Looking Through the Monster Glass: The Monstrous Feminine and Awad’s Bunny

Tara Cristin McKee

“A free woman in an unfree society will be a monster.” – Angela Carter

Introduction

“Heathers but on acid.” This is how Mona Awad’s Bunny was described to me when a student recommended it to me some years ago. Instantly, I was intrigued. The book has also been compared to Mean Girls and The Craft as well, but with a surrealist twist. As I first read this book, I was in awe of the craft of writing, its pop culture satire, and its use of magical realism and horror. It was a book I knew I needed to read again and a book I needed to talk with others about. Awad has created a modern fairy tale that critiques mean girl attitudes, creation and creativity in predatory, patriarchal institutions, complacency and agency, and abjection due to class and gender that melts into a cautionary story and a story of empowerment. I intend to pair this book with critical monster theory, a unique lens which deals with the ideas of The Other and critiques the fears of society.

Teaching Situation and Rationale

I teach at a magnet school in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It has a diverse student body, ranging from those students who help support themselves and their families to those who are extremely wealthy. Booker T. Washington High School’s current student body is 35% African American, 36% Caucasian, 3% Asian, 13% Hispanic, 9% Multi-Race, and 4% American Indian with 38% of our population on free and reduced lunch. My classroom reflects this diversity. Also, the classes I teach, Pre-AP English II IB-MYP (focus on World Literature), AP Language and Composition (focus on American Literature), and IBHL Literature I, have students with ranging abilities, so it is important that I differentiate and scaffold my instruction, as well as build in some flexibility for those students who need it. This unit will be written for my IBHL Literature I classes, but I feel like the information and texts will be useful for other grade levels as well. 

I taught The Great Gatsby this year, as I have done for the past several years. Towards the end of this unit, I had a group of students ask why I teach this novel. “It’s so boring and the way Fitzgerald writes, uggggghhhhhh! Can’t we read something more modern that still deals with some of the thematic issues of Gatsby?” one student said. This got me thinking about changing up my literary choices for my Juniors.  Why not choose something more modern? Why stick to the dated classics? Why not try something new – something that may stretch my students in new ways?

A few years ago, I had a student who had suggested I read Mona Awad’s Bunny. I read it and loved it; it was different from anything that I had read before. Since then, I have had several students read the novel and we have had many thought-provoking and intelligent conversations about it. We talked about social class, writing and creativity, conformity/nonconformity, mental illness/ perceptions of reality, and identity, not to mention the bunny motif throughout the book. As mentioned before, this book has been compared to Heathers, a 1980s movie my students love, but on acid with its surreal, fairytale style of writing. There are also elements of Frankenstein paired with another 80s classic Weird Science. With its modern voice and surrealist structure, this book can be used to talk about a variety of issues students are dealing with: loneliness, societal expectations of gender, failure, exclusion, class differences, perfectionism and fitting in – and it does so in a way that will capture the attention of my students. It’s a very cinematic novel, the language uniquely descriptive, yet dripping with dark humor and social criticism. I predict students will love going down the rabbit hole with this novel, leaving dated Gatsby floating in the past.

Although this book does have adult language and concepts, there is nothing overtly graphic about the content. With this in mind, teachers should definitely approach this novel with caution depending on their school and their students. Teachers might consider including only certain parts of this book. Because I teach IB/AP classes which are essentially college classes and because I have parents read and sign off on my course outline and have a supportive administration, I feel confident that this book can be approached in a high school classroom and, honestly, be beneficial and relevant for my students due to the issues it tackles and its setting: college and the institutions of academia.

Unit Content

Mona Awad’s novel Bunny borders on horror and fantasy with smattering of the supernatural that as stated before combines many issues of the modern young person. I have summarized the novel using its three parts and added my thoughts and analysis as a jumping off point for this novel. These annotations and reactions are subjective, and teachers can use this information as a way to generate discussion with students.

Bunny: Part One

In part one, we have the introduction of Samantha, Ava, and the Bunnies. There are definite references to social class. Samantha is definitely not a person of privilege and the Bunnies and the college she attends are representations of money and wealth. Within the first few chapters, readers get a sense of the competition between women (as generated by patriarchy) and the strong need for Samantha to belong, although she would never admit to it. Male characters are portrayed as predators to the Bunnies and Samantha – there is the Lion, a mentor and teacher, who Samantha has had some sort of run in with, but left to our imaginations we as readers could spin our own tale. The character of Jonah interests me and makes me think of Jonah and the Whale, and we find out later his car is named “The Whale.” This is obviously a biblical allusion. He is not predatory at all and seems to be a safe person for Samantha.

