Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction: A Marvel of Monsters
- The Epic of Gilgamesh — Selections
- The Bible — Selections
- Hesiod, Theogony — Selections
- Homer, The Odyssey, Odysseus and his Men Encounter the Cyclops
- Bust of Polyphemus
- Pliny the Elder, Natural History — Selections
- Ovid, Metamorphoses, Lycaon and Cadmus
- St. Augustine of Hippo, City of God — Selections (XVI.vii–ix; XXI.vii–viii)
- Táin Bó Cúailnge (Cattle Raid of Cooley) — Selections
- The Wonders of the East
- Donestre, Huntress, and Boar-Tusked Women
- Beowulf Introduction, Fight With Grendel, the Attack By Grendel's Mother, Fight With Grendel's Mother, and Fight With the Dragon)
- Modern Images of Grendel: (Twentieth Century)
- Marie de France, Bisclavret
- Völsunga saga (The Saga of the Volsungs) — Selections
- The Life of Saint Christopher
- Illumination of Saint Christopher
- The Alliterative Morte Arthure — Selections
- Sir Gawain and the Green Knight — Selections
- Ambroise Paré, on Monsters Book 25: Treating of Monsters and Prodigies
- Renaissance Figures of Monsters: First Published in Ambroise Paré, Les Oeuures D'Ambroise Paré, Conseiller, Et Premier Chirurgien Du Roy (Lyon, Chez Jean GréGoire, 1664).
- Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene — Selections
- William Shakespeare, The Tempest — Selections
- Images of Caliban
- John Spencer, A Discourse Concerning Prodigies: Wherein the Vanity of Presages by them is Reprehended, and their True and Proper Ends are Indicated
- John Milton, Paradise Lost — Selections
- Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus — Selections
- Frankenstein Frontispiece
- Edgar Allan Poe, “William Wilson”
- Christina Rossetti, “Goblin Market”
- Illustration of Buy From Us With A Golden Curl
- Lewis Carroll, “Jabberwocky”
- Illustration of Jabberwocky
- Ambrose Bierce, “The Damned Thing”
- Bram Stoker, Dracula — Selections
- Frontispiece to Bram Stoker, Dracula
- Algernon Blackwood, “Ancient Sorceries”
- H. P. Lovecraft, “The Call of Cthulhu”
- Sketch of Cthulhu
- C. L. Moore, “Shambleau”
- J.R.R. Tolkien, the Hobbit, or There and Back Again — Selections
- Theodore Sturgeon, “It!”
- Ray Bradbury, “Fever Dream”
- Edward D. Hoch, “The Faceless Thing”
- John Gardner, Grendel — Selections
- Joyce Carol Oates, “Secret Observations on the Goat-Girl”
- Margaret Atwood, Oryx and Crake — Selections
- Slender Man
- The SCP (Special Containment Procedures) Foundation
- Contributor Biographies
Slender Man
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 January 2021
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction: A Marvel of Monsters
- The Epic of Gilgamesh — Selections
- The Bible — Selections
- Hesiod, Theogony — Selections
- Homer, The Odyssey, Odysseus and his Men Encounter the Cyclops
- Bust of Polyphemus
- Pliny the Elder, Natural History — Selections
- Ovid, Metamorphoses, Lycaon and Cadmus
- St. Augustine of Hippo, City of God — Selections (XVI.vii–ix; XXI.vii–viii)
- Táin Bó Cúailnge (Cattle Raid of Cooley) — Selections
- The Wonders of the East
- Donestre, Huntress, and Boar-Tusked Women
- Beowulf Introduction, Fight With Grendel, the Attack By Grendel's Mother, Fight With Grendel's Mother, and Fight With the Dragon)
- Modern Images of Grendel: (Twentieth Century)
- Marie de France, Bisclavret
- Völsunga saga (The Saga of the Volsungs) — Selections
- The Life of Saint Christopher
- Illumination of Saint Christopher
- The Alliterative Morte Arthure — Selections
- Sir Gawain and the Green Knight — Selections
- Ambroise Paré, on Monsters Book 25: Treating of Monsters and Prodigies
- Renaissance Figures of Monsters: First Published in Ambroise Paré, Les Oeuures D'Ambroise Paré, Conseiller, Et Premier Chirurgien Du Roy (Lyon, Chez Jean GréGoire, 1664).
- Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene — Selections
- William Shakespeare, The Tempest — Selections
- Images of Caliban
- John Spencer, A Discourse Concerning Prodigies: Wherein the Vanity of Presages by them is Reprehended, and their True and Proper Ends are Indicated
- John Milton, Paradise Lost — Selections
- Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus — Selections
- Frankenstein Frontispiece
- Edgar Allan Poe, “William Wilson”
- Christina Rossetti, “Goblin Market”
- Illustration of Buy From Us With A Golden Curl
- Lewis Carroll, “Jabberwocky”
- Illustration of Jabberwocky
- Ambrose Bierce, “The Damned Thing”
- Bram Stoker, Dracula — Selections
- Frontispiece to Bram Stoker, Dracula
- Algernon Blackwood, “Ancient Sorceries”
- H. P. Lovecraft, “The Call of Cthulhu”
- Sketch of Cthulhu
- C. L. Moore, “Shambleau”
- J.R.R. Tolkien, the Hobbit, or There and Back Again — Selections
- Theodore Sturgeon, “It!”
- Ray Bradbury, “Fever Dream”
- Edward D. Hoch, “The Faceless Thing”
- John Gardner, Grendel — Selections
- Joyce Carol Oates, “Secret Observations on the Goat-Girl”
- Margaret Atwood, Oryx and Crake — Selections
- Slender Man
- The SCP (Special Containment Procedures) Foundation
- Contributor Biographies
Summary
Critical Introduction
Slender Man was “born” on June 10, 2009 in the forums of the website SomethingAwful.com for a photoshop contest. Victor Surge (the handle for Eric Knudsen) submitted the two following photo illustrations accompanied by cryptic and unsettling captions. Something about the images spoke to forum visitors, and they spread to further photo illustrations, creepypasta (internet fan fiction expressly created to scare or unsettle the reader), a YouTube video series, and video games. In 2018, a big-budget film about him was released as well.
A number of influences have been cited by Knudsen and identified by others, but Slender Man's raison d’être is his inscrutability. In the earliest versions of the canon, he is rarely the centre of the image or clearly seen, either has no facial features or they are obscured, always wears a dark suit, appears around children, never speaks, has tentacled appendages, and is associated with disaster. The audience knows his intentions are not good, but cannot understand just what those intentions are.
Like many of the selections in this volume, Slender Man has enjoyed a fan club of sorts—especially in the creepypasta, gaming, and cosplay (costume play) communities. Unlike most of the selections, however, Slender Man has been at least partially responsible for real-world violence. In 2014, two pre-teen girls in Waukesha, Wisconsin took a classmate into the woods and stabbed her multiple times. The victim survived, and when the two suspects were later questioned, they informed the police that they wanted to commit a murder in order to prove their loyalty to and become followers of Slender Man.
Viewing Questions
As you view the two images reproduced on the following page, it might be interesting to speculate about what caused Slender Man to “catch” and go viral when there are thousands of creepypasta creations on the internet. What elements (visible in the images or listed in the above introduction) seem to contribute to this monster's popularity?
Just a brief glance at each image might cause the viewer to miss Slender Man altogether. He is certainly not the ostensible subject of the image, and the eye must seek him out instead of being drawn to him. Look at the use of space and shading in these images, and ask yourself how they contribute (or do not) to the monstrousness of Slender Man.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Primary Sources on MonstersDemonstrare Volume 2, pp. 345 - 346Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2018