Monster Theory Quotes

“I have found much value in considering monster theory, color theory, and the history of racial analogies in speculative fiction. However, when we read literary and cultural texts from the perspective of the monster, not the protagonist, we find ourselves in a completely different ballgame. This is why taking a supposedly 'neutral' or 'objective' approach to theorizing the dark fantastic is problematic; the default position is to allow those who are used to seeing themselves as heroic and desired the power and privileged of naming, defining, and delimiting the entire world and everything that is in it. We never notice that monsters, fantastic beasts, and various Dark Others are silenced because we have never been taught the language they speak. Critical race counterstorytelling provides both translation and amplification for these subsumed narratives.”
― Ebony Elizabeth Thomas, The Dark Fantastic: Race and the Imagination from Harry Potter to the Hunger Games

“The Truth About Monsters:
The truth is this,
every monster you have met or will ever meet,
was once a human being with a soul that was as soft and light as silk.

Someone stole that silk from their soul and turned them into this.

So when you see a monster next, always remember this.
Do not fear the thing before you.
Fear the thing that created it instead.”
― Nikita Gill

“Sometimes human places, create inhuman monsters”
― Stephen King, The Shining

“Fact #2 about Monsters: If we let them get too hungry, they can swallow us whole.”
― Sandra L. Rostirolla, Making Friends With Monsters