As Children just learning about the world we all have nightmares. Our imaginations sometimes would get carried away and every creak would be a new monster, or a ghost. Where do all of these feelings go as we enter the stage of adulthood? Frank Langella, in his short story "The Monsters in My Head," tries to shed some light on the answer to this question.
"The Monsters in My Head" depicts the fears which we all have regarding this scary thing we call life. The setting shows a young boy alone in his bedroom, setting up a familiar tone of fear which we have all experienced. The characters illustrate the real fear and terror we have of "the monsters inside of our heads." The language is simplistic and descriptive in nature, high-lighting the fears of the characters. The narrator describes the action of his own personal experience with "monsters," and then leads up to a similar fear which his son had, describing the scene vividly to an audience.
The setting of a small boy's bedroom creates a tone of a fear which we all have experience as a young child. In order to illustrate this fear I will shrink back from the audience and almost whisper the words, "I was sure he was coming to get me." This all important first line will grasp the listeners attention and draw them into the speech. Moreover, when the narrator states, "I lay frozen in my bed," I'll make my body stiff. I'll repeat the loud whisper of the opening line, in order to show the audience how afraid the character is lying there alone in bed. Finally, when describing the windows of both the father's childhood room and his own child's room I will accentuate the similarities between the two bedrooms by placing vocal stress on the words, "The windows are covered with louvered shutters." This will bring the similar situations and fears which both the father and son felt to the foreground.
The characters in the story illustrate the terrors and fears we have all experienced with the monsters inside our heads. To depict this I will show the imaginary character of the monster as the child describes it by using the same movements which it uses. For example, the boy described the monster as, "Eye, and mouth exposed, one arm drawn up..." In order to show this I will open my mouth wider, and raise one arm up while leaving the other one at my side with a clenched fist. This will make the imaginary monster come to life for the audience, so they can envision the fear of the young boy. The character of the son may be depicted in a loud, shrieky voice with a wide-eyed stare when stating: "Daddy, Daddy! There's a monster in my room!..." This action will illustrate the real fear that the child has, and may bring to life a similar childhood experience which the audience had. Also, when describing the father's fight of the monster I might accent or highlight the words "dutiful daddy fight", by raising the intonation of my voice, in order to give the audience the sense that this was a good man who understood his child's fears and tried to help him.
The language used is simple and descriptive in nature. In order to illustrate this descriptive language I will accent such phrase words as 'step-drop' with a slow, monstrous dragging voice, to give the impression that the monster is actually nearby. To give the audience a sense of what the son's monster has become after the climax, I will place emphasis in the words "blue," "green" and "sometimes he's a she" by pausing after each descriptive word in order to get the desired chuckle from the audience. Finally, when performing the piece I will accent such words as "alone," "heart-pounded," "dark," "black," etc... with a strong, raised voice in order to make the impressions stick in my audience's head.
The narrator describes his own personal experience with "monsters," and then leads up to his own son's experience with the fear of monsters. This conflict is finally resolved in the end by the father, who speaks not only to his sun but directly to the audience before him/her. In order to show this I will use direct eye contact throughout much of the story as if each member of the audience was a friend to whom I was reciting a story. This will create the atmosphere of familiarity which we all tend to feel when hearing a story from familiar to all of us. Also, when the father states, "This ritual went on...times a night," I will use a short pause between these two sentences in order to illustrate the engaging action of the plot. The course between several times a night will cue the audience to know that at some point this action will be stopped. Another key point in the plot occurs when the narrator lists the points in his life which he experienced fear. He states, "He was with me...." During this long string of fears which the father felt in his lifetime I will pause in between each fear, in order to allow the audience to catch up and truly envision the fears described. Finally, as the son states, "Kill him Daddy, kill him for me, daddy," I will raise the tone of my voice on the first "kill him." When I say "kill him for me" I will slump my shoulders and make a whimpering cry of sound to show the boy's disappointment. Then when the boy says, "You mean I am..." I will raise up my eyes to a locus in the back of the room as if talking to my father, and say the words excitedly. This will illustrate the resolution of the boy's inner conflict with the monster.
We all have fears which occur in everyday life. The important thing about fear is that we learn how to handle it. Possibly the biggest fear for the SpCom 380 class is that we have to get up in front of the class and illustrate all of these techniques, but how we handle that fear determines if "We have the Power!"