Bench 1

Cortney Bench

Writing 1010

Professor Crow

December 5, 2016

Annotated Bibliography

Asma, Stephen T. Monsters and the Moral Imagination. The Chronicle of Higher

Education, The Chronicle of Higher Education, 25 Oct. 2009,

http://www.chronicle.com/article/Monstersthe-Moral/48886/. Accessed 7 Oct. 2016.

In Stephen T. Asmas article, Monsters and Moral Imagination, Asma claims

that monsters represent human vulnerability and crisis which is crucial part of

monsterology that plays an imaginative role in human's lives, while also making them

think about the responses to specific situations. In order to illustrate his claim, the author

uses a number of examples and historical events to make connections to his audience. He

mentions well known movies like Zombieland, Where the Wild Things Are, Saw IV,

Halloween II, The Wolfman, and Twilight Saga: New Moon so his audience can

understand what he is arguing about. The historical events he discusses are the tragic

events like 9/11 and the conflict in Iraq in order to connect specifically to Americans.

Asma introduces to his audience is Silvas killing spree. Silvia killed these people

because he thought his mother was dead. All of these examples, help Asma connect to his

audience and illustrate his claim.

Reading many of the recent examples that Asma has incorporated in his argument

helped me understand his claim because the examples are relatable to most people,
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including myself. Asma uses formal language and incorporates more sophisticated

vocabulary in order to communicate to an academic audience. He says Popular culture

is re-enchanted with meaningful monsters, and even the eggheads are stroking their

chins-last month saw the seventh global conference on Monsters and the Monstrous at the

University of Oxford. (1) In order to understand this sentence, someone would have

some sort of knowledge of the context behind this especially the word egghead. The

term egghead is a more academic term for being intelligent. Throughout the article,

Asma uses more academic terms and vocabulary to connect to his audience to the ones

who will understand them the most. Asma starts broadley using pop culture than he starts

to focus on the eggheads. Another way Asma makes a connection between his audience

is by context and culture. He does this by mentioning the 9/11 incident and the attack in

Iraq. He uses these horrifying events to give his audience specific examples to understand

what his claim is and relate their own situation to it.

Kaplan, Matt. The Science of Monsters. ABC Science, ABC, 8 July 2013,

http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2013/07/08/3795976.htm. Accessed 21 Oct.

2016.

In Matt Kaplans web article, The Science of Monsters he proposes this

question to his audience which is Why have monster stories, which have the effect of

scaring people, persisted so relentlessly throughout the ages?(1). While he poses this

question to his audience to illustrate his answer, he provides many sub-claims that

answers the question that he proposed. Kaplan uses the examples of the experiment of

spicy food, variation of behaviors for animal, the sense of mastery of the mind over the
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body, humans are predisposed to flee from danger but also be risk takers in certain

situations, and monsters represent evolution of the human understanding of the

surrounding world. The main point of his argument is that monsters are presented in our

society for both the pleasure and mental practice.

After reading Kaplans main points and argument, I believe his ideas relate most

to Stephen Asmas ideas in Monsters and Moral Imagination. Kaplan and Asma both

have different explanations and examples, but the ideas behind their argument are very

similar. Kaplan uses logos frequently throughout his writing, for example, Kaplan says

Seeing them makes the heart pump faster, hairs stand on end, and sweat pour down our

face.(1). This quote shows that he uses logos because of the logical progression of our

bodys response to fear, which helps him to articulate his claim.

Kaplan also connects with his audience by using culture in his writing. He

incorporates certain stories that consist both of academic and popular stories in order to

educate his audience. He includes specific stories so that it also relates to his main

argument. Kaplans tone and persuasive examples in the first paragraph helps lure his

audience so they keep reading on, and hopefully sell more of his book.

Skin. Supernatural, season 1, episode 6, Warner Brothers, 30 Oct. 2016, Netflix,

https://www.netflix.com/watch/70223021?trackId=14170289&tctx=0%2C5%2C4ac635

B6-8c20-489a-bb7c-68ae318c540b-39043625.

The show, Supernatural, there are these two characters, Dean and Sam, who are

brothers and monster hunters. They go out to search and kill any monsters they can find.

In the episode,Skin, Sam gets a text from his old college friend Becky that says her
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brother Zach was convicted of murdering his girlfriend. Both brothers decide to go back

and help out Sams friend. They meet up with Becky and talk about the details of what

happened. After finding out what happened, Dean and Sam are both willing to help and

they head over to the house where the murder took place. They find some interesting

clues that will help to find who actually committed the murder. Meanwhile, another

murder happens just like the same murder of Zachs girlfriend. The clues they discover

leads them down to the sewer, where the brothers find blood and a pile of skin. Sam and

Dean finally find the man who is committing all of the murders, and that not a human but

a shapeshifter. At some point, the shapeshifter transformed into Dean and kidnaps Sam.

Sam then figures out that Dean was also kidnapped by the shapeshifter. Both brothers

find a way out of the sewer, and go find the shapeshifter who is at Beckys house. They

get to the house and fight the shapeshifter, and eventually they are able to kill it.

After watching this episode of Supernatural, I noticed some interesting elements

that allows the audience to connect. During the episode, the lighting during most of the

movie is dark, and the reason for this is to make it look even more scarier and more

suspicious to the audience. If it was light, the audience would think everything was okay,

which does not fit with the general ambiance of the episode. Towards the end of the

show when Jared and Sam kill the monster and save the day, the lighting gets brighter

and it is no longer dark. This shows that now the main threat of the episode is gone which

makes the audience feel a sense of relief. Another rhetorical choice is the music that is

used in the episode. In the beginning, they use hard rock and roll music because it use to

be considered scary music that sets the scene of the episode. If happy music was played
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in the beginning, it would make the audience feel a different emotion than the makers of

the show are trying to establish.

Wheaton, Will. Monster in My Closet. WWdN: In Exile, TypePad, 17 Oct. 2011,

http://wilwheaton.typepad.com/wwdnbackup/2011/10/flash-fiction-the-monster-in-my-c

Loset.html. Accessed 26 Oct. 2016.

The story My Monster in my Closet is about a little girl who has a monster in

his closet. The little girl runs to her parents and tells them that there is a monster in her

closet. The father of the girl asks her questions about the monster, but then he starts to

make fun of the girl for being scared. The mom becomes angry at the dad and tells him

not make fun their daughter for her imagination. She tells the girl that she can have the

nightlight on and they walk her back to her room. The girl gets in bed and hears the

monster talking to her through the closet door again. She screams and her parents come

into the room. His dad is sick of his daughters overreaction and goes to open the door.

When the dad opens the closet door, the monster is indeed there and kills the dad. The

mom walks over to the monster and she tells him that she has missed him. Her skin then

starts to crack and underneath are dark scales. She told her daughter to come over and

meet her real dad. The girl freaks out and her skin starts to peel to reveal dark scales. The

girl looks at her dads dead body and begins to eat the rest of the body with her monster

family.

When I read My Monster in my Closet, the tone of the author in the story made

the story even more scary. The writer used specific language that impacted the story,

which made it even more scary. For example, the writer uses italics during the time when
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the monster was talking which made the the monster sound creepy, and it highlighted

how different the monster was from the other people in the story. By italicizing when the

monster was talking, we can tell the monster spoke different than the humans because we

know he must talk creepy of the text is different than when the humans talked. Wheatons

tone and voice made the story even more scarier and this kept the story interesting. While

the story was short, it was also intense and it made the story that much better.