Afternoon of Alterity - Nazareth College

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What’s Love Got To Do With It?The Story of A Green KnightMaking a DifferenceAndrew BellushIn the realm of monstrosity, the concept of “the other” is a seeminglyinsurmountable peak to conquer. The process of seeking to definethat which is different or new is seen in many forms throughouthistory as illustrated in myths and cultural histories from all aroundthe globe. One such society, that of developing Western Europe, inseeking to answer such questions posed by alterity within humanexistence, developed some of the most interesting answers, buildingthe foundation for an entire branch of literary study. In the earlierdays of Middle English literature in particular, sometime in betweenthe 12th and 14th centuries, questions of otherness are seen to beanswered with fantastic and rather poetic fables and narratives. Theseattempts actually create so much of what common knowledge deemscliché aspects of the fantasy genre: trolls, knights damsels, kings,giants, and the almighty dragon, to name a few. The proper name forthis genre of mythical proportions at the time of it’s cultural reign ismore appropriately “Romance literature”. This genre of writing hasbeen studied for decades for the historical perspective it offers onWestern culture.One aspect of that study has to do with this otherness, this alteritywhich is so weighty a question on the minds of Western society.Those trolls, giants, and dragons have been conjectured by many 41
acclaimed critics to be representations of “categories of descent,language, law, and customs…identified as fundamental to medievalconcepts of race and ethnicity” (Huot 373), particularly whenspeaking in relation to those giants mentioned earlier. It is giantsspecifically that are used to characterize human differences and filethem away as “other” because “monstrous and savage though thesegiants are [they] nonetheless have clear human traits” (Huot 373),and these traits are very much similar to what was considered thenormative standard of the dominant (Western European) culture,but with fundamental differences in terms of “appearance [and]forms of behavior coded as unacceptable to European culture”(Huot 373) and therefore otherized and exoticized.While many Romantic texts (Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History ofthe Kings of Britain, featuring King Arthur, for instance) give us storiesof characters, usually knights, attempting to defend themselves ortheir society from such “behavior that is savage, brutal, and utterlyantithetical to civilization” (Huot 375). However, one literary workin particular from the late Medieval English period, Sir Gawain andthe Green Knight, seems to give a clear alternative to assuage conflictsof dissonance. It is this avant-garde surprise ending which brings tolife a decidedly liberal and more humanistic solution to resolvingdifferences and sociocultural conflicts.A fight with a giant will most usually “culminate in a decapitation[because] giants always die in this severe manner” (Cohen 74) howeverin the aforementioned literary text, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, abeheading occurs and the giant lives on. In fact, the way in which theplot concludes and the threat of the giant recedes is in the climacticending when the differences between Sir Gawain and Lord Bercilak,The Green Knight, are reconciled. The conflict exists though, in howthose dissimilarities of race, creed, culture, sexuality, etc., are putaside. Are they really forgotten? Does the protagonist (Sir Gawain)see the Green Knight in any different of a light at the end of the42 afternoons of alterity
Page 1 and 2: Afternoons of Alterity A Codex of t
Page 4 and 5: Table of ContentsFrom Medieval Mars
Page 6 and 7: From Medieval Marsh Monsters toFutu
Page 8 and 9: imagination, we must first attempt
Page 10 and 11: seed of monstrosity within themselv
Page 12 and 13: essence as a monster, it seems reas
Page 14 and 15: she bore two sons, one from the imp
Page 16 and 17: perhaps, anti-heroes) of the futuri
Page 18 and 19: to watch the murder and mutilation
Page 20 and 21: and modern audiences through their
Page 22 and 23: Works Cited“Bushwhacked.” Firef
Page 24 and 25: Projecting Otherness ontothe Disabl
Page 26 and 27: in any systematic structuration. An
Page 28 and 29: The idea of the monstrous’ vulner
Page 30 and 31: not us and are in the proximity of
Page 32: they want to be treated. The interv
Page 36: Monstrosity and theIrruption of Rea
Page 39 and 40: describing his fears of this place
Page 41 and 42: stained with sin” (Spearing 221).
Page 43: often and at will to show man somet
Page 48 and 49: story than as the beginning? What f
Page 50 and 51: It is textual content like this tha
Page 52 and 53: through the story as the Green Knig
Page 54 and 55: the first advocating voices for end
Page 56 and 57: “capable of seeing things objecti
Page 58 and 59: Darkness: The True Monster ofLitera
Page 60 and 61: the way they can make us feel, but
Page 62 and 63: not only closes out, extinguishes,
Page 64 and 65: and temptation, most especially for
Page 66 and 67: hours “led to the term ‘night
Page 68 and 69: specifically his relationship to da
Page 70 and 71: humanization of Grendel draws the r
Page 72 and 73: subconscious the message may be. Th
Page 74 and 75: Serial MonstrosityEmily Mastrobatti
Page 76 and 77: is clear that they are monsters and
Page 78 and 79: murderer that he once was. He has b
Page 80 and 81: of the killing, “When investigato
Page 82 and 83: ook “contains recipes from the bo
Page 84 and 85: asks Charles Manson to marry her, t
Page 86 and 87: Monstrous Mothers andObjectified Da
Page 88 and 89: and her sisters plot to kill their
Page 90 and 91: easons for “otherness.” On top
Page 92 and 93: The original ideas are still intact
Page 94 and 95: objectified creature. “Cultures o
Page 96 and 97:
Works CitedAcker, P. Horror and the
Page 98 and 99:
Grendel: A Manifestation ofMedieval
Page 100 and 101:
ut never was his physicality hinted
Page 102 and 103:
to wander in the darkness and the c
Page 104 and 105:
Magic could not resurrect Grendel t
Page 106 and 107:
Works CitedBeowulf. Trans. RM Liuzz
Page 108 and 109:
The Monster Under the BedThe Creati
Page 110 and 111:
to procreate but the accepted manif
Page 112 and 113:
Cain had/killed his father’s son
Page 114 and 115:
can, without a doubt, be placed int
Page 116 and 117:
The vagina’s ability to function
Page 118:
Ed. Barbara K. Gold, et all. Albany
Page 121 and 122:
To understand precisely how states
Page 123 and 124:
a strict delineation between each g
Page 125 and 126:
monstrous and societal rules to fol
Page 127 and 128:
Gawain is willing to accept his mis
Page 129 and 130:
survive, challenge, and defeat. Esp
Page 131 and 132:
governmental standards, then are we
Page 134 and 135:
They Walk Among UsOccupational Viol
Page 136 and 137:
sports and regard our members of th
Page 138 and 139:
modern readers are not part of the
Page 140 and 141:
otherness and disdain for humanity.
Page 142 and 143:
are underpaid and for the most part
Page 144 and 145:
Home and Spatial IdentityPhysical t
Page 146 and 147:
closeness among the people that the
Page 148 and 149:
Into the dark gorge I ventured; the
Page 150 and 151:
the treasures that fill up their ho
Page 152 and 153:
threatened by the very existence of
Page 154 and 155:
and draped in damp, shaggy moss, an
Page 156 and 157:
individual. Home resides within the
Page 158:
Works CitedArmitage, Simon. Sir Gaw
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Afternoon of Alterity - Nazareth College

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