The monster by definition has always been identified as ‘a large, ugly and frightening imaginary creature’ or someone who deviates from abnormal or acceptable behavior or character. Furthermore, the word monster can denote “a thing of extraordinary size” or “a congenitally malformed or mutant animal or plant”. Apart from this, monstrous can refer to someone “inhumanly or outrageously evil or wrong”. Derived from the Latin word monstrum, monster meaning wondering away from biological occurrence, which was usually taken as a sign that something was not at all right within the natural order, an unnatural event or a malfunctioning of nature. The word itself implies that something is wrong or evil. The root of the Latin word monstrum is monere which means to warn but also to instruct, another possibility of the origin of the word monster is monstrare meaning to ‘to demonstrate’. Monsters in essence are demonstrative, they reveal, portend, show and make evident often uncomfortably so. They are so often depicted as something or someone that is out of the norm in society. The word conjures up figures from gothic horror, such as Frankenstein or Dracula classical images of ‘exotic’ people with no heads or grotesquely exaggerated features and the kinds of impossible chimera beasts inhabiting the pages of medieval bestiaries. How monsters have been created over the centuries is much more indicative of the moral and existential challenges faced by societies than the realities that they have encountered.
The monster in the English Gothic novel can be seen as a representation of social fears and problems. An important aspect of these fears, particularly in the Victorian Period, is the aspect of repressed emotions. These fears can be seen as a result of uncertainty due to the decline of religious certitude, which grew with every new scientific discovery. The monster in literature discusses binary oppositions and extremes. Monstrous bodies represent the strangeness of others and thus help to structure the self and the group the self belongs to. Accordingly, they are used to draw boundaries between the “I” and the “not I”. Furthermore, monsters cross geographical, physical, and psychological barriers and transgress moral norms, making them visible by their excessive deviation. Goetsch states that the monster “dwells at the gates of difference” and polices the border between inside and outside, known and unknown.
In Jeffrey Jerome Cohen’s Monster Culture (Seven Theses) gives reason and motive to the ways in which monsters have been used in our time. In Thesis V: The Monster Polices the Borders of the Possible he notes:
“Given that the writers of the history of the West have been mainly with European background and male, women and non-whites have found themselves repeatedly transformed into ‘monsters’ in literature, arts and film. Feminine and cultural others are monstrous enough by themselves in patriarchal society, but when they threaten to mingle, the entire economy of desire comes under attack.”
The anthropologist Sherry Ortner notes in her influential analysis of the question “Is Female to Male as Nature is to Culture?” that in every society “the psychic mode associated with women seems to stand at both the bottom and the top of the scale of human modes of relating.” Attempting to account for this “symbolic ambiguity”, Ortner explains “both the subversive feminine symbols (witches, evil eye, menstrual pollution, castrating mothers) and the feminine symbols of transcendence (mother goddesses, merciful dispensers of salvation, female symbols of justice) “by pointing out that women “can appear from certain points of view to stand both under and over (but really simply outside of) the sphere of cultures hegemony”. That is precisely because a woman is denied the autonomy-the subjectivity- that the pen represents, she is not only excluded from culture (whose symbols might well be the pen) but she also becomes herself an embodiment of just those extremes of mysterious and intransigent Otherness which culture confronts with worship or fear, love or loathing. As “ghost, fiend and angel, fairy, witch and sprite” , she mediates between the male artist and the Unknown simultaneously teaching him purity and instructing him in degradation. Adrienne Rich’s poem Planetarium ‘a woman in the shape of a monster… a monster in the shape of a woman/ the skies are full of them.’ Because the skies are full of them, even if we focus only on those female monsters who are directly related to Thackeray serpentine siren, we will find that such monsters have long inhabited male texts. Symbols of filthy materiality, committed only to their own private ends, these women are accidents of nature, deformities meant to repel, but in their very freakishness they possess unhealthy energies, powerful and dangerous arts.
In “Jane Eyre,” the character of Bertha Mason serves as an ominous representation of uncontrollable passion and madness. Her dark sensuality and violent nature contrast sharply with Jane’s calm morality, and it is no surprise that Bertha’s presence at Thornfield is a key factor in transforming Mr. Rochester into a stereotypical Byronic hero. Moreover, Bertha’s marriage to Mr. Rochester serves as the primary conflict of the novel, and it is only after her death that Jane is able to achieve personal happiness by marrying Mr. Rochester. However, Bertha’s position as the “Madwoman in the Attic” also speaks to larger social questions of femininity and authorship during the Victorian period. In what was considered as a breakthrough in feminist criticism, the 700-page text by Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar’s 1979 “The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination”, Gilbert and Gubar use the figure of Bertha Mason as the so-called “Madwoman in the Attic” to make an argument about perceptions toward female literary characters during the time period. According to both Gilbert and Gubar, all female characters in male-authored books can be categorized as either the “angel” or the “monster.” The “angel” character was pure, dispassionate, and docile; in other words, the ‘ideal’ female figure in a patriarchal society. Interestingly, the term “angel” stems directly from Coventry Patmore’s 1854 poem “The Angel in the House,” in which he described his submissive and pious wife. In sharp contrast to the “angel” figure, the “monster” female character was sensual, passionate, rebellious, and decidedly uncontrollable: all qualities that caused a great deal of anxiety among men during the Victorian period.
