Hauntings During Horrific Times in American Society

Austin Baker

Synthesis Essay

11/18/15

Hauntings during Horrific Times in American Society

        The purpose of my paper is to focus upon Demonic entities haunting American society in horrific ways from the books, “Monsters in America” and “Beloved”. When it comes to hauntings and horror in the minds of Americans today, men tend to not have the capacity to integrate a demonic entity as well as a women could. Men usually need something that asserts or implies the truth and or falsity in something, while women don’t need to have any reason to believe that demonic entities exist. From serial killers like Ed Gein, and war heroes like those from the Vietnam War, to hauntings such as Beloved, These demons are still alive and thriving in society today.

Many Americans encountered horrific scenarios throughout history, W. Scott Poole’s novel Monster’s in America talks about our historical obsession from hideous killers to demonic hauntings, I along with the class read this novel for the first time this semester and it was an unexpectedly pleasuring to some of us. Throughout the book we learned about different serial killers such as Ed Gein, a serial killer from our very own state of Wisconsin. “Before law enforcement coined the term, Gein, and his brutal crimes, ushered in the aegis of the maniac murderer in American popular culture. The serial killer became central to American discussions of public order, criminality, celebrity, and the nature of sexuality in the final third of the 20th century.” Poole defines to us what and when his bloody crimes started. Gein kept gruesome trophies from his killings. This demon had refrigerators full of human organs. Also, Gein turned human skulls into decorative bowls for his bedside. Vulvas were discovered in a shoebox, some painted silver. He also sewed masks and an outfit made of human skin. The police also found a women’s body hollowed out in a manner that a Wisconsin hunter would dress a deer. Poole gives us very accurate descriptions of the horror many victims faced when Gein tore them to shreds. He really brings the trauma to life with these “Bloody Crimes” as Poole describes on page 148, and he supported these claims very well. He also describes the horror stories behind what we see as a tragedy, The Vietnam War.

        The Vietnam War was a gruesome battle fought that escalated in 1968. It galvanized college students into mass protest of every aspect of American institutional life. Those who participated in the revolutionary struggles of the 1960s felt an on growing sense of ease over the direction of American society. The horrors American military personnel visited on the Vietnamese were replicated in the horrors they themselves endured, both in terms of bodily wounds and psychological damage. Poole indicates the massive loss of lives on page 198 was because of frustrated efforts of imperial power in communist what was known back then as North Vietnam. A commander by the name of William Westmoreland, implemented a strategy of “attrition,” or killing of as many Viet Cong soldiers as possible. He considered this the winning strategy of winning this evil war. Pressure on commanders was intense to produce enemy corpses, Platoon members took souvenirs of ears, noses and other flesh to try and impress their commanders. Commanders demanded these body parts to make sure the troops were doing their jobs. Soldiers rounded up Vietnamese women and children and committed murderous acts upon them. Soldiers throwing candy outside the trucks to watch kids be mangled by the next truck in line. If it couldn’t get any more demonic, a Vietnamese woman tells a story on how a U.S. soldier grabbed her son’s hat and dragged his body under the vehicle’s tires, killing him in that very instant. Random acts of evil such as these are dwarfed by death and destruction on the Vietnamese people by the in discriminate use of artillery and power. By wars end, approximately 58,000 dead soldiers, 75,000 wounded and now physically disabled. The trauma of the war left tens and thousands of men with nightmares, severe depression, and other psychological diseases. One case by anthropologist Mai Lan Gustafsson illuminates that a veteran came to believe he was being haunted by the angry spirit of a Viet Cong fighter whose dog tag he had taken back in 1968. He only would find peace when he returned to Vietnam to return the tag of the deceased soldier to his mother. Poole really defines how awful and horrifying the Vietnam War was with these well supported claims. I didn’t realize how violent the U.S. soldiers were to the innocent bystanders of Vietnam. I can really relate to this haunting stories because my mother works at the VA or Veteran Affairs in Union Grove, Wisconsin. She tells me stories on how some men wake up in the middle of the night and reenact what is illustrated in their minds. One story being a man surrounding himself with garbage bins, making noises of gun shots and cussing at the enemies, this being only a minor story, I couldn’t imagine what a major story she has in store for me in the future. From war, we go back to the late 1800’s to see how demonic entities took over Sethe in the novel Beloved