Summing Up The Monsters

Throughout this course, we have covered different types of monsters. We have looked at Grendel and his mother, Dracula and his vampiresses, and the Dead Until Dark vampires from various pieces of literature. All of these monsters can fall under the categories of either being "overt" or being "subtle" monsters. Overt monsters are clearly monstrous in their actions, personality, appearance, or any combination of the three. Zombies, ogres, wyverns, cockatrices, and griffins are typical examples of overt monsters as the treat they pose is direct and confrontational. Subtle monsters have their true nature hidden by some mechanism such as a charismatic nature or supernatural ability. Creatures like vampires, hone-onna, werewolves, sirens, and changelings are all subtle monsters because their modus operandi or their powers have them remain hidden from humans. The monsters we have looked at in our class all fall under one or both of these categories.

From Beowulf, we have Grendel and Grendel's mother. Grendel is very clearly an overt monster. He invades Heirot multiple times without much regard to stealth and kills many of the inhabitants of Hrothgar's lands. He additionally lacks any ability to change what the humans perception of him is, therefore making him unqualified for being a subtle monster. His mother differs from him in this regard, as she displays the qualities of both overt and subtle monsters. She is capable of nearly overpowering Beowulf and does not use any sort of supernatural ability to combat him, qualifying her for being an overt monster. However, she utilizes stealth in order to infiltrate Heirot, so she also can be considered a subtle monster. This dual-nature she has can also be seen in the vampires we read about.

Vampires, while primarily subtle, can be simultaneously considered as overt monsters depending on the individual. Dracula, for instance, is both overt and subtle as he is capable of feats of superhuman strength and physically attack the Van Helsing group while also suddenly disappearing and reappearing through various means and influencing the minds of humans. These abilities also are shown by the other vampires in the novel. Dracula himself displays an interesting shift throughout the titular novel as he starts out being an overt monster and then shifts into a mix of an over and a subtle monster when he arrives in England, which is followed by him becoming a subtle monster as he is fleeing back to his castle only to revert into being a mix during his final hours. In contrast, the vampires of the Dead Until Dark universe are primarily subtle, as their "glamour" ability allows them to manipulate the minds of people and that they are virtually physically indistinguishable from humans. There are instances were these vampires are overt, as seen with various instances of superhuman feats from characters like Bill, but these instances are only situational.

While there are monsters that are explicitly in either the overt or subtle categories, there are also certain monsters and individuals that fall into both categories. This ambivalence reflects the duality of the monstrous characters we have viewed, as it follows the "There are two sides to every coin" idiom.