In many monster stories, there is not a single embodiment of evil, but rather the story reveals the capacity within each character for wickedness and virtue regardless of one’s ability to conform to societal norms. These stories challenge a reader to question his or her own definition of what constitutes a monster and to consider whether or not he or she could be labeled as such given previous behaviors. Through this process, “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves” and Lilo and Stitch delineate intolerance and mistreatment of individuals who struggle to conform in a society. The definition of a monster that will be used in this paper is a character who claims a disposition in which he or she intends to cause another harm (emotionally or physically) under unfair or unjust motivations. …show more content…
Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves”, a pack of girls is sent away from its forest home to learn and become a part of human culture. Among the characters there is a wide spectrum of ability to conform to the norms of human society. On one end is Jeanette, the eldest sister who most quickly assimilates to human culture, and on the opposite end is Mirabella who is completely incapable of reforming. The story is told from the point of view of Claudette who adapts slowly, but successfully to the new environment. The conflict in the story is in how Claudette and the pack adjust to the new culture and how they deal with the deviance of
There are many literary devices used across stories. Color imagery is one of these literary devices that is used when colors give objects a symbolic meaning. In the short story “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves” by Karen Russell, girls who have been raised as wolves are thrust into the unknown as they are forced to adapt to human society. Their childhood was spent living with wolves, however they are taken in by nuns of St. Lucy’s who attempt to assimilate them into the human world through different phases. Throughout the story, color imagery is used to emphasize the key theme of unity, establish the conflicted tone, and metaphorically develop Claudette’s character.
Comparing society in Beowulf and society in Frankenstein is like comparing a simple farm to the processing plant; futuristic and totally dissimilar. Although, the core ‘monsters’ are unchanged; grotesque, horrifyingly pagan-esque beings of the dark that strike terror in to the hearts of even the stoutest of fighters and the sanest of men. In the Christian and Medieval world, monsters were human beings with an unnatural birth or a birth deformity (Stitt, 2003). The term ‘monster’ derives from the Latin term ‘monere’ which means ‘To warn’ or ‘to advise’ and ‘monstrum’ which is ‘a sign or portent that disrupts the natural order as evidence of divine displeasure’. The aspect of ‘Divine Displeasure’ is attributed almost perfectly to Grendel, the monster of Beowulf and the terror of Hrothgar.
Analyze Claudette’s development in relation to the five stages of Lycanthropic Culture Shock. “St.Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves”, the short story written by Karen Russell, concenters on the narrator and primary character, Claudette who lived as though she was a wolf for the majority of her life. Once being sent to St.Lucy’s along with the rest of her pack, Claudette began to carve a new path for herself where she would become a well-rounded, decent human. The text, The Jesuit Handbook on Lycanthropic Culture Shock that the nuns at the home follow as a guideline through the process of helping the girls adapt to the human culture, assumes how the pack, including Claudette, develop, act, and feel under the circumstances they state
Rhetorical Analysis of “Monsters and the Moral Imagination” Many people believe monsters are imaginary creatures that are seen in movies or even for others, it could be a serial killer that was heard about on the news. Stephen T. Asma wrote “Monsters and the Moral Imagination” which “first appeared in the Chronicle of Higher Education in October 2009” (Hoffman 61). Asma, who is a professor of philosophy, examines how different individual’s perceptions of a monster can be different depending on the era or even events happening around them. In “Monsters and the Moral Imagination,” Stephen T. Asma wrote a nonfiction, persuasive article for an educated and possibly specialized audience to examine how the idea of monsters have changed over time, what could be the motivation to create them, or even how life experiences could change an individual’s perceptions.
Monster Culture Jeffrey Jerome Cohen is the writer of “Monster Culture: Seven Theses.” He went to the University of Rochester and acquired a PhD in English and has been teaching at George Washington University since 1994. The intended audience of this essay is anybody interested in the monster culture. This essay came from Monster Theory: Reading Culture.
Karen Russell's “St. Lucy’s Home For Girls Raised By Wolves” is a story of lycanthropic girls who have been raised by their wolf parents who are being assimilated into human culture by forceful nuns. Claudette is the main character who is also telling the story. She faces many achievements and struggles, but by the end of the story Claudette has clearly conformed to human culture. This is supported when Claudette shows her loss of wolf-like traits, such as when she loses compassion for her pack members, and in the later stages when she starts to have complex human thoughts and starts to lose detectable traces of her wolf origins. Claudette encounters cultural shock and struggles to assimilate, however, she also reaches many milestones on her journey to becoming human.