However, Charlotte Brontë (as well as many other contemporary female authors) did not limit her characterizations to this strict dichotomy between monster and angel. Jane Eyre possesses many of the qualities of the so-called angel: she is pure, moral, and controlled in her behavior. Yet, at the same time, she is extremely passionate, independent, and courageous. She refuses to submit to a position of inferiority to the men in her life, even when faced with a choice between love and autonomy, and ultimately triumphs over social expectations. Moreover, Jane’s childhood adventures demonstrate much of the same rebelliousness and anger that characterize the “monster.” It is clear that Jane’s appearance of control is only something that she learned during her time at Lowood School; she still maintains the same fiery spirit that defined her character as a child.
With the character of Bertha Mason, Brontë has a more difficult time when it comes to blending the distinctions between angel and monster. The readers only meet Bertha when she is in the depths of madness, having been confined in the third-story attic of Thornfield for nearly fifteen years, and there is not enough interaction between her and the other characters to demonstrate any “angelic” behavior. Yet, Bertha’s position as the obstacle to Jane’s happiness with Mr. Rochester, as well as her state of complete imprisonment, suggest that her madness may have been partially manufactured by the male-dominated society that forced her to give up her wealth in marriage to Mr. Rochester. Moreover, the similarities between Bertha’s behavior in the third-story attic and Jane’s actions as a child in the red-room suggest that neither character is full angel or full monster but rather a combination of the two. While Brontë does not differentiate between angel and monster in her portrayal of Jane and Bertha, she does, however, argue for moderation of the passions in all of her characters. Mr. Rochester and Bertha both have too much passion in their lives, while St. John Rivers has too little. Bertha’s passion manifests as madness, while Mr. Rochester’s passion is displayed in his debaucherous behavior on the continent and his determination to make Jane his mistress. St. John, on the other hand, suppresses all of his passion and love for Rosamond Oliver, and thus becomes a cold and aloof man whose only desire is to fulfill his duty to God. Of the three characters, Mr. Rochester is the only one who eventually achieves a balance of passion; after Jane’s departure from Thornfield and the loss of his eyesight, he becomes much more spiritual and is able to achieve the same emotional moderation that Jane exhibits throughout the novel.
Although Bertha does serve as one of the seeming villains of the novel, she should be seen more as a critique of a society in which passionate woman are viewed as monsters or madwomen. Charlotte Brontë’s act of writing a novel – particularly such a Gothic one – was no doubt equally threatening to the men of her time period. In some ways, Brontë’s decision to merge the identities of the “angel” and the “monster” in the two primary female characters of her novel can be seen as a personal statement about the conflict between passion and passivity in her own life.
In Jewish mythology, Lilith was the first wife of Adam. She was made from the same earth as Adam, whereas Eve was made from Adam’s rib. Because of this, Lilith saw herself as equal to Adam and, refusing to be subservient to him and fled Eden. Lilith later became fixed in Jewish demonology where her primary role is that of strangler off children and a seducer of men. Subsequently categorizing her as the ‘other’ and a ‘monster’ in Jewish legend. She is one of several ‘demonic’ figures with biblical or related origins taken into popular culture. Lilith is represented as a powerfully sexual woman against whom men and babies felt they had few defenses and, except for a few amulets, little protection. Much more so than Eve, Lilith is the personification of female sexuality. Kiki Smith’s sculptural work ‘Lilith’ depicts a crouching woman hanging from the wall, upside down resembling a spider or a bat. The figure’s position on the wall shields her female anatomy, and her pose is aggressive and guarded. This contrasts with how women are typically represented in art, especially in the West where females are often displayed most often for the male gaze, in addition to female sculptures being featured as beautiful nudes meant to be admired in open, graceful, and revealing poses: the female body put on display for all to marvel at. Almost all of these works are made by men depicting their ideal of women. In contrast, Smith shows the female figure in a radically atypical but empowering way, a product of defiance and refusal to submit—unexpected and intelligent. Moreover, Smith catches the viewer off guard not only with Lilith’s pose but with her penetrative eyes, as most female sculptures receive our gaze passively, Lilith however stares right back with piercing glass blue eyes that almost seem ready to attack. Her legend serves to demonstrate how, when unchecked, female sexuality is disruptive and destructive. Lilith highlights how women, beginning with Eve, use their sexuality to seduce men. She provides thereby a necessary sexual dimension, which is otherwise lacking, to the Genesis story which, when read in literal terms, portrays Eve not as some wicked femme fatale but as a naive and largely sexless fool. Only as a Lilith-like character could Eve be seen as a calculating, evil, seductress. In her demonized form, Lilith is a frightening and threatening creature. Much more so than Eve, she personifies the real (sexual) power women exercise over men. She represents the deeper, darker fear men have of women and female sexuality. To the extent that as female sexuality, as a result of this fear, has been repressed and subjected to the fierce controls in Western patriarchal society, so too has the figure of Lilith been kept hidden.
However, she lurks as a powerful unidentified presence, an unspoken name, in the minds of biblical commentators for whom Eve and Lilith become inextricably intertwined and blended into one person. Importantly, it is this Eve/Lilith combination which is used to identify women as the true source of evil in the world.
The female monster populates the works of the satirist of the eighteenth century a company of male artists whose virulent visions have been particularly alarming to feminine readers in an age when women had just begun to ‘attempt the pen’.