THE TRANSFORMATION OF MONSTERS REPRESENTATION IN NEIL GAIMAN’S THE GRAVEYARD BOOK

Abstract

The Graveyard Book , a novel written by Neil Gaiman tells the story about a boy named Bod whom is raised by monsters live in the graveyard such as vampire, werewolf, ghouls and ghost. The story not only tells about Bod's life but also the difference representation of the monsters. The monsters in the novel are the same as the monsters exist in gothic literature such as vampire, werewolf and ghouls. The role of monster in gothic era is made to spread terror while monsters in The Graveyard Book have the opposite role. They are pictured as helper, harmless and kind. It leads to the three main questions to be problem to be discussed, the monsters as the significant element in horror fiction, the representation of monsters in preceding novels and the changing role of the monsters. The research uses inductive method to analyze the data. First, the writer reads the The Graveyard Book novel as the primary data. Secondly, the writer chooses the data relating to the research topic. The writer also reads the other references to add the data about the topic. The writer applies the postmodern theory by Linda Hutcheon to analyze the transformation of the monsters representation. Finally, the writer comes to the conclusion. From this analysis, it can be concluded that the representation of monsters reflected to the society. Monsters in Gothic era are created to spread horror and terror while monsters in postmodern society try to fit into human society. It by means that the postmodern marks rely on the monsters exists in The Graveyard Book.