In “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves”, Claudette, Mirabella, and Jeanette is taken to a foreign place to adapt to human nature. They are taken through the process of 5 stages of becoming human. Claudette, the speaker of the story, is stuck between two faces, the human and the wolf face. While Claudette is in between these two worlds, she has fully conformed from wolf to human. She has completed the transformation from wolf to human because her own mother doesn 't recognize her, trying to make herself seem more like human, and not even caring about her own fellow wolf mates anymore.
Karen Russel’s narrator, Claudette in the short story “St. Lucy’s home for girls raised by wolves” has a guilty hope that she fails to adapt to her new human culture and exhibits her instinctive wolve traits showing that Claudette has not successfully adapted to the human culture. Claudette wishes to adapt to the human culture but has a difficult time accepting it. The St. Lucy’s home for girls raised by wolves is for girls to learn the human culture. The faster the girls go through the stages, the faster they have adapted and accepted their new culture and can be released. While Claudette acts as if the human culture is growing on her
People who endure dislocation feel out of place and have many mixed emotions. Karen Russell’s “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves,” tells the story of a group of girls who suffer from lycanthropy including Jeanette, Claudette, and Mirabella. The “pack” of girls go through many stages to rehabilitate to their human identity. The girls experience culture shock and have to work as they progress through the stage.
The seventh thesis “The Monster Stands at the Threshold…of Becoming” brings attention to the fact that we are the creators of monsters. They make us question why we have created them; how we perceive the world, how we have misinterpreted so that we can reevaluate cultural assumptions about the different race, gender, sexuality.
In the story, “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves”, the author, Karen Russell, uses feral diction to establish that although people strive for perfectionism in their lives, people cannot become someone or something that they are not, thus causing a loss of identity. Russell uses feral diction in “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves” to prove that people cannot change who the are. For example, Kyle tried to talk to Claudette, but just succeeded in annoying her instead. Claudette immediately reacted and, according to the story, “I narrowed my eyes at Kyle and flattened my ears, something I hadn’t done for months” (249).
In the short story “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves,” author Karen Russell develops the narrator, Claudette, through the use of five “stages” to show her progression from her wolf identity to the human culture. This short story follows a group of girls raised by wolf parents through their journey at St. Lucy’s, which is a rehabilitation center for human children raised by wolf parents. Throughout their time at St. Lucy’s, the girls are expected to experience five distinct stages as they adapt. Each of these stages is described by a fictional text entitled The Jesuit Handbook on Lycanthropic Culture Shock. The nuns at St. Lucy’s use it as a guide for teaching their students.
In the short story, “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves,” written by Karen Russell, a pack of wolf girls leave their home in the woods for St. Lucy’s in order to be able to live in human society. Within the story, Russell has included epigraphs before each stage from The Jesuit Handbook for Lycanthropic Culture Shock. This handbook was for the nuns at St. Lucy’s to help guide their students. Karen Russell included the epigraphs, short quotations at the beginning of a chapter intended to suggest a theme, from the handbook to help the reader understand what the characters might be feeling or how they will act in a certain stage. In Stage One, the epigraph closely relates to the characters’ development, yet doesn’t consider that the girls could be fearful in their new home due to interactions with the nuns.
In Karen Russell’s short story, “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves”, she develops the progression of the characters in relation to The Jesuit Handbook on Lycanthropic Culture Shock. The characters, young girls raised as if they were wolves, are compared to the handbook with optimism that they will adapt to the host culture. The girls’ progression in the five set stages are critical to their development at St. Lucy’s. The author compares Claudette, the narrator, to the clear expectations the handbook sets for the girls’ development. Claudette’s actions align well with the five stages, but she has outbursts that remind her of her former self.
When people hear the word “monster”, most people imagine a massive, horrid, and grotesque figure that haunts people. While pondering what a monster is, mankind thinks of the outward appearance. Seldom do people think of man’s internal qualities as being barbaric or gruesome. Authors allow readers to create their own images of these terrifying beings. Frankenstein is a thought-provoking novel that empowers readers to have their own opinions about who the actual monster is and what it looks like.