In his first theses from Monster Culture (Seven Theses), Jeffery Jerome Cohen writes that "The Monster's Body Is a Cultural Body." Horror and monsters are deeply interwoven with culture, and unfortunately, without knowing more about the specifics of a culture in question it becomes very difficult to examine what its horror media might look like. That said, what do monsters come about from then? Monsters are as Cohen says, a category crisis. Humans by our nature like to categorize things, and monsters don't fit neatly into categories. Monsters often come into existence in response to something new, something which lacks a current category. Paradigm shifts (as Thomas Kuhn would write about), new discoveries, and interactions with an alien culture are examples of which. Beowulf, for example, was written in a time when Christianity is making significant inroads into Scandinavia (and its influence in the epic is quite clear, with Grendel being described as the blood of Cain). Scandinavia is experiencing an identity crisis and the Beowulf story is a means to express this and come to terms with it. The epic is ultimately an example of the synthesis of the old (Norse mythology) and the new (Christianity), of which we see many examples of in the Sagas as well. Monsters exemplify difference, with Grendel being a monster void of all civilization and an anthropage. These differences are part of what frighten us. In a jungian since, Monsters are a cultural Shadow.
