De rat-mens-chimeer als representatie van angst voor verval

Abstract

Wherever people live, rats live too. Humans have attributed various characteristics to rats: mostly negative (they are said to spread disease and be cannibals), but sometimes positive too (they are clever animals that know how to adapt well in order to survive). Due to the presence of rats in human habitats and the strong connotations that people associate with the animal, it frequently appears in all kinds of cultural expressions. In addition to stories in which rats play a role as animals, there are also other narratives, particularly fables and children's stories, in which more anthropomorphic rats appear. Finally, there are stories in which rats take on hybrid forms. In this article, we specifically examine the rat-human chimera in Western cultural expressions. Starting from monster theory, we first study the character Brown Jenkin(s), who appeared in weird fiction in 1933 and later returned in the postmodern new weird movement. We also examine the evolved rat-people (rensen) in Hugo Raes' The Destruction of Hyperion (1978). The main fear represented by the rat-human chimeras we examine is the loss of the established human order, which is regarded as high culture.