We begin with the fantasies of creating the perfect man with Ava and Samantha and their creation of Diego. Then, Samanatha forsaking Ava to attend an event the Bunnies invited her to, just to be “nice” and to be included. Ava is the antithesis of the Bunnies. In chapter five, Samantha goes to the Bunnies’ Smut Salon. She describes what she envisions the Bunnies doing in their spare time at home which seems to me like a sexual fantasy. A reader may ask is Samantha gay? We start seeing Samantha lie to be polite and try to please them, as she tells her story of Rob Valencia and how they die together in a play. As Samantha tries to rationalize having this experience with the Bunnies, she has an imaginary conversation with Ava. Ava calls them lame and Samantha says, “‘These are the women in my department. These are my peers.’ ‘Women? Try children, Smackie. Try grown women who act like little girls.’ ‘They’re graduate students,’ I argue back. ‘Exactly. Hiding from life in the most coddling, insular, and self-aggrandizing way.’”¹ After telling them about Rob Valencia, the Bunnies ask her to catch a bunny. Samantha is clearly drunk, and as we continue, Samantha is being drugged by the Bunnies – being held against her will. This kind of reminds me of rape culture and then the allusion to what happened about her and the Lion. Samantha says, “But if I remember all the right details. If I tell them in the right order. If I pause in the right places, trail off in the right places…”² . If we read this book as a commentary and criticism of patriarchy, we are all drugged by the patriarchy and the media.

After this encounter with the Bunnies, she starts talking to bunnies she sees on campus, seeing bunnies everywhere. Is she crazy? You could definitely discuss with students about her mental health. Many readers have diagnosed Samantha as schizophrenic. I can understand that analysis, but I feel like it undermines her strength as a character. You might have students start thinking about the symbol of the Bunny – there is something innocent about a bunny, but then not– playboy bunnies, rabbits multiply uncontrollably, Bunnicula. In an interview by Nechamkin, Awad says, “I’ve always been fascinated by bunnies, because they’re just so culturally loaded, especially for women.”³ She goes on to note, “The interesting thing about the bunny is that it can assume male characteristics or masculine characteristics, but also feminine characteristics. It’s associated with both genders, both kinds of presentations.”⁴ Using the bunny as the title and a motif adds a bit of horror and creep factor due to its seemingly innocent surface. However, when you stop to think about them and what they could represent, it seems more sinister.

Samantha loses Ava and then finds her, and she is wearing a coat made from rabbit fur, and then loses her again. She exclaims how lonely she is without Ava and then gets an invite to the Bunnies again. Is her losing Ava a metaphor for Samantha losing herself and her values, being sucked into a patriarchal trap? In chapter 11, we have the prom scene – aka the make-over scene.. Soon, Samantha is introduced to Rob Valencia after meeting some of the other Bunnies’ dates where = something off. Here we have 25 year-old women re-living their 17-year-old prom fantasies. Is that all women want to do? Relive their teen moments as if in some sort of Hollywood film? This seems to be commentary about what women are fed by the patriarchal media – A woman must wait to be chosen by a man- her value and worth tied to a romantic heterosexual relationship. While Samantha is dancing with Rob, she hears this voice say, “Float, float, isn’t this nice?”⁵ Throughout this book,  Samantha repeats that she is “floating” – as if in a dream world (a world created by Hollywood through patriarchy?); her reality is skewed and she is just absentmindedly conforming to the Bunny clique. After she has this blissful floating moment, she notices Rob “munching on the corsage with a vengeance.”⁶ This scene almost reminds me of a rape scene. Samantha yells stop, and “Then his eyes suddenly fill with hate.”⁷ He then begins to speak as if he were a Bunny, “We invited you to things, you wouldn’t come…All you remember is Samantha Heather Mackey is the victim…”⁸ Rob begins to “mean girl” Samantha, highlighting what the Bunnies really think about her or what they have said about her. Then his head explodes. This is an example of mean girl culture.

After this Bunny prom scene, she is completely initiated into the Bunny clique with more floating and a lot of gaslighting on from the Bunnies. An example of this is “‘That’s what you think you saw, okay?’”⁹ There is some interesting word play about the word “saw”¹⁰ and “block”¹¹ that is very reminiscent of Margaret Atwood’s writing in The Handmaid’s Tale. There is also an echo of Offred in Samantha – just being so obedient in this  “new world” of the Bunnies like Offred was in Gilead. My students will have read The Handmaid’s Tale so I would make sure to make this comparison.

At the end of part one, Samantha is allowed to see the Bunnies’ Workshop where they create these hybrid bunny men. The ritual they have created to do this seems part witch ritual, part little girl play, part avant-garde art installation, and this is where it is serving me Weird Science vibes. Samantha is clearly still being drugged, floating, and nodding her way through this experience. She keeps being told to “trust” them. When they start this ritual, they are wearing aprons “like they’re about to bake a cake.”¹² It seems as if the Bunnies are warping and manipulating traditional gender roles–reclaiming them as a way of making them powerful.

