Monsters are symbols and representations of a culture. They exist because of certain places or feelings of an era. Monsters are “the embodiment of a certain cultural moment.” Grendel author John Gardner and Frankenstein author Mary Shelley both create a monster to represent something larger than himself in order to make the reader think about "his fears, his desires, his anxiety and its fantasies” in society, which is explained in Monster Culture by Jefferey Cohen (Seven Theses). The latest trend in monster media, zombies, also fits into Cohen's theses about what a monster is. Jeffery Cohen's first thesis states that “the monster's body is a cultural body”. Monsters give meaning to culture. The characteristics of a monster come from a culture's deepest fears and fantasies. Monsters are metaphors and pure representational allegories. What a society chooses to make monstrous says a lot about the people in that society. Monsters help us express and find our darkest places, our deepest fears or our scariest thoughts. The monsters that scare us, vampires, zombies, witches, help us face what we fear most in life. Fear of the monstrous has brought communities and cultures closer together. Society is made up of different cultural beliefs, ideas, and actions. Within society, there are always those excluded, people who do not fit the norm or who do not follow the status quo. People who don't fit in become monsters feared almost unanimously by those who stick to the status quo. As human nature, we tend to judge too much. We judge others by the color of their skin, their weight, whether or not they have acne, and the way they dress. The Creature, from Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein, is on trial throughout the novel. He looks different, "His…… middle of paper……r cannot be satisfied." The zombie is a consumer. Nowadays, zombies are most often used as a metaphor for the out-of-control consumerism that is plaguing our generation. We buy blindly without thinking, either because of the low price, lust, or simply because we want more. We are guilty of “zombie consumerism.” Zombie consumerism is evident in George Romeros' film, Dawn of the Dead. In this film, a shopping mall is where the characters take refuge and becomes the setting in which humans stay in the zombie battle. They gorge themselves on free food and are delighted to have almost everything at their fingertips, all to themselves. It looks perfect. They can consume whatever they want and everything will be fine forever. It is ironic then that there is nothing left and they must find new sources of shelter, food and resources, or become those resources themselves...