Within The World of The Body Horror Genre: The Ramifications of Excessive Technological Advancement

Abstract

Body horror can be traced as far back as the early mid 1700s, by a writer named Marquis de Sade. De Sade’s novel Juliette (1797), examines the body, and how a soul is not exempt from death. In other words the soul is what creates the individuality within a human, but in this case without a “soul” the body cannot exist. The body is a sentient mass since it is able to have sensory experiences ranging from pain to pleasure. Essentially, you are trapped within your own body which is susceptible to various kinds of bodily harm. Now in the present, from various literatures depicting these ideas there is a wide variety of films within this subgenre; it will now typically display the main protagonist undergoing horrific changes within their bodies transforming into a monster. A question one might ask themselves is why or what causes the initial push for the central character to transform into something other than human. There are a variety of films within the subgenre that hopefully could shed a bit of light to an abundance of questions that have not been properly answered yet.