Prelude to All Hallows: Musings on Monsters

"He ate my heart, he ate-ate-ate my heart, he ate my heart out...." - Lady Gaga

"The nineteenth century dislike of Romanticism is the rage of Caliban not seeing his own face in a glass." - Oscar Wilde

"I had worked hard for nearly two years, for the sole purpose of infusing life into an inanimate body. For this I had deprived myself of rest and health. I had desired it with an ardour that far exceeded moderation; but now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart." - Victor Frankenstein

Ah yes, what story of perverted natural philosophy would be complete without an abomination of science?
Monsters- why do we have monsters? Why on earth does it make sense for a large portion of the population to put on a rubber mask and run around shrieking? And why does an equally large amount of people obsess with them?
A little backstory on this- my brothers have worked at the Colonial Gardens' Haunted Hayride for several years now. I joined last year and work in an undisclosed segment of the Haunted House portion, which is a pitch-black maze where the only people allowed to have lights are the monsters that are waiting at every dead-end stop to jump at you. The odd part about this job is that it provides me with a unique post for observing how people react to evil. In a lot of ways, monsters are tangible symbol of evil- cancer, disease, death, cruelty- the monster is a walking talking shouting menacing form of things that shouldn't be allowed to exist in a rational, God-created world. And because they are evil, how people deal with them (even the garden-variety Haunted House characters, which they know are just trying to entertain) can be quite telling.
One mother with her kid leans in and coos at the front-door. "See, Briana, that's not a real monster, it's just a mask, see?" (Note: this is horribly embarrassing for the monster). Message: monsters aren't real. Things aren't that bad. The kid remained unconvinced and tried to get even more behind her mother.
There are those whose first reaction (regardless of their best intentions) is to swing at a monster that jumps out at them. This type of unfortunate has a very boring experience, because once that happens, he'll have a hellish time getting out, at which point the manager will be waiting to kick him off the premises.
Shockingly, the ones who curse the most are fifteen-year-old girls, who apparently decided the best way to deal with evil is a steady stream of foul language.
The fathers (bless 'em) go through the house laughing most of the time, and seem happier the more scared their kids get- they love it when one monster catches a kid's name and repeats it, until it seems like the entire house knows who little Connor is and wants to meet him. These wise men have decided to acquaint their children early with evil, and prepare their kids for a life of dealing with real monsters.