This is interesting in terms of female ritual; it’s where women should be – in the kitchen. There is an irony created with this scene that Awad is clearly wanting us to notice. Samantha is losing her voice as well: “There is so much I want to say to this injustice, but when my mouth moves to say the pointed slappy words of retort, all that comes out is happy drool.”¹³ Samantha clearly desires to be part of this ritual. As they are building their perfect hybrid, who has characteristics of broodiness, cockiness, animal magnetism, and verisimilitude, a few hybrids come out noncompliant/ screaming, so the Bunnies, Kira specifically, kill them with an ax. There is this metaphor about the bunny hybrids being representative of writing drafts and the whole “kill your darlings” reference since these are all writing students, but while that metaphor works, there is so much more to read into this, especially if you use monster theory. It’s as if they are creating for perfection and for a manifestation of their romanticized desires which need to be perfect just like a film. Bunny Workshop is about creation, creating essentially a monster, and when it is not up to snuff, they kill it and recreate another. This part ends with Samantha’s realization that they “want her” in their group and in their workshop.

Bunny: Part Two

Samantha is fully indoctrinated into the Bunny group. We have the use of “we” now when she describes the Bunnies. The Bunnies feel like God, although they refuse to admit that. While admiring their creations, they say, “So what if they all look the same?… So what if they all say the same things?… So what if anatomically there are some things missing? Essential things. Like hands, genitals. An untwisted mouth. Possibly a soul. Still, it’s a good start. We’ll get better.”¹⁴ Readers find out that some hybrids don’t meet the fate of the ax and get released into the world and they rationalize it as “putting art into the world.”¹⁵ Then, we get a better sense of all their fantasies from mermen to Dracula to James Dean to Tim Riggins from Friday Night Lights.

Ava basically kidnaps Samantha where we find out she has been missing for two months. Ava accuses her of being in a cult and tries to pull her out of it, but Sam has definitely been brainwashed. The Bunnies find her talking to Ava in a diner and intervene. Eleanor, aka The Duchess, has words outside with Ava and Ava leaves. Samantha wants to know what they talked about, but Eleanor distracts her by calling the poet Jonah over, and the Bunnies leave Samantha with him, as if they are doing her a favor. Jonah drives her around in his car (aka the Whale) while she looks for Ava. Some discussion to have with students would be about Jonah and why Awad uses this allusion. Jonah could represent disobedience which is what landed him in the belly of the whale. You could have students look up the biblical story and brainstorm Awad’s use of this allusion.

As she is about to give up, she gets a text message from a Bunny to come over. Jonah drives her there. He seems to do anything for Samantha and seems to be out of pure care for her and their friendship. Before she walks to the door of Eleanor’s, she sees a stag outside which is important to note for later. A hybrid opens the door to her house and readers realize that they are using the hybrids as servants. This definitely has to do with the Bunnies social class. Is using their monsters as servants making the Bunnies the true monsters in this situation? Sam walks into what she thinks is a gossip circle – the Bunnies talking about her, wanting to kick her out of the group. She finds out they have been talking about her, but instead of kicking her out, they want her to try to create her own Bunny boy. Sam starts referring to the Bunnies as “the blob.”¹⁶ She attempts to remember her hate of them, as Ava reminded her of, but gets sucked back in.

Sam attempts to create her own bunny boy, but fails to make the bunny explode. This scene is hard to read as you are rooting for Sam to show up the Bunnies, but instead the bunny just hops away. She does think this, “…whatever true want I have lives under all this greasy, spineless needing to please isn’t something I want to give them.”¹⁷ One cannot help but realize that this is a direct comment about the societal standards for women – this pressure to please and to conform. There is a defiance to this desire to fit into this group. As the group parts for the night, they realize that there is a boy standing in a bus shelter. They go talk to him to see if he is one of their creations; he clearly seems like a real man, but tells them a story of seeing a bunny being killed by a red wolf. Then he gets on a bus, headed home.

Sam attends the last workshop of the semester as a failure in the Bunnies’ eyes. They do not sit by her, do not look at her, and do not talk to her. They all give Ursula, the workshop professor, a gift, making Sam feel like more of an outsider. Then Kira suggests that they all write about something for their last workshop and then share. She suggests that they write about “home.”¹⁸ Home is the last word that the mysterious bus boy said, and it is something that they know Samantha is without. Sam thinks, “Mocking me. They’re mocking me.”¹⁹ The Bunnies share their writings that Sam describes as about “really, obviously, being rich. And content. And unalone.”²⁰ All three things Sam is not. She then refuses to share hers – an act of defiance– of refusing to be part of their group any more. There is a mandatory cookie party after which she describes the Bunnies around a cauldron, “cackling all around it like the witches they really are.”²¹

After the party, she finally has a meeting with the Lion about her thesis. He is wearing a T-shirt that has “a large-busted woman getting strangled by a horned monster. The woman looks, of course, as if she is in ecstasy. They always do.”²² So his underlying predatory nature is mirrored on his shirt. He gives her an ultimatum about seeing her writing after the break or he is going to have to have a serious talk with her. This has to say something about sharing creative work with a man who has clearly taken advantage of her.

