Phantom of the Opera Connection

Through reading the Phantom of the Opera, one connection that very prominently stood out to me was one of Cohen’s theses. It is his Thesis 4: The Monster Dwells at the Gates of Difference. The reason that this stuck out to me is because the Phantom has a physical facial deformity. As I mentioned in one of my previous blog posts, any person with a physical or mental disability or deformity was looked at as a monster and not a human being during the time in which this was written. People who did not fit the “stereotype” of what society expected you to look like were often shunned and there was a sort of taboo surrounding just talking about it. I feel that this is how the Phantom felt with society against him. While he didn’t help his case through his actions, he had probable cause to act the way he did because of the way society treated him. This goes back to Cohen’s thesis because I believe it strongly depicts the gates of difference in society between those who fit the social norms and those who do not.