Freaks: The Long Connection Between Monsters And The Disabled In Fiction

“I expected this reception. All men hate the wretched. How, then, must I be hated, who am miserable beyond all living things! Yet you, my creator, detest and spurn me, thy creature, to whom thou art bound by ties only dissoluble by the annihilation of one of us. You purpose to kill me. How dare you sport thus with life? Do your duty toward me, and I will do mine toward you and the rest of mankind. If you will comply with my conditions, I will leave them and you at peace, but if you refuse I will glut the maw of death, until it be satiated with the blood of your remaining friends.

This speech is given about halfway through Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein. It is meant to frighten, to intimidate both the protagonist, Victor, and the audience. When I first read the novel back in high school, however, I nearly broke down in tears. This speech, and the entire plight of Frankenstein’s monster, spoke to me as a person with a disability. So many aspects of the story, being ostracized from society for something you have no control over, yearning to find love from others, resentment at the universe for cursing you with a body the world deems undesirable, are things that I, and many other disabled people, have experienced. And while it’s true the Creature is a killer, and that this speech is a threat, he is not unsympathetic, and his threat is one that, I think, is completely justified. The Creature is entirely a product of his maker. Not just in the sense that Victor Frankenstein made him from old body parts, but in the sense that Victor abandoned his creation when it was born deformed. He left the Creature, his child, to die in the wilderness, to experience every prejudice and hostility that a cruel, bigoted world had to offer. Not all that dissimilar, if you think about it, from parents giving disabled children up for adoption, or choosing to terminate pregnancies early when they discover that the fetus has signs of Down syndrome. (Or from making ads for anti-vaccination groups when you realize your son is on the spectrum. Alfonso). These, and so many other ideas, raced through my head while I was reading this passage, until I came to a realization; monsters are fiction’s metaphor for the disabled.

Now, obviously, the idea of monsters being a stand-in for marginalized groups is not new. James Whale, director of the first two Universal Frankenstein films, used the Creature to comment on society’s mistreatment of homosexuals. In The Shape Of Water, Guillermo Del Toro used the Amphibian Man as a stand-in for homosexuals, African Americans, and women. But I personally believe that individuals with disabilities are monsters’ proper opposite numbers, since, like the latter group, we are born with unusual bodies. We are born with bodies that perhaps don’t function properly, or that are not conventionally attractive. For the longest time, being disabled was viewed as proof of evil, as a sign that the devil, or something like it, was inside you. Don’t believe me? Then ask yourself what such famous villains in fiction as Richard III, Ephialtes from 300, and Erik from The Phantom of the Opera have in common. And that’s just fiction. In many Buddhist countries, being born with a disability is seen as proof of bad kharma, of having done something evil in a previous life. For years, possessing a disability was seen as so bizarre, so grotesque, that people would pay to gawk at you, someone “less fortunate” than them, in Freak Shows. Look no further than the tragic life of Joseph Merrick, or as you no doubt know him, The Elephant Man. At this point, it almost feels wrong to call monsters a stand-in for the disabled, when, for the longest time in the real world, being disabled literally made you a monster.

So what does this mean? Why is it worth knowing that monsters are used as metaphors for the disabled? Well, hopefully it will educate people as to how those with disabilities feel sometimes, and how not to treat us. We are not monsters. We live, we work, we love, we have children and we die, like the rest of you. We are guilty of nothing more than being born with different bodies than yours. You probably know, or are related, to someone with a disability. Think of them when writing your stories. Treat all your characters, and the disabled community at large, with love, respect and kindness. Because without kindness, the world will become a cruel place. And cruelty breeds true monsters.