She goes back to her apartment as what she perceives as a failure. She focuses on the fact that the Bunnies have gotten “only stronger now that they have witnessed my failure.”²³ True failure is failure in front of people  whose acceptance you crave. This may say something about women indulging in other women’s failures as a way to feel good about themselves within the confines of patriarchy. Samantha is clearly very ill but hyperfocusing on this desire “To slip into their creamy skins and live there. To lie in their just-right princess beds with the clean white cloud sheets and dream their bland dreams. To be welcomed through their pillar-flanked doors by their Wonder Bread mothers and fathers. Who are alive. Who are not in debt. Who are not hiding in the mountains of Mexico among the emaciated dogs and the sunbaked dust. Who are not wanted for fraud or corruption.”²⁴ This says something about the comparative nature of our society and feeling less than those who are rich. There could be a Marxist reading here.

She runs into mystery bus stop man at a fancy grocery store, and he is clearly stealing food. Then, she runs into Ursula, her workshop professor, who then asks her to come over for Christmas dinner. She accepts and goes to find that Jonah is there too. Jonah seems to be a source of comfort and grounding for Samantha. He shows care for her. He is open and honest about everything. I think he may be the most refreshing character in this novel. It is clear that Ursula is wanting to be the savior of the poor, lonely students, getting off on their “Trauma Porn.”²⁵ She soon realizes that one of the caterers at Ursula’s is one of the bunny boys they left in the wild. She soon leaves the Christmas dinner early to go to the bus stop across from The Duchess’s apartment. She ends up on a bus that has the “wolfish” mystery boy. She gets off at his stop and follows him and ends up at Ava’s house.

Bunny: Part Three

Samantha’s recovery from Bunny brainwash is focused on in the next few chapters. Ava and Sam go back to drawing and writing and their regular routine before the Bunnies. Sam’s writer’s block is obviously broken now that she is not in competition, which is commentary on how patriarchal-driven competition holds women back. Ava tries to have Sam work on her agency as someone recovering from being in a cult. However, there is this description of Sam picking out a coat, saying “Looks great, Love it, only to satisfy her. The truth is I saw nothing. The tall watery form of a stranger with a black cloud for hair. A woman blurred around the edges. The Dead.”²⁶ I think there is something here – this idea of how many women are people pleasers and how doing that waters down and fades one’s identity. There is a part where Ava suggests blowing up Warren. Ava is the Christian Slater character from Heathers, Samantha is Veronica. This fantasy then ends when Sam realizes that Max, the mystery bus boy, lives upstairs in Ava’s apartment, and that Ava and Max are together. We also realize that Max is most definitely one of Samantha’s creations – he is a bunny boy. At this realization, I wonder if Sam creates a bunny boy for Ava.  Is she wishing she was him? A male counterpart to one of the people she loves the most? You can tell that Sam was/is attracted to Max, but he has chosen Ava instead– another failure, another betrayal. When she is near him, she describes her “Rib cage opening”²⁷ and then he condescendingly “ruffles her hair like [she’s] a dog.”²⁸

As she gets to know Max, who cooks them dinner of “Rabbit cooked four different ways,”²⁹ she knows that he is her creation. His features seem to shift and for Ava, “He is now the picture of smiling, gentlemanly presence, the perfect boyfriend who is interested, genuinely interested in the lives of his girlfriend’s friends.”³⁰ The irony is not lost when Max is chewing on bunny meat and Ava and Sam are talking about how awful the Bunnies are. Sam admits that they should be destroyed. At this dinner, we realize that Max says the things that Sam has written about Ava to Ava. And he tangos. Samantha has created a version of a man that fits perfectly with Ava; the man she wishes she could be.

Sam snoops in Max’s room and finds one of her old notebooks that contains email addresses of her workshop attendees, the Bunnies and Ursula. She also notices his phone which she picks up and sees several texts from the Bunnies calling Max various names and have suggestive messages, revealing that Max has had romantic encounters with all the Bunnies.

There is an emergency workshop meeting where all the Bunnies come in separately, the Bunny blob no more. One by one the Bunnies enter carrying a white box. They all read their work which is obviously all inspired by Max. They are in direct competition with each other over this boy. Gone are the compliments and support the Bunnies had of each other and entered in criticism and name calling. Samantha cannot help but feel that she is the cause of all of this. Max did this destruction of the Bunnies because that is what she wanted. Ursula comments on the androcentric writing by saying, “Do we really want to enforce that narrative that we’re ‘saved’ by a boy? Illuminated by a boy? Ravished by a boy? The same boy, it seems? Who says the same things to save and ravish and illuminate us? Do we really want that to be the Work?… “One would hope the Work wouldn’t just be the stuff of slumber parties.”³¹ . This seems to hit the nail on the head – this is what we are thinking. This strong group of monstrous cute women, who were creating hybrid men, to be destroyed by what seems to be a real(ish) man. Max is more like a man than any other hybrid creation – he has hands, genitals, and his own plans/ mind. And this more man-like creation ruins the bond, albeit imperfect bond, that these women created. They were each other’s support system and now they are tearing each other down.

