Our theme for the month of March is “monsters.”

“As the memory of past misfortunes pressed upon me, I began to reflect upon their cause—the monster whom I had created…” — Frankenstein, Mary Shelly 

I love two things: Christian faith and English literature. 

Could I have picked two passions more fraught with problems and tainted histories?  

Yet. Is there anything not nibbled by the moths of greed, oppression, and harm? 

If I purchase almost any mass-manufactured good, I am likely participating in unethical labor and the abuse of people and creation. 

My co-worker has given up a long-time hobby of watching football because entertainment at the cost of concussions and perpetual injury of young men weighed too heavy on his conscience.

The recent re-examination of Dr. Seuss’s books reminds us again how vulnerable even children’s literature is to prejudice, which is sin.

Even Disney is questionable. 

My favorite Disney princess is Belle from Beauty and The Beast. I love the implication that reading books breeds compassion and an imagination for relationships with the broken.

The beautiful, scary question Beauty and the Beast asks is who and what is lovable? 

Perhaps the story itself, which could be read as an endorsement of Stockholm Syndrome, is not rightly loveable.  

Francis Schaeffer’s big question, “how shall we then live?” is not, precisely, the primary question of our time. 

The question before you and me now is what, then, shall we rightly love? Put differently, what can we love without causing harm to others, i.e. committing a failure in the love to which we, Christians, are urgently commanded? 

Harm is the monster in art, more so even than falsehood or folly. The oldest, largest, and most grievous iconoclast movement, often perpetuated by art itself, has been against the image of God, a perpetual assault on other people. I want no part in this sacrilege. 

I live in tension between an admonition ingrained in childhood to only “think on whatever is good, pure, and holy” and an equally central belief that the ultimate good act is loving the monstrous enemy. But how do we love monsters without perpetuating their monstrosity?

But the scarier possibility than loving a bad story is becoming Dr. Frankenstein and, in ignorance, or in my formation by the countless works of sin-twisted media I have consumed, or in plain sin, writing something horrible.

I intend to write for children! How many children’s authors can we name whose heroism has publicly crumbled as the cold, morning light of new eras has exposed their prejudice and corruption or as they, in contemporary times, with voice or hand, have harmed people? 

Yet, despite the risk of making monsters, I cannot stop writing. Neither can you. Destruction or denial of the creative power is, itself, that old iconoclasm against the imago dei turned inward. The concealment of the picture would make Dorian no less monstrous. 

And the seeming impossibility of the task of becoming lovely and making truly lovable art makes it no less required. We are like Psyche, who loved Eros: we must attempt the arduous task. 

Recently, I had a conversation with a friend about an iconic piece of pop culture. 

“The female characters are frequently used as plot vehicles to forward a male protagonist’s story,” I argued. “The thin representation of people of color is largely performative. The bad writing is so prevalent, one begins to believe it a deliberate malevolence against loyal viewers who will endure it regardless of quality.” 

My friend responded with a passionate defense. 

Worried that my critique might damage a dear friendship, I qualified: “I enjoy the Star Wars saga. I love gothic literature, for Pete’s sake, potentially the most ruthlessly and perpetually scorned English genre. I have taken college courses in loving media that is arguably drivel at best and deeply problematic at worst.” 

Could Gothic literature be a lesson in the rigorous, required discipline of love?

Gothic stories, being old, many, and rife with the ridiculous, invite critique. They provide almost unlimited practice for breaking down and examining love and life and the myriad ways they can be twisted. Outlandish as it is—with curses, ghosts, and vampires—Gothic literature is surprisingly realistic—with madness, cruelty, deception, and sometimes true goodness. The main action in most gothic plots is unveiling—evil behind allure and goodness behind ugliness. 

Like Psyche, the work of loving and making lovable art is examining and parsing. Gothic literature, at its most redemptive, is like mushrooms—strange life springing up from what is broken down.

In Mexican Gothic, amid a motif of mushrooms, Silvia Moreno-Garcia wonders if anything lovable can grow in a family and a town marred by racism, rape, and hate—horrible evil. It’s a frightening, brutal book. I make no recommendation or argument for its goodness, badness, or worthiness to be read. I’ve only read it in part. In fact, I make no argument for reading or loving any particular story. Love people. Read what helps you in that end. 

I submit Mexican Gothic to you as one opportunity for the examination, breaking down, and search for the lovable for which Gothic lit can train us. 

Let’s hold the lamp to all our Frankenstein prose. Some stories may need to die and be broken down. Take a lesson from the mushrooms and Gothic literature: absorb dead things into new life and new love. 

Emily Joy Stroble

Emily Stroble is a writer of bits and pieces and is distractedly pursuing lots of novel ideas and nonfiction projects as inspiration strikes. As an editorial assistant at Zondervan, she helps put the pieces of children’s books and Bibles together.  A lover of the ridiculous, inexplicable, and wondrous as well as stories of all kinds, Emily enjoys getting lost in museums, movies old and new, making art, the mountains of Colorado, and the unsalted oceans near Grand Rapids. Her movie reviews also appear in the Mixed Media section of The Banner and her strange little stories of the fantastic are on the Calvin alumni fiction blog Presticogitation. Her big dream is to dig her hands deep into the soil of making children’s books as an editor…and to finally finish her children’s novel.