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Writing Assignment 1 Final

The student analyzed two essays about cultural folklore related to monsters. The first essay discussed how Godzilla represented Japanese fears after the atomic bombings, portraying radiation as a monster. The second analyzed mermaid folklore as depicting beautiful but dangerous creatures. Both essays showed how monsters represent humanity's deepest fears or desires. The student concluded folklore creates monsters to express fears or pass time, holding a mirror to our inner selves.

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291 views

Writing Assignment 1 Final

The student analyzed two essays about cultural folklore related to monsters. The first essay discussed how Godzilla represented Japanese fears after the atomic bombings, portraying radiation as a monster. The second analyzed mermaid folklore as depicting beautiful but dangerous creatures. Both essays showed how monsters represent humanity's deepest fears or desires. The student concluded folklore creates monsters to express fears or pass time, holding a mirror to our inner selves.

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api-317462017
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Branson Smock
Karen Redding
English 1101

Monstrous Folklore: Reasons


The essays of which I decided to discuss are Japans Nuclear Nightmare: How the Bomb
Became a Beast Called Godzilla by Peter H. Brothers, and Mermaids Attributes, Behavior,
and Environs by Skye Alexander. I chose Japans Nuclear Nightmare: How the Bomb Became
a Beast Called Godzilla by Peter H. Brothers because it shined a light on how the Japanese
where feeling and the fears they had after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I chose
Mermaids Attributes, Behavior, and Environs by Skye Alexander as it showed the different yet
similar ideals of the lore behind mermaids and the fact they use their beauty to lure men into
impending doom. Both of them combined tells us why we need to create and have Monsters in a
general sense, but also in their individual ways such as fear or lust.
The essay Japans Nuclear Nightmare: How the Bomb Became a Beast Called Godzilla
by Peter H. Brothers expresses that while the Japanese where recovering from the war they are
once again reminded that they are an unwilling participant in the Atomic Age. Brothers also
suggests that the island nation of Hiroshima has always had the fear of the two great superpowers
in the Second World War would lay waste to their city. Godzilla is in fact a virtual re-creation
of the Japanese military and civilian experiences during the final months of WWII. (Brothers,
53) Brothers emphasizes that the film itself is every inch director Ishir Hondas film, a somber
testimony of the personal experience of the war. As Honda said years later I wanted to make
radiation visible. As a result, the Bomb became the Beast. (qtd. in Brothers, 52) Godzilla was

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and forever will be a film to be taken seriously. It shows not only how the Japanese felt during
the war but also the guilt we as Americans should feel. Many people have argued throughout the
years that if Pearl Harbor never happened that Hiroshima would have never been. What is also
true is that without Hiroshima there would never have been Godzilla. The American version of
the film has been altered drastically, to take the real life events that caused the film in the first
place, out. Making it more acceptable to us as Americans to not feel as guilty by what they have
done. Brothers mentioned that the bombs were considered as a necessary evil in America,
whereas the bombs were considered just plain out evil. A recent e-mail sent by one of the
workers at the plant desperately trying to avert catastrophe reads like dialog from Godzilla: If
were in hell now, all we can do is to crawl up towards heaven. Who could stand this reality?
(Brothers, 59) Brothers suggested that Godzilla is a film less about a giant dinosaur running
amuck, but more about the psychological recovery of a people trying to recover from bombs and
the radioactive fallout.
In Mermaids Attributes, Behavior, and Environs by Skye Alexander, the basic points
Alexander was trying to make is that mermaids folklore is old, unified, and world-wide.
Alexander disagrees with the fact that the mermaids enchanting voices, their sensuality, and
their destructive potential is part of the very core of the mermaid mystique. Do mermaids intend
to sing mariners into the big sleep? Or do their victims simply overreact when they heard the
otherworldly beauty of the music? Its a subject for debate. (Alexander, 232) The mermaids
themselves can be derived as many ways as the sea is. An Oracle, and Bearers of Good Fortune.
Or as a Deadly Beauty, and the Tempest. Mermaids, it seems, are as changeable as the seaserene one moment and tumultuous the next. (233) Alexander stated that you will never see a
picture of a mermaid with a pixie or brush cut, that one of the key characteristics of a mermaid is

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her long, flowing hair. Alexander commented saying that a womans hair has long been viewed
as her most seductive attributes. The religious women of the times have concealed their hair so
they will not distract the men during the prayer/holy times. Barbara Walker proposes that when
a mermaid combs her hair she is performing a type of magic to enhance her powers (qtd. in
Alexander, 236) Alexander stated that since people have reported seeing mermaids all over the
world that the fact they can live almost everywhere, even on land. In the end though, they always
go back to their true home: the water. (Alexander, 237)
Both of these essays portray the fact that there is always some sort of reasoning for these
Monsters to have been created. Whether it is to be a way to express the fears we have like in
Godzilla, or the way to pass the time on travels using, lets say, fish-tales like with the
Mermaids. They both not only put a face to the things we fear the most, whether it be internal or
external, but give us a way to cope with said things. I feel like these two essays are valuable by
the way they hold up a mirror to our inner selves and puts a face to the things that terrifies, to me
at least, the most: ourselves. The main thing that connects these two stories is the fact that they
both relate to mankind. One being the fears we have, the other being the lust and the need to
connect to others. This being said, the quote from the very first essay in chapter one, Why We
Crave Horror Movies by Stephen king, shines a light on our nature; I think were all mentally
ill; those of us outside the asylums only hide it a little betterand maybe not all that much
better, after all. If we are all insane, then sanity becomes a matter of degree. (King, 16-17)

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Works Cited
Brothers, Peter H. "Japan's Nuclear Nightmare: How the Bomb Became a Beast Called
Godzilla." Monsters: Bedford Spotlight Reader. By Andrew J. Hoffman. 1st ed. Boston:
Bedford/St. Martins, 2015. 51-60. Print.
Alexander, Skyer. "Mermaids' Attributes, Behavior, and Environs." Monsters: Bedford
Spotlight Reader. By Andrew J. Hoffman. 1st ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2015. 232-38.
Print.
King, Stephen. "Why We Crave Horror Movies." Monsters: Bedford Spotlight Reader.
By Andrew J. Hoffman. 1st ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2015. 16-19. Print.

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