She talks to Max about this. Again, channeling Christian Slater’s character from Heathers, “He smiles dreamily. ‘They are free now …from each other anyway.’”³² He has destroyed their collective power – patriarchy’s dream. He then asks, “‘What am I, Samantha? A Monster?’ Yes. And I’ve unleashed you upon the world.”³³ She realizes what her own insecurities have created – a man who can destroy the bond of women. As she watches Ava fall more deeply in love with him, she describes Max as consuming them. Sam then tells Ava about her creation which Ava obviously does not believe because it sounds so crazy, and Sam leaves to go to another emergency meeting with Ursala and the Lion.

Samantha finally tells the story about where the Lion and her relationship went wrong. She was drunk and he took her home to his apartment. She describes, “Sitting across from him in his ever-spinning living room. Our slurred talk skipping from one book to the next, from one topic to the next, like we were on a jerky fast-forward.”³⁴ She then tells about how she was the one doing all the talking, “Until all [her] words had spilled to the floor.”³⁵ Then, Sam begins to cry and tells him her most inner thoughts where “he just kept drinking, kept watching”³⁶ and says that “The absence of his voice and touch so palpable it acquired physical weight.” This feels like a rape of thought/emotions. His lack of engagement while she is being vulnerable feels predatory and now we know why she calls him the Lion. She describes herself leaving his house after this as “empty and emptied” with “all [her] words still on his floor. Wanting so badly to pick them back up.”³⁷ Again, she gave him something she never meant to give. That was the night she met Ava.

When she gets to the Cave, the place where her workshop is held, she is met with Ursula and the Lion, who are obviously hybrid creations and bound to a chair. Bunny Lion and Bunny Ursula just berate her writing and say she is not Warren material, clearly musing from the jealous Bunnies. Bunny Lion then chokes her until she blacks out, another violent silencing.

When she gets home, she finds a dead swan with an axe in its back. She soon realizes it’s Ava. Ava was one of her creations like Max was. She flashes back to when she was at the pond after the night with the Lion where she describes that she was “Empty and emptied. Alone, alone, alone….Wish[ing] [she] could erase the night. Fill it with something else. Someone.”³⁷ She loved Ava, romantically and platonically. Ava was a representation of freedom of social constraints and untethered imagination. Ava was her creation – a tangible image of her imagination and creativity. She made Ava out of loneliness and when she needed strength from a man (the Lion) taking her words and emotions away from her; she needed his validation and interest, and he withheld it from her to make her feel small.  She made Max out of competition with the Bunnies, out of feelings of failure, and her love of Ava. Max seems to be her male counterpart; Sam in raw form– a monster that changed gender so that she could fight the Bunnies. What this is saying about gender is complex, but this can be read as Samantha playing on a level field with patriarchal rules. At the end of chapter 36, there are two important images to note. First, when describing Max, Sam says he is “Familiar as mud.”³⁸ This needs to be highlighted due to the ending. Sam is often looking at the ground when talking to others showing her lack of confidence. Have students think about mud and what it could symbolize. Secondly, we find out that the Duchess killed Ava. Sam pictures the killing in her imagination, “The Duchess, growing taller in that moment. Stretching into the monstrous thing she truly is beneath her fairy clothes, the ax poised and wavering over Ava’s turned back.”³⁹ The Duchess is truly monstrous because of her woman versus woman violence; jealousy caused by patriarchy.

Sam follows Max to The Duchess’s house where Max and Sam acknowledge their love of Ava, realizing that Max was the acceptable form for that love in a heteronormative society– but still a manifestation, a hybrid. She looks up at the Bunnies window and sees them staring out. They are all dressed like Ava, stealing her identity via outward appearances and obviously for Max’s benefit. Sam walks into the house with an axe with the intent to do something. This is the big Bunny confrontation. The Duchess is wearing Ava’s black silk dress, “Her smile like a hate bouquet.”⁴⁰ She confronts The Duchess about killing Ava, and they all start belittling and gaslighting Sam. They basically say that her creations (Ava and Max) were too much and that “[their] pretending only goes so far,”⁴¹ implying that their servant, bunny boy hybrids are better than her “too real” hybrids. They call her “delusional”⁴² and their jealousy comes out when they say “you were just so invested in being too cool for everyone.”⁴³ They literally make fun of her for “conjuring little bird friends…Maybe more than friends….Plays with them all by her lonesome and doesn’t even realize. So, so embarrassing for you.”⁴⁴ This is where the gaslighting becomes even more apparent and their hypocrisy is shown for what it is. Weren’t they playing with their hybrids too, wanting them to be more than friends? This gaslighting continues with “a true artist knows the difference”⁴⁵ between reality and illusion and they keep calling her “girl.” There is very much this Sam vs. them moment.

