Something that stuck out to me during the reading started on Page 2 of Monstro:

“A huge rah-rah, but when the experts determined that it wasn’t communicable in the standard ways, and the normal immune system appeared to be at no kind of risk, the renminbi and the attention and the savvy went elsewhere. And since it was just poor Haitian types getting fucked up—no real margin in that.”

Basically, when the disease first reared its head experts rushed to the scene to try and figure it out. But as time progressed and it appeared to only be affecting the Haitians the interest dwindled until new developments like when the infected started showing an intense need to be close to other infected. A race, culture, group of people had been neglected by the world for about seven months until the new symptoms showed up. I remember from the reading from Beck, that there is a sociological demonstration that groups are being neglected. That there is an increase in social inequalities and economic outcries. “…the transgression of values is selective and can be permanently institutionalized. The same is true for social inequality. It does not apply to the consequences of modernization, which threatens survival.” (Page 83).

While reading Monstro, something else that struck me that I didn’t quite understand is how the 40 ft. cannibals came into fruition. Were they created from the infected fusing together to create the monstrosity? That is the only reason I could think of for their emergence in the story. The use of a passage of the Bible, Numbers 11:18, was particularly unsettling after being presented with grotesque images of the disease. Imagine it, a large form created through the fusion of the diseased covered in “A black mold-fungus-blast that came on like a splotch and then gradually started taking you over, tunneling right through you” and “Black rotting rugose masses fruiting out of bodies.” (Page 2). There was no smell described in the passage but one could only imagine how much more horrifying such an experience would be with the added detail of the smell of rotting flesh and decay with the raised voices of the infected wailing in the background. I feel as though there might be some other meaning or even a deeper meaning to the use of the cannibal but that reason is beyond my grasp at this point. I likened the monster to zombies since it is cannibal. Though if it is a being made up of the fused infected I would encounter the question of if it is alive or dead.