Monster - Monere - to Warn
Monsters Show Us Who We Are
Imagery connected to monsters is incredibly powerful, eliciting reactions of fear or adulation in humans. Medieval scholars linked the word monster to the Latin monstrare “to show” and monere “to warn”, revealing that humans have for some time believed that these creatures exist to teach us something. Many early stories featuring monsters attempt to show or warn humanity about the dangers around them, whether it be the dangers of wandering off alone in the woods using the witch or traveling the open oceans using the leviathan. The creator of a monster attempts to reveal a specific danger to the audience and hopefully warn that audience before they fall victim to that threat.