Beautiful Monsters Without the Beauty

Eric Puchner’s Beautiful Monsters, I would have to say was my least favorite short story from The Best American Short Stories collection. I mean, it wasn’t horrible. And, honestly, there were a few parts that I enjoyed quite a bit about the story. I guess I’m just not into the fantasy thing.

This story is based on two children who will never grow old. A boy and his sister. Even though they look like kids, they still have jobs, cook and care for themselves and there are no parents in the house.

The sister has only imagined and read about adults like fathers. She read “a comic book filled with pictures of handsome fathers, contraband drawings of twinkling, well-dressed men playing baseball with their daughters or throwing them high in the air” (BASS, pg. 196-197).  She enjoyed reading about them very much. However, she would soon find out that those comic book stories did not match up with reality.

As the boy makes breakfast, he sees a man outside in his yard picking an apple of his tree. These  were the type of people who were referred to as giants. There had been rumors  that they would rape girls and steal things from the children. They were called the mountain beasts. The man then made his way into the boy’s garage. The boy grabs his gun and heads to the garage. He doesn’t shoot him. He warns him to get off his property.

Kids Rule – Beautiful Monsters

            The way families are portrayed in “Beautiful Monsters” tends to make me a little sick, especially when I realize Eric Puchner makes a valid point—family life in contemporary America is NOT ideal. I know homes and families weren’t perfect fifty years ago either, but it seems like people tried harder to make them work.  Nowadays it is just too easy to give up and find another way, no matter who it hurts.

            Family is an important part of my life. I grew up surrounded by two sets of grandparents, numerous aunts and uncles, too many cousins to count, my parents, and seven siblings.  Even though I liked finding alone time to read, I also spent hours riding my bike, roller skating, or just roaming my grandfather’s farm with my cousins or siblings.  There was a working structure in my family that made me feel secure.  Now that I’m an adult, family is even more valuable as I realize that each member has an important role.  When that role is not filled correctly, the hole that is left can be detrimental to the family as a unit.

            Which is exactly what happens in “Beautiful Monsters.” Because the family structure is not working and the adults are not filling their places properly, people with the know-how decide to create a world without adults.  It only makes sense because adults are the ones that tend to mess things up (such as raising their kids to be proper adults).  So why not let kids rule the world? No more illogical rules made by adults who don’t follow rules themselves.  In fact, no more families. Who needs parents? Just let the kids make all the rules.

            It almost worked. But scientists could not program human emotions, as the boy and girl find out in the story. The girl “owns a contraband comic book filled with pictures of handsome fathers” who spend time playing with their children (196).  This comic book is not filled with destructive porn, but an ideal that no longer is viable in the modern world. Working with the embryos in the science lab makes the girl feel “a pang of loneliness” (201). She doesn’t even realize that what she is feeling is a normal maternal instinct. In fact, she tries to stifle those emotions and that causes her to be even more unhappy and resentful.

            The boy has always known how to build houses. “He was born knowing these things” (197). What he wasn’t born with was knowing how to have fun. All he and his sister know is going to work, cooking and cleaning, and paying bills. A real family will take time out for each other. I remember I would spend a half hour brushing my mom’s hair and she would pay me. I would go to the candy store two blocks down the street, but I had to have enough money to buy something for everyone and not just myself. How could children without adults grow up knowing that concept?

            And why are rules so terrible anyhow? One of the rules I remember—and didn’t like or appreciate as a child—was to obey now and not two hours later. But as an adult, I am reaping the benefits of that rule. I know how to get work done on time instead of procrastinating. I know how to do a good day’s work because I owe it to my employer.

            The story is well-written, but even more than that, it has a moral to it that contemporary America needs. Our nation is never going to be stronger than its families. Solid family structure is what builds strong and dependable young people and children. Those children are going to be the future adults of the nation. If they aren’t taught rules in the home, they will not know how to keep society’s rules.

            If you are interested, there is an interesting article called “Why Is Family Important” by Girije Shinde on buzzle.com.

Sarah Arch

Monsters: Humans

Beautiful Monsters is without a doubt one of my favorite stories in BASS so far. In just a few short pages, Puchner is able to demonstrate nearly every human emotion. Puchner not only validates rules of society, but also defines what makes all of us monsters: human nature.

Let’s be logical and start where the story does. The first characters to be introduced are 2 so called Perennials (children scientifically altered to never age). These kids live in a perfect world; they never get older, they are born “encoded with all the knowledge they’ll ever need” (201), and they have no adults around to set forth rules.

Sounds pretty darn sweet to me.

Now that the foundation is set, let’s get back to the characters themselves. Throughout the story, the children are affectionately referred to as “the boy” and “the girl.” Just makes you feel all warm and fuzzy, doesn’t it? But Puchner doesn’t stop there. Not only are the kids separated by their titles, but through their roles in society. The boy builds stuff. The girl works at a baby lab. Sounding familiar yet? If not, it should at least sound sexist as hell. However, I love that Puchner is not afraid to send the boy to work and keeps the woman in the kitchen. As horrible as it sounds, it’s not entirely untrue. Both the boy and the girl have their part, and they play it very well. Looking at it that way, our worlds are not so different.

Early in the story, the kids discover a grown man. In their world, grownups are frightening, horrid creatures. But rather than turn the man into the police, the boy takes pity and decides to hide him. This is where the story really kicks in. At first, the boy and girl are “appalled” by the imperfect adult with “hair growing out of his face” (198-9). The man is big and “ugly,” nothing like the “handsome father” the girl had always imagined (197). This, I’m sure, is something all of us can relate to on some level.Furthermore, it is fascinating to see it from a child’s perspective. Even with all their smarts, the children still prove to be naïve.

With the man there, the boy and girl begin to actually act their age (well, at least their physical age).  The children have a not so successful puppet show, ride around on the man’s back while he “whinn[ies] like a horse,” and they “giggle in a way [they have] never giggled before” (202). At this point, it’s almost like the kids are somewhat normal…which ironically makes them weird in their world.

So the kids now have a father figure. Their new man/parent will “sometimes yell at them,” makes them eat things he’s cooked even if they don’t like it, and threatens to send them to bed for misbehaving. The boy and girl are not accustomed to such rules and regulations. With their new parent disrupting their formerly perfect lives, the children think about what any normal child would. They consider simply killing him. The way Puchner utilizes this to flip the story is both frightening and intriguing.

When the man gets sick from a wound, the children realize what a “burden” he really is for them. Without him their lives could go back to the way they were; even with the man gone, the boy and girl will “be together forever.” Although the kids were excited upon discovering the man, they soon realize how “relieved” they will be once he is gone (209). If given the option, who doesn’t want to pick the easy way out? Yet another horrifyingly accurate accusation.

What I like best about Beautiful Monsters is it emphasizes that humans are exactly what the title suggests. We are all simple stereotypical creatures; selfish, self-preserving humans. Monsters.

~Theresa Tiller

For all you visual learners who need a good laugh. And anyone else who wants to learn more.