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Amanda Martinez

Professor Beadle

English 115 Appr University Writing

21 September 2017

Bedtime Terrors

A house is considered a safe haven, but at night the imagination can deceive the mind.

Often children face these conflicts. A childs innocence at a young age, optimizes their

imagination, and often leads to outrageous ideas with no limitations. In Ted Genoways article,

Here Be Monsters, explores the concept of monsters representing individuals creation of

imagination and reality. The wide access to media and television programs to young audiences

influences the mind when facing darkness especially in a bedroom. Once the lights in a bedroom

turn off, the mind shuts down and begins to project internal fears they face in every day. The

imagination produces a monstrous affect in revealing fears, that carry over in life that demonstrates

how values are reformed due to media influence.

Fear of the dark, simple anxieties about going to bed, and monsters in the closet are all

relatively common in young childrens fear during their childhood. The root of the fear generates

from witnessing scary movies or listening to fictional stories shared between classmates. The

monstrous part of fears explores the idea of the individual being inferior and surround the belief

of what would happen. The exposure of scary movies seem appealing to young minds but once

isolated from the care of parents, the mind begins to construe unimaginable scenarios when in their

own personal space in the bedroom. Ted Genoways, acknowledges this concept of fear as, the

unknown lies just past the horizon (Genoways130) being rooted from the imagination for

conjur[ing] everything from leviathans of the deep to beast part-human (Genoways 130).
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Genoways claim supports the assertion of fears being derived from the unknown given humanistic

characteristics. In other words, giving humanistic characteristics to an imaginative object creates

a sense of understanding to a targeted root of fear. The driving force of the fears is through

imagination, as a result of the mind being in their own constant fantasy world. The difficulty in

switching of childrens imagination to reality when they are in their bedroom, also aids in their

creation of fears. Once exposed to the concept of fear, it is difficult to fight off the terror due to

the imagination exploring the values that are created by the media. At a young age the exposure to

media plays a role in influencing the aspects of familiar objects to be exploited with the ideas that

surround the imagination.

I personally, dealt with my fears in the darkness at a young age. My fears were driven by

the bullies I faced at school. The idea of not being able to fight them off, or standing up for myself

was my worst fear. I recall a specific moment when I first got familiar with the concept of my

imagination driving me to face my worst inner monsters. I had just watched my first scary movie

Poltergiest with my family, and once it was time to go to bed it seemed impossible. The dark

bedroom created the concept of monsters in my closet. As a result, the terror caused by the movie,

triggered the idea of the bullies and the encounters at school. The worst part about a dark bedroom

is having a blank place where all my worries and doubts were magnified. At a young age, I learned

that the imagination has no boundaries in regards to visualizing scary monsters. Ultimately these

monsters reflected the bully characteristics I faced at school. The need to fight the bullies was

constant but my imagination drove these fears to an excessive extent, that even the sight of the

bullies made me want to yell because of my imagination creating horrible scenarios while in my

bedroom. The idea of having to face our own internal monsters demonstrates the concept of

unwanted stress which could affect the way individuals generally deal with situations when
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separated from the rest of society. In addition, knowing individuals have the power to construe any

type of identify of fear insinuates that individuals become puppeteers to our own internal conflicts

and imagination. Elizabeth Losh, from Understanding Rhetoric: A Graphic Guide to Writing,

argues personal experience creates credibility which reflects the concept of Ethos (Losh 145) to

demonstrate the attraction to young minds in believing these incidents are real. Therefore, the

interaction between individuals and presenting a personal experience creates credibility for others

to believe that monsters can come after someone when in a vulnerable state, such as in a dark

bedroom.

Nighttime fears are very common at an adolescent stage in life and can follow them into

adulthood. This can ultimately cause the shared belief that the fear of darkness is truly the

unknown. Although the concept of darkness is inevitably scary there can be an applied positive

aspect towards the negative connotation. In other words, despite the imaginative aspect in ones

mind, perception inevitably develops to understand that within darkness there can be light.

Throughout my years in high school, I realized darkness is a constructed fear and can be fought

with the belief that light can provide guidance through all dark times. Many philosophers spoke of

this concept in the spirit world and physical world having close correlation, especially Emmanuel

Kant. Application of this concept, allows for a new perspective that fights fears. An individual

who views the world as a bad place, creates a negative outlook and believes there is no hope to

better their situation, and becomes a dark minded person. Whereas, a person with a positive

outlook on life would realize there are faults within all monsters and can be fought off their own

strength, reflects light.

The darkness is a manifestation of the physical world, yet is filled with light. In other

words, the perception of darkness within a dark bedroom, is in fact another form of light. The
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darkness sheds light on the idea that it is possible to fight off fear. Neither one of these perceptions

is necessarily right or wrong, both can make an argument of attempting to concur fear. The Light

and Darkness debate corresponds with the issue of good and evil. Both ideas are exact opposites

but there will never be light or darkness without the other, there should be a balance of one another.

These concepts are learned later in life due to the wide attention span that is developed. Children

face the difficulty in drawing the line between imaginary and reality. The imagination runs out of

their control once in a dark place where all surrounds become foreign. The mind plays tricks on

perception to manipulate the fear that individuals face.

Although at a relatively young age the fear of darkness is consuming, in later years the

mind is able to make the clear distinction between reality and fantasy. Ultimately the individual

must want to fix their internal monsters in order to get their own light at the end of the tunnel.

Knowing that the darkness contains the unknown, results in living with caution without ever

combating their fears. Darkness is light that is standing still and is in the state of light for readiness.

Darkness has the potential to provide light, which indicates darkness can be the source of light.
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Works Cited

Losh, Elizabeth M., et al. Understanding Rhetoric: a Graphic Guide to Writing. 2nd ed.,

Bedford/St. Martin's, 2017.

Genoways, Ted. Here Be Monsters. Monsters: a Bedford Spotlight Reader, edited by Andrew

J. Hoffman, Bedford/St. Martins, a Macmillan Education Imprint, 2016.