English Paper 1

Jessica Hall
Professor Charles White
English Comp. 2
6 February 2015

Family’s Perception on Monsters Affects Their Personal Outlook

“Monster” …for centuries the word “monster” has meant many different things. The one thing that has been obvious is that it’s some sort of creature that defies the laws of humanity. If the humans do not understand these creatures, then how are they supposed to understand themselves.   In the stories “Lusus Naturae” by Margaret Atwood and “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves” by Karen Russell, the girls are faced with the essential question of “What am I?”.   They are also faced with the fact that their families are pushing them away, wondering what they really are and why aren’t they being accepted.
In “Lusus Naturae” by Margaret Atwood, the narrator becomes sick with a disease called Porphyria (233).   The deformity affects how she is seen by her family and her community. The girl’s family does not understand what is happening to their daughter. The mother says “She was such a lovely babe,” and “There was nothing wrong with her.”   Her family’s outlook had affected her greatly. She felt as if she was a burden among them. Stating “Without me, her coast would be clear.” (233) Speaking of her faked death for her sisters sake. Her family pulled away from her more and more throughout the story. She was put in a room alone and the only interaction with the outside world was with her mother. “No one but my mother was allowed into my room, my former room as they called it.” After the death of her father and grandmother she was left alone with her mother, who wanted to sale the house and farm and move in with her other daughter (235). By the end of the story she is running around the woods peering in windows and scaring anyone who is walking about. “I frightened two children in the woods on purpose: I showed them my pink teeth, my hairy face, my red fingernails, I mewed at them and they ran away screaming.” (235). This once young and...