Langellas Story The Monster In My Head English Literature Essay

From Langella’s story, readers could see that as he grew older, his “monster” continued to transform based on real life challenges and responsibility. Unlike his childhood monster, the mummy, which was solely based on his imagination, later “monsters” resembled the fear of any failure he encountered in life. I am certain that even though Langella considered these real life fears as “monsters” haunting him, he knew that these “monsters” do not really exist. However, a child cannot distinguish an imaginary figure from a real one. In this article, Langella mentioned that his son happily coexisted with his “monster” and interacted with him all the time. When a child is reassured that an imaginary figure is true, their imagination can get even wilder. The child will truly believe the monster not only exists but it can interact with everyone else. Langella’s mental strategy may work for some nights, but it is definitely not a long term solution. The child would soon become confused and would not know how to deal with his own fantasies in a more mature manner. Yu-Shuang is my cousin and also my childhood friend. She does, however, have a secret that she does not share easily; she can see things that normal people cannot. When my mother first told me about this, I envied her supernatural power. However, my mother explained to me that the ghost she thought she was seeing was not real, but only a part of her imagination that she was scared of. My aunt had used the same strategy the author used when my cousin was still a little girl. At night, when Yu-Shuang was frightened about the ghosts, my aunt would come into her room, and tell her to become friends with the lost souls so that they will not harm her. Just like the son of the author, Yu-Shang stopped crying. The mental strategy seemed to work. However, by doing this she was confused and was constantly in fear. Several months ago, I met Yu-Shang at her eighteenth birthday party. As I sat beside her, she whispered in my ear and told me that one of her ghost friends were around. As a young adult, Yu-Shang still did not have the ability to distinguish reality from fantasy. She had no choice but to believe that those “monsters” existed and were her friends because this is the only strategy she was taught to overcome her fears. Therefore, Langella’s strategy is wrong because it will not only assure the child that the monster do exist, but also impede a child from learning what is real and what is not.

There are many different kinds of fear: fear of heights, fear of spiders, fear of strangers, fear of being forgotten, fear of changes, etc. However, fears are “monsters” that only exist in our head. There are some fears that are reasonable and cannot be ignored by using Langella’s strategy. Moreover, Langella did not know that some fears are merely caused by ignorance and could be solved more delicately by education. When I was a young child, I was extremely afraid of shadows and would scream at the sight of my own shadow. Just like the author, at the beginning, my parents would take turns holding me to keep me away from the monstrous shadow. One day, my mother finally realized that keeping me away from the source of fear is not only pointless, but very bad parenting. She then held me low to the ground and started playing with my shadow; she did this while explaining how shadows were just areas where direct light from a light source could not reach due to obstruction by an object. She also did some scientific experiments with me so that I could understand how shadows are made. Because my mother educated me about the natural effects of light, my fear was gone forever. Likewise, if Langella could have been patient and tried harder to find out the reason that made his son think he saw a monster in the closet – maybe two buttons on a coat reflected by light that would look like a pair of eyes- he could have educated his son instead of fooling him. Unrealistic fear could be avoided by education. Keeping the child ignorant and living in fantasy will never stop the fear, but merely have it disguised in a different form. This is why proper parenting plays a huge role when it comes to unrealistic childhood fears.

Fear is not a monster but an assistant that gives us an instant boost of energy and helps us react swiftly to physical and emotional danger. Fear is an alert, a warning signal sent to our brain which directs our body to respond to danger. Therefore, if a person is confused – thinking of fear as a monster-like friend that would go away if he or she had wished it to – he or she might miss the alarm and jeopardize themselves. To become good parents, it is important that we should educate our children and provide them true understanding about fear and how to distinguish what is delusional and what are the alarms that need immediate reaction. When the alert signal comes, they would know how to respond maturely and intelligently.

In conclusion, I do not agree with Langella’s strategy towards educating his son on how to face his fear because a lot of real life fears are not delusional, but caused by ignorance. Besides, fear should be seen as a very healthy emotion that acts as an alert to warn ourselves from danger. Langella’s strategy is not only unwise, but could jeopardize a child by fooling him into thinking that the imaginary monster exists and is not harmful. Proper parenting and education are the only way that could lead our children to deal with their own fear wisely and in a sophisticated manner.