There has always been a fascination with the occult and paranormal when it comes to various works of fiction. Authors love to create these creatures that seem to come from the darkest nightmares and send chills down the readers, or viewers, spines. This has been a fad since that continues to grow and be expanded upon which allows old legends to be remade into grisly renditions or for newer monsters to take the scenes. One of the most iconic and popular horror creature in the American film industry is Freddy Krueger. Freddy made his debut in 1984 when he was portrayed on film in Wes Craven’s Nightmare on Elm Street. The background of Freddy Kruger is a much damaged individual who was damned to live a life of hatred and cruelty since his birth. This causes him to become the monster he is now; going on killing sprees of teenagers throughout their dreams. The purpose of this essay will be to provide a character analysis on Freddy Krueger to show why Freddy acts and commits the crimes he does by using his original film to show the type of creature he is and how he has evolved through from being a serial killer to a murderous demonic entity.
In the original movie by Craven, Freddy Krueger came into the world under very depraved and immoral consequences. In 1941, Freddy’s mother, Amanda Krueger, was accidental locked in the sanitarium of Westin Hills Psychiatric Institute in Springwood over the holidays. The inmates kept her hidden where the guards would not find here and repeatedly forced themselves on her hundreds of times. When she was found, she was barely alive and when Freddy was born he was dubbed the insult of “the bastard son of a hundred maniacs” (“Freddy Krueger”, n.d.). It can be argued that Freddy got his sadistic nature from the various men who forced themselves on his mother or it was due to the treatment he received from his peers while growing up. Freddy was often ridiculed because of the way his was born and moved from one foster home to another throughout his childhood. It was in his youth and due to the treatment he received that he first started to torture and then kill small animals. One would think that Freddy would eventually take his own life since all he knew his whole life was hatred and pain. However, he went back to his hometown where he constructed his infamous bladed-glove at the factory he worked in. His hatred for children allowed him to become the Springwood Slasher where he killed twenty-three children. It can be analyzed that the reason he chose children as his victims is because he was tortured by them throughout his youth. In addition to that, he most likely never had a proper and healthy childhood of this own, thus leading him to be jealous of the children who got to have what he didn’t. Not only that, but he also has a motivation to kill these children since they are the descendants of the people who ran him out of town as a child. In his first film, Freddy was sadistic and terrifying in his plot to kill the people of the town who tormented him when he was younger. According to the origin of how he died, Freddy most likely wanted to keep his third-degree burned face to not only terrify his victims but to remind them of what they put him through as well. Once again, the question of whether it was nature or nurture that turned Freddy into the cruel person he was when he was alive and returned as a homicidal entity. Although the ways that Freddy goes after his victims varies from person to person, the reason for the grisly character’s existence is still the same throughout all of his movies.
Freddy’s reason to exist is because he is the personification for everyone’s fears, not just children. That is how he functions, by examining the real horrors in the characters’ head and bringing them to life in his dream-realm. Wes Craven created a monster that everyone can identify with. Freddy can represent the audiences already pre-existing fears of the unknown around them such as what lurks in the dark and what type of person could be around you at any time of the day. Freddy may be a presentation of the bully who used to torment them in school, the creepy neighbor who only comes out at night, an abusive family member, or even the fears that people repress in the minds that come up late at night when they cannot sleep. Robert Englund, the actor who plays Freddy Krueger, believes that the monster represents the fears that children have about entering adulthood. To him, he sees Freddy as a symbol of the “of the impending inevitability of individualistic responsibility and absorption into the real world” (Swift, n.d.). With this in mind, Freddy is essentially the “monster under the bed” that all people must face in order to overcome their fears.
Wes Craven’s creation “Freddy Krueger” was inspired by true events that he read about in a newspaper article. This lead to him creating the monster that is known to prowl around in teenagers dream to bring about his revenge. Due to the circumstances of Freddy’s birth, this sealed his fate as an outcast since he was already branded a monster when he was born. As an adult he returned to his hometown to get his vengeance on the children who bullied and turned him away as a child by killing their children. Even in death, his hatred and evilness were so strong that he came back as a sleep demon to kill more people, specifically teenagers, in their nightmares. Craven inadvertently created a monster that people can identify with in their lives. Freddy Krueger’s existence and function is to remind people of the horrors, fears, and worries that they already have to deal with in their daily lives. This is what makes him a terrifying monster when it comes to American horror stories; he is the monster that sleeps under most people’s bed and what keeps them up at night.
Works Cited:
"Freddy Krueger." IMDb. IMDb.com, n.d. Web. 26 June 2016.
Moore, Trent. "Wes Craven Reveals the Terrifying True Story That Inspired Freddy Krueger." Blastr. Syfy, 20 Oct. 2014. Web. 26 June 2016.
Swift, Jay. "The Sociology of Freddy." Retro Junk. Retro Junk, n.d. Web. 26 June 2016.
Annoted Bibliography
"Freddy Krueger." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 26 June 2016.
Annotation Follows:
In this article, the author talks about the history of the Nightmare on Elm Street movies and its protagonist, Freddy Krueger. It goes into details about the various main characters, the actors who play them, and the origin of the demon Freddy. It also provides information on other medias that Freddy has starred in such as video games and television appearances. In a rating of the most greates villians, Freddy ranked at number fourteen. The page also goes into detailed information on how the director, Wes Craven, came up with the idea of Freddy’s iconic claw-glove.
"Killing Fields." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 26 June 2016.
Annotation Follows:
In this article, the author talks about what was the Killing Fields in Cambodia. During the Khmer Rouge regime, it was a place where millions of people were killed and buried. It is believed that more than 20,000 mass graves and a million exucutions happened in that field. It got the name “Killing Field” by a Cambodian reporter who was able to escape the regime. The article gives insight on what the family’s story meant about the son having nightmares of someone chasing him, which in turned inspired Wes Craven to create Freddy Krueger.