The Bunnies then see Max outside. They rush past Sam, holding each other back to be the first one to get to the boy. This definitely seems like commentary about women holding each other back in the confines of patriarchal structure. She describes the Bunnies as “A single squid monster of pink flesh and black silk whose tentacles have turned on each other,”⁴⁶ (295) frothing and making inhuman sounds. She also describes them as an “endlessly entitled fury that will drive them toward the shiny pretty things of this world and not stop until they have claimed them.”⁴⁷. This may be more about women turning on women, rather due to privileged women turning on the unprivileged to claim what they think they deserve. Sam then decides to not kill the Bunnies, but kill Max, the object of the Bunnies desire and Sam’s power and imagination. Max is then revealed to be a stag which can symbolize intuition and strength (Sam’s possibly). It is also a symbol of sexuality which could be at play here as well. Or perhaps it is another biblical allusion – the stag as sacrifice. Students should think about this.

The last chapter ends with graduation from Warren. Sam has an awkward but powerful run in with the Lion. When she first sees him, he brings back the moment when they first met and says, “When he was what I needed most – a friendly face, someone to talk to, someone who believed in me.”⁴⁸ This novel is about loneliness and isolation and looking for validation of creative work/ thought. She first turns to a man who ends up using her and then not responding to her emotions and isolates her even further. So she creates a friend and alter ego who does validate her/ loves her / believes in her/ encourages her to write/ and to not succumb to the norms of society. However, she is lured by the Bunnies, from whom she secretly craves friendship and validation. And all they do is use her and then tear her down when she out performs them. Sam beats all the monsters at the end of this book. Her encounter with the Lion ends with him praising her thesis and she says nothing at all to him, not giving him the satisfaction of her words and not caring about his validation.

When she sees the Bunnies at the end of the book, she does “not return their smiles.”⁴⁹ Ursula congratulates them all for being “Warren’s first all-female cohort,”⁵⁰ and us readers see how that worked– competition within their field, then enter man, then jealousy and belittling occurs. Again, a horror in itself – the one time women have been given the chance to spearhead a new path, they turn on each other – first preying on a woman of lower class and then turning on each other for a man. This is a sad commentary of women living in the confines of patriarchal control. Samantha leaves the Bunnies, Warren, the Lion all behind as she walks off embodying the spirit of Ava. The story ends with Jonah coming over to Samantha sitting on the bench by the pond, the place where she created Ava. He tells her how he took a picture of her graduation. When Sam claims to be surprised about this, he says, “Yeah, of course I did. You’re my friend.”⁵¹. I find Jonah the most genuine character in the book, one who doesn’t follow the rules of society and seems to not care what anyone thinks – true freedom from societal control. Sam makes this realization too. In the end, she asks Jonah to come join her on her rooftop to celebrate. It ends with “‘Sure, Samantha,’ says the mud, “I’d love to.’”⁵² There was a reference to mud earlier in the book, alluding to how she always stares at the ground and how familiar she is with it. It is interesting that she refers to Jonah as the mud. Students should think about what mud could represent– you can create with mud, mud is ubiquitous, mud is grounding, mud is a return to nature for a witch, mud is filth. It ends with Samantha finding companionship with someone who is truly unconfined by societal constraint and not wanting something from her and she not needing something from him, certainly not validation. She saved herself from the Bunnies and Warren, much like a final girl, and then found a friend who she does not have to play by the rules with– a break from patriarchal structure.

As you can see this book generates a lot of thought about a variety of issues that students can delve into. This book is rich in its writing, content, surrealism, elements of fairy tales, and the monstrous feminine.

Monster Theory and The Monstrous Feminine

While teaching this book, I want my students to understand some basic information about monster theory and the monstrous feminine to help guide our discussion of this novel. Teachers will apply this information to the teaching strategies and classroom activities below. This will guide our understanding of the monster lens and the unique perspective I want students to use to analyze and engage with this book.

Before focusing on the monstrous feminine, teachers should introduce monster theory briefly. You could go over Jeffrey Jerome Cohen’s seven theses about monsters, but, honestly, focusing on a few will suffice. First, Thesis I: The Monster’s Body is a Cultural Body may be the most important one to introduce. Cohen writes, “The monster is born only at this metaphoric crossroads, as an embodiment of a certain cultural moment – of a time, a feeling, and a place. The monster’s body quite literally incorporates fear, desire, anxiety, and fantasy…, giving them life and an uncanny independence.”⁵³ Monsters represent fear in a culture. While reading Bunny, have students think about what the monsters represent as fear in American Culture according to Awad. Thesis III: The Monster is the Harbinger of Category of Crisis is the next one that I will introduce to students. Monsters are the Other which makes them hard to categorize – they cannot be fit into a perfect box. They blur boundaries. Cohen writes, “This refusal to participate in the classificatory ‘order of things’ is true of monsters generally: they are disturbing hybrids whose externally incoherent bodies resist to include them in any systematic structuration. And so the monster is dangerous, a form suspended between forms that threatens to smash distinctions.”⁵⁴ Ask students as they read how the monsters in Bunny blur boundaries. Next, Thesis IV: The Monster Dwells at the Gate of Difference discusses how this monstrous difference “tends to be  cultural, political, racial, economic, sexual.”⁵⁵  Again, Monsters are The Other – what a society finds fearful and that is usually what is found in the margins of society. Clearly, the monsters in Bunny can be connected to sexual and economic differences. Finally, discuss Thesis V: The Monster Polices the Borders of the Possible with your students. In Monster Culture, Cohen writes, “Given that the recorders of the history of the West have been mainly European and male, women (She) and nonwhites (Them!) have found themselves repeatedly transformed into monsters, whether to validate specific alignments of masculinity and whiteness, or simply to be pushed from its realm of thought.”⁵⁶  This idea is that monsters create borders and act as a warning for society to toe the line. As students read they should think about what the monsters in Bunny are warning of. As they read, students should be applying these theses to the novel to ensure they are reading through a monster lens.

