| I believe there are monsters born in the world to human parents. some you can see, misshapen and horrible, with huge heads or tiny bodies; some are born with no arms, no legs, some with three arms, some with tails or mouths in odd places. They are accidents and no ones fault. Once they were considered the visible punishments for concealed sins. And just as there are physical monsters, can there not be mental or psychic monsters born? The face and body may be perfect, but if a twisted gene or a malformed egg can produce physical monsters, may not the same process produce a malformed soul? Mosnters are variations from the accepted normal to a greater or a less degree. As a child may be born with an arm, so one may be born without kindness or potential of conscience. A man who loses his arms in an accident has a great struggle to adjust himself to his lack, but one born without arms suffers only from people who find him strange. Having never had arms, he cannot miss them. Sometimes when we are little we imagine how it would be to have wings, but there is no reason to suppose it is the same feeling birds have. No, to a monster the norm must seem monsterous, since everyone is normal to himself. To the inner monsters it must be even more obscure, since he has no visable thing to compare with others. To a man born without conscience, a soul-stricken man must seem ridiculous. To a criminal, honesty is foolish. You must not forget that a monster is only a variation, and that to a monster the norm is monsterous. -John Steinbeck
East of Eden |
