Monsters are creations usually found in fictional stories made by creative and innovative minds in order to bring fear in people. This fear, though fictitious in nature still allows people to become fascinated with the object that is causing the fear.
The same thing can be said most especially of Jack the Ripper, whose true identity has still remained a mystery until this day. Various ideas have propped up regarding this mystery which has turned the serial killer into an icon and a symbol. The mystery is what allows imaginative minds to warp the reality to more closely resemble that of a monster which can instill fear and fascination in the masses.
Popular media has made the serial killer iconic and symbolic by shaping the image to a more intriguing one (CBS News 1). The fascination with finding out the man’s true identity is only possible because it has already happened a long time ago. That is mostly the case with people and their fascination with killers.
People forget the real terror of these events due to them not being in close proximity at the scene of the crimes, they feel inclined to learn more instead of feeling frightened for their safety. The media then banks on this curiosity to garner attention and profit from it. They spin tales about the monstrosity of these characters in order to turn them into commodities.
Fiction and myth, then replace reality due to the former being more interesting to the masses. Though the truth of the matter becomes less and less relevant, there still exists a “mutually determining the relationship between fact and fiction” (Blake and Cooper 204). People’s fascination with killers then is also determined by this relationship of what is fiction and real.
Works Cited
Blake, Brandy Ball, and L. Andrew Cooper. Monsters. USA: Fountainhead Press, 2012. Print.
“The undying fascination over Jack the Ripper.” CBS News., 25 Oct 2015. Web. 20 Jun 2016.