After discussing some basics of Cohen’s monster theory, I would introduce the concept of the monstrous feminine. In “Female Bodies and Posthumanism Series: The Psychology of the Monstrous Feminine,” Sara Manete describes the monstrous feminine as “Contrary to male monsters, whose monstrosity is not related to their sex nor gender[.] Female monsters are monstrous because they are female: their monstrous characteristics are tightly linked to aspects of womanhood and women’s bodies—they are not individual traits, but features that characterize the category ‘woman’.”⁵⁷ If we think of Cohen’s theses, we can connect this to Thesis IV: The Monster Dwells at the Gate of Difference – women are different, The Other, in our patriarchal structure, and are something that need to be controlled. In The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis, Barbara Creed says the monstrous feminine “shore[s] up the symbolic order by constructing the feminine as an imaginary ‘other’ which must be repressed and controlled in order to secure and protect the social order”⁵⁸ In Bunny, there is an hierarchical order being maintained within the confines of Warren. Outside that patriarchal institution, the Bunnies, under the guise of supportive womanhood, reinforce the structures of patriarchy and capitalism, through their own hierarchy. This idea that women can organize and create outside the preferred social order is monstrous and projects the fears of the patriarchy. Miranda Corcoran mentions how “Creed calls the ‘monstrous feminine’ – the horror associated with abject, border-defying physicality of menstruation, childbirth and other female bodily processes.”⁵⁹ This also connects the idea of the monstrous feminine to things that gross out or scare our patriarchal world– women’s bodies.

Sears and Cohen describe “The monstrous-feminine is a theoretical framework through which to analyze, challenge, confront, upend, and reinvent the cultural mythology of womanhood, femininity, and gender in relationship to monstrosity. Monstrous women linger in every margin of American pop culture, exist as precipices and liminal spaces, as unwieldy threats to structures of power and normative gender roles.”⁶⁰ It is through this theoretical framework that students will read Bunny. What is Awad trying to say to readers through the monstrous women she has created?

It will be important to introduce Barbara Creed’s work about the monstrous feminine to students. By doing this, students will be able to apply Creed’s major categories of the monstrous feminine to Bunny. Doing so illustrates how Bunny so interestingly represents the abject or Cohen’s idea of monstrous hybridity by blurring the boundaries between self and other, beauty and monstrosity, creation and destruction, etc.

1. The Archaic Mother–A figure that represents primal, engulfing maternity. She is associated with birth and creation but also with destruction and death (e.g., the Alien Queen in Alien)
2. The Possessed Woman–A woman whose body is overtaken by supernatural forces, often linked to fears of uncontrolled female sexuality or rebellion (e.g., Regan in The Exorcist).
3. The Witch–A powerful, often older woman who challenges patriarchal authority, either through magic or independence (e.g., the witches in Suspiria or The Witch).
4. The Vampire/Succubus–A seductive, sexually aggressive woman who drains the life force of men (e.g., Carmilla in Carmilla, the vampires in The Hunger, or Jennifer in Jennifer’s Body).
5. The Castrating Woman–A woman who emasculates men, often metaphorically or literally (e.g., the femme fatale in film noir, Jennifer Hills in I Spit on Your Grave, Alex in Fatal Attraction).
6. The Abject Mother – A mother whose body is associated with decay, filth, or something unnatural, violating the idealized image of motherhood (e.g., the mother in Psycho or Carrie’s mother).
7. The Monstrous Beauty–A woman whose beauty is dangerous, often leading men to destruction (e.g., mythological figures like Medusa or the Sirens).

