Branson Morris

Professor Redding
ENGL 1101
10 February 2016
Comparison and Contrast of Why We Crave Horror Movies and Monsters and the Moral
Imagination.
There may not be monsters under your bed at night but in reality they may be much
closer than you have ever imagined. Monsters are omnipresent in our minds, they are always
with us. Stephen King and Stephen T. Asma have both written essays describing their personal
thesis as to why monsters help us. Although King and Asma have both present theories analyzing
monsters link to mental lucidity and constitution, the difference lies in the nature of their
analysis, which bears examination because they both stress monsters significance to human
nature through different perspectives.
Kings thesis implies that monsters are crucial for our mental sanity and Asmas implies
that they prepare us for the unknown. Asma states in his essay that monster stories offer us the
disease of vulnerability and its possible cures (in the form of heroes and coping strategies)
(Asma 65). Monsters make us feel vulnerable because they are things that we are not sure how
to react too. They offer the cure because they enable us to prepare as best we can for
situations that we have not yet been faced with. Asma is implying that the monsters in stories can
be beneficial by preparing us for the unknown. On the other hand, King metaphorically compares
bad emotions to crocodiles in a pit locked away by a trap door. If the crocodiles are not fed,
through horror movies, scary stories, etc., then they will get riled up and break free. The point at
which the crocodiles break free, metaphorically speaking, is the point that we as humans let our

emotion out in ways we had not previously intended. Those ways could be deemed as insane.
Its healthy to feed the crocs to keep them at bay when in reality we feed these negative
emotions through monsters. Asma then compares monsters to a virtual sparring partner. In our
minds we can run through innumerable scenarios in which we defeat the monster that we are
faced with. The monster could be absolutely anything which grants the us, as humans with
brains, the ability to create anything. Enabling us the ability to prepare for any situation that we
may not be able to through real means. People create monsters within their minds to exemplify
what they are truly afraid of. Running through constant scenarios to defeat the monster that has
been created allows for preparation. That is the cure to the vulnerability that we can also
create. Although King and Asma are both using examples of monsters as being tools to help our
minds, the differences lie in the kind of examples each author uses.
King uses a mainly metaphorical approach to express why monsters are important and
Asma uses several real-life examples to stress their importance. King states that emotions and
fears create their own metaphorical body that needs to be conditioned in the correct manor to
maintain proper mental health. The negative emotions do not need to be exercised like the good
ones, but rather kept at bay through means of monsters. That could be anything from horror films
to haunted houses, again. King is comparing those emotions to a body so that we can visualize
and grasp a clearer view on what emotions need to be kept at bay. Asma, on the other hand, cites
an occurrence in Afghanistan where four men decapitated a family. He then compares the men to
real monsters. As opposed to Kings metaphorical example, Asma uses something that actually
happened in order to reinforce his point that the situation could have been visualized, and
prepared for, beforehand giving light to another potential, less heartbreaking, outcome. However,
later in Kings essay he uses an analogy that compares horror movies to modern day lynching.

This is a real life example of something but it does not stress monsters importance but their
longevity throughout history. It only strengthens the credibility of the subject, not necessarily the
importance. Differences not only lie in the specific examples but there is an underlying
difference in the method to which each author suggests monsters help us mentally.
Both authors describe monsters as tools to maintain our mental health but King uses them
as a tool to keep the insanity at bay within us and Asma uses them as a tool to prepare for the
insanity around us. Asma cites a story about Shapiro and Silva in which Silva stabbed Shapiro in
a deranged state of mind. Shapiro was faced with a deadly, irrational, [and] powerful force that
he had never been faced with before (Asma 65). He may have been better prepared for the
situation if he had formulated a reaction in his head through the use of monsters. King states that
we are all mentally ill; those of us outside the asylums only hide it a little better- (King 16).
This is a main premise throughout Kings essay. He continually stresses that these insanities
are omnipresent within us and most of us dont let them out through means of insane actions,
rather through the help of monsters. King also states that the mythic fairy-tale horror film
intends to take away the shades of gray (King 17). That enables us to see in blacks and
whites again as if we were children. We use the time that we are analytically reverted back to
children as a time to exercise those negative thoughts and emotions within us that we shouldnt
let out any other way.
The mind is the home of these beasts we call monsters, and we have to keep our minds
healthy. King and Asma both use several different examples and strategies to express the fact that
monsters are significant to our nature as humans, even though they took different approaches as
to how they did so. What we should take away from this is the simple fact that monsters can
seem to gruesome and evil but, in reality all they can do is help us.

Works Cited
King, Stephen, ed. Why We Crave Horror Movies. Print.
Asma, Stephen T., ed. Monsters and the Moral Imagination. Print.