplainable events that the group of people experienced at a certain time in history. One of the things that are the most important for any society was their religions. Dragons are prominent figures in several mythologies and religions as symbols of power. In Asian and pre-Christian European myths, dragons were considered divine and benevolent god-like beings. Christian Europe made dragons into demonic monstrosities (most likely to demonize the pagan monsters) that were slain by mighty heroes.

The second thesis, The Monster Always Escapes, is about how the same type of monster story is told several times throughout history. Cohen finds an example on the numerous modern interpretations of zombies (p. 5). Dragon stories have been told since ancient Mesopotamia, and are one of the oldest monsters in human history.

The third thesis, The Monster Is the Harbinger of Category Crisis, is about how a monster cannot be categorized to fit into the laws of nature. They are a “mixed category [and] resists any classification built on hierarchy” (p. 7). Dragons, while they resemble real reptiles, always have traits like extra appendages, the ability to fly without wings, human speech, and fire breath that are impossible for things in nature to have.

Thesis four, The Monster Dwells at the Gates of Difference, is about how monsters represent an unknown or unwelcome entity within a culture. Dragons in Christian legends are depicted as evil demons that are slain by heroes. Many symbols such as dragons that were worshiped by pre-Christian cultures were demonized in similar manners.

The fifth thesis, The Monster Polices the Borders of the Possible, describes how tales of the monsters are told in ways so that the audience is less likely find out if the monster is real or fictitious. Cohen states that these monster stories “prevents mobility (intellectual, geographic, or sexual), delimiting the social spaces through which private bodies may move” (p. 12). Dragons are always depicted as very dangerous foes that can only be slain by a hero, often with the help from gods. This and the fact that the heroes usually end up slaying all of the dragons in the world probably made people disinterested in seeking them out.

The sixth thesis, Fear of the Monster Is Really a Kind of Desire, explains that terrifying monsters are created not only to be feared, but to be loved as well. Stories of their terror and evil “evoke potent escapist fantasies” since they represent the chaos, power, and freedom that some people may not have. Asian cultures have compared people in the positions of power with dragons, and gaining power was considered becoming more likes a dragon.

The seventh and last thesis, The Monster Stand at the Threshold of Becoming, is a brief paragraph about how monsters are “our children”, and that they will always belong to the culture that they originated from. They evoke questions as to how the culture came up with such a creature. Stories of dragons have been studied by historians numerous times, and there have been several explanations as to how they came to existence. A common theory is that early humans spotted dinosaur fossils, or that a particularly terrifying anaconda or alligator caused massive fear that people told stories around.