Cohen's Seven Thesis in Context of the Sea Monster

The third thesis in Cohen’s “Monster Culture (Seven Theses)” of  category crisis closely relates to the cultural anxiety at the heart of what makes the kraken or more commonly, the sea monster, ‘monstrous’ in the sense of its original intention.  Cohen writes in his third thesis that, “[b]ecause of its ontological liminality, the monster notoriously appears at times of crisis as a kind of third term that problematizes the clash of extremes” (Cohen 6).  In the early ages of sea exploration, when stories of great sea monsters devouring ships first appeared, the danger of such voyages that likely filled many who either traveled themselves or had family members doing so, likely provided fertile ground for the birth of such monster tales to provide a sort of explanation for the natural events that haunted them.  Rather, instead of the nearly faceless danger of a storm or some such other natural event which could destroy ships, instead those of the time gave a still ambiguous though more recognizable face to their fear in the shape of a giant monster which came from the depths to devour them.  Similarly its reappearance over the ages in various, if growing limited, forms, personifies the growing understanding of what had once acted as a source of fear.  As society fleshed out and exposed those fears, the smaller, more natural the monster appeared, though the lingering dormancy of its horrifying nature remains to revive at the slightest doubt of what might possibly lay beneath the surface.  As Cohen suggests the monster as a whole defies categorization because of its versatility in what it might symbolize or personify in the collective consciousness of society.  Whatever humans might fear or do not understand the monster can occupy such gap in understanding and thrive there until such time as a more rational understanding can take its place.  But just as well the monster will never die.  It simply lays in wait, formless and inconstant until a new unknown presents itself.  The sea monster perfectly fits the niche of the unexplained accident, that lingering doubt of what lies in the furthest and darkest depths that society has yet to or bothered to enlighten.  If such creatures as the Architeuthis exist, why not something larger?  Through those lingering doubts can the sea monster remain relevant.  It needs no limitation of the naturally feasible.  Almost a metaphysical demonstration or even an expansion of Murphy’s Law that anything the can go wrong, will go wrong.  Anything that the mind can contrive to explain the shifting shadows in the dark, the monster will seize and inhabit.