“People, Corrupted”: Monstrous Transformations in “The Whistlers” and “Whitefall”

Abstract: This essay explores monstrosity in two contemporary horror stories: “The Whistlers” by Amity Argot, and “Whitefall” by C.K. Walker, focusing on how the humans in these texts are monstrously transformed. The monsters and monstrosity present in the texts are read against some of the cultural anxieties of postmodernity, and against various monstrous frameworks such as that of the zombie, the terrorist, and the monstrous space and nature. Both texts present monstrous spaces intent on perverting humans by eroding them physically until they reach a state of bare life that mimics zombification and may allegorize socioeconomic inequality, displacement, and the effects of capitalism; as well as by enticing them to commit atrocities against each other and transgress the very moral boundaries that defined them as human, up to and including cannibalism. In this way, these monsters reveal humans as their own annihilators, laying bare an innate human monstrosity that emerges from the traumatic conditions of postmodernity.