MONSTERS in LOVE

[ProfGriffin]

Greetings Night Creatures

Erik, the Phantom of the Opera and Quasimodo, The Hunchback of Notre Dame are sad, tragic figures of classic literature.  Thanks to Hollywood, they are also famous monsters of filmland. Why are they Monsters?  (Aurora made some pretty cool models of them with glow in dark parts!!!) But what makes them Monsters?

Lets take the literal approach to begin with....

Webster's Defines a MONSTER as:
1:  An animal or plant of abnormal form or structure.
2:  A threatening force.
3:  An animal of strange or terrifying shape
4:  Something Monstrous.
5:  a person of unnatural or extreme ugliness, deformity, wickedness, or cruelty.

Ok, that being said, lets' examine the two 'Monster of the silent era. Quasimodo and Erick the Phantom of the Opera.

Both are abnormal in appearance.


 
Quasimodo- (who's name literally means half-formed) was an ape-like man, with long dangling arms, short squat legs, a thick trunk covered in bristly red hair...his face was hideously deformed with sloping brow, misplaced eyes, slack jaw...and of course his back.  His HUNCHBACK. So twisted and bent and deformed was his back that it strained the top of his tunic, so grotesque to ponder the feeling of it, like a massive growth...weighing him down. A monstrous appearance no doubt.



Erik- A living corpse. Bone thin, his clothes hanging on his skeletal frame, his skin, a pale yellow.... and his face...oh his face.
The face of nightmares, a living death's head with parchment like skin pulled tightly over protruding bone, deep set eyes, with sockets that collected the shadows and appeared as only pinpoints of light. His lips black and wrinkled...his teeth oversized, his nose...
There was no nose, only a gaping black hole.
A few strands of black hair clung tenaciously to his scalp.  Imagine this image ALIVE!  Moving, talking, laughing.... animated with life, when by all appearances it should rightly be dead!

Both are a threatening force.

Quasimodo was incredibly strong.  All his power and strength being packed into his squat dwarfish frame, his muscles corded and hard, his agility, like an acrobat.  He leapt, jumped, dangled, and scaled the very walls of Notre Dame...his sanctuary, his protection, his home.  He could be savage and brutal, and he could be tender and loving.  Quasimodo was not one to anger.... lest you find yourself held aloft in those massive arms and hurled from the top of the great cathedral.

Erik was no stronger than a man, but was devious and crafty. Skilled in the art of death from his travels and expert in trap making and mazes, and of course mysticism!!!  Erik was a mystery and a menace.  He could kill in a moment with the Punjab lasso, (a trick he mastered in Persia to spare his head from the sultan) and was willing to kill without a thought to instill fear.  Fear made the opera his kingdom, fear was his weapon, and fear made him a god.

Wickedness and cruelty?

Both were capable. 



Quasimodo killed many people when he THOUGHT that Notre Dame was under attack and they wanted to take Esmeralda away...he dropped boiling oil on the crowd, threw down massive logs and stones, and rang the bells in ecstasy for his deeds.  But in his heart he was a hero.  Doing what was right and defending the innocent.  Sure, he may have gone a bit overboard, but all he knew was he had to save the angel of light that was kind to him.  In the end he failed.
But his rage ended the life of Frollo (the real monster) and killed and maimed hundreds in the process.



Erik was a bit more sinister. Even before Christine warmed his black lump of a heart, he was a monster.  He was acting as society expected him to act.  If he could not cause love he would instead instill fear and terror and commit murder.  Christine was his angel, just as he was hers.... but more beautiful people came...tried to take her away...Christine's childhood 'friend' was suddenly there...ruining everything!
He deserved a chance to be happy...he deserved what others had.  And he would kill and kill and kill to achieve it.
Erik was a madman.  No doubt.  He was a dangerous and deadly maniac.
But he was also filled with beauty inside longing to escape the confines of the prison that was his body/face.

Quasimodo was a man.... a monstrous man, but a man.  Erik was a monster in the shape of a man (well, a dead man, but a man nonetheless)

In the end, Erik...moved beyond his understanding by a kiss on his dead clammy forehead, released his prisoners and confided in the Persian that he would die.  Die of love that filled his heart.  He remained in the opera until the end.  And when they found his skeleton, he wore Christine's ring.  Seeing her image, until he died, filled with her being, her smell and her smile. Playing the forehead kiss back in his deranged mind over and over again.  He died alone.

Quasimodo fared no better.  After Esmeralda was executed, he murdered Frollo, his master who had arranged her death, and remained among the cold stone gargoyles until he died.
"Why can I not be made of stone, like you?"
He somehow brought Esmeralda's body back to Notre Dame and cradled it in his arms...held it close.... to keep him company.



In later years they found two skeletons underneath Notre Dame, a female skeleton was being embraced by a deformed twisted skeleton...when they tried to separate them.... they crumbled to dust.

Monsters?  Yes. 
Men?  Yes.

What made them monsters? Their actions?  Their situations?  The ill fortune of their births? 

They loved and suffered as we have all loved and suffered. 
They were Monsters in love.



Happy Valentine's Day.

REST IN PEACE
Prof. Griffin

 

[misterhorror]

A very interesting and entertaining read Prof.Thank you.

[Nicole]

Thanks, Professor. I enjoyed that very much.

[michblk]

Professor, the only thing I see in common with these monsters and all monsters in love is death.....   

BK

[SpankRamen]

Wow, Professor! That was thoughtful & deep. It made me a little misty eyed.

[Penny Dreadful]

*ting* - that's the sound of the little tear in my eye.

Superbly written Professor.

~Penny~

[michblk]

Professor, I hope you don't take my above comments as being rude, I was just trying to be funny.  I would like to say you are a wonderul writer.  This piece was great!  I also look forward to your articles in Scary Monsters! 

Brian

[ProfGriffin]

Oh heavens no...I didn't take it as rude at all!

LOL.

Thanks for the superbly kind words all...glad you enjoyed it.
Oh, just wait until you read what I have in store in the pages of Scary Monsters!!!!

The ANSWERS!  To ALL our most burning questions!!

[SpankRamen]

Don't make us wait too long!