The Abject

It will be important to define the abject which Creed’s book uses heavily. In her Powers of Horror, Julia Kristeva writes that “abjection is what disturbs identity, systems, and order. What does not respect borders, positions, rules. The in-between, the ambiguous, the composite.”⁶¹ The abject is anything that does not belong, according to society. Kristeva also writes, “Abjection…is immoral, sinister, scheming, and shady, a terror that disassembles, a hatred that smiles, a passion that uses the body for barter instead of inflaming it, a debtor who sells you up, a friend who stabs you.”⁶² The abject is the worst of society. It also repulses us. In a patriarchal world, women are abject, and we spend our lives trying not to be – hiding menstruation, childbirth, burps, farts – anything bodily gross. Abjection is the “phenomenon by which human beings react physically to the sight of something corporeal – something that threatens the distinction between the self and what is outside of it.”⁶³ It is this idea that when natural processes inside our body escape our body, it is bad. In their study of female monsters, Chusna and Mahmudah explain that women are supposed to be clean and pure according to society. They write, “To consider beauty, within a patriarchal society, is by attaching to it a clean and proper body, which means rejecting the aforementioned natural bodily functions. At this stage, somehow, the waste becomes the abject when it is ejected–it is rejected.”⁶⁴ They also mention that when a woman becomes powerful through her feminine body and is a threat to men, she is not considered human. So the abject, the impure and the inhuman, creates the image of monstrous feminine.

Patriarchy

A definition of patriarchy may be needed for students to understand this book. Doyle defines patriarchy as “a cultural and moral hegemony that mandates one specific, supposedly ‘natural’ family structure – a man using a woman to create and raise ‘his’ children, with father exercising indisputable authority over mother and children alike – and on a grander scale, builds societies that look and function like patriarchal families, ruled by all-powerful male kings and presidents and CEOs and gods.”⁶⁵ A teacher may even find it relevant for students to watch clips of the new Barbie movie to get this concept.

Applying Monster Theory, Monstrous Feminine, the Abject to characters of Bunny

After introducing these major concepts to my students, I will have them read and annotate through the monster lens and try to discern the monsters in the book and what Awad is trying to say by their creations. Below will be my analysis and some ways to discuss major characters by using Cohen’s, Creed’s, Doyle’s and Kristeva’s theories on monsters. However, it is important to note that students, and even you, may find different ways to categorize these characters. I invite you to play with monster theory and with applying the monstrous feminine. Below are just some ideas and research to begin exploring the characters in Bunny through this unique lens.

The Bunnies

The Bunnies are obviously the most intriguing part of this book with their sickly sweet, doll-like cultish friendship. I would characterize the Bunnies with Creed’s castrating woman archetype and the monstrous beauty archetype.  The Bunnies are too beautiful and perfect–almost to the point of being uncanny. The Bunnies’ brand of femininity is exaggerated and almost performative. Their performative femininity is like a trap–it lures in the Bunnies’ victims while masking something deeply sinister. This is a great illustration of how hyper-feminine women are both desirable and terrifying and how hyper-femininity is a perfect disguise for monstrosity. 

Doyle also writes of female monsters describing them as “lethally beautiful or unbearably ugly, sickly sweet and treacherous or filled with animal rage, but they always speak to the qualities men find most threatening in women: beauty, intelligence, anger, ambition.”⁶⁶ The Bunnies are definitely beautiful and sickly sweet with characteristics that the patriarchy fears. They are intelligent and creative humans, who are ambitious writers, seeking cutting edge ideas that allow them to break the glass ceiling of the writing world.

There is the concept that complements the monstrous feminine. As described by Maja Brzozowska-Brywczynska in “Monstrous/Cute. Notes on Ambivalent Nature of Cuteness,”  “Monstrous cute is – following this trait – a cute as read through its thesaurus (endearing, loveable, delightful, darling, pretty) and then re-read through the notion of strangeness and marvel (something that is not as it seems, something that suffers from innate contradictions); to read cute as monstrous is – in brief – to read it as an Other.”⁶⁷ The Bunnies are essentially this. Their appearance is non-threatening, but when we think about their mean girl attitudes and their power to create despite patriarchal limitations, they are monstrous.

Continuing her explanation of the monstrous cute, Brzozowska-Brywczynska writes, “Their clothes well fit kawaii trends, but here the babyish, pastel tee shirts, braids, teddy bears and dummies do not connote the longing for childhood utopia, but work – paradoxically – as sexual attractors and means of manifesting the maturity (in various areas of life) via the physically immature body and childish arsenal.”⁶⁸ This could work for the Bunnies, not only in the way they dress and carry themselves, but also describes their actions of creating hybrids. They create hybrids through this child-like ritual with “A large book open and bloodied in the center with what looks like dark red nail polish. A toy bride lies in the middle of the nail polish blood. Beside her is a large box draped in a red velvet cloth.”⁶⁹This description is reminiscent of the abject and may allude to menstruation or the bloodiness of childbirth. The bunnies’ creations of the hybrid could be considered a monstrous birth.

In “The SCUM of Daddy’s Girls: Monstrous Cuteness as Gender Resistance in Bunny,” Leina Hsu writes, “Through their cuteness, the Bunnies cultivate a feminine enclave that masks their terrifying project of creating (and killing) bunny-boy hybrids. Their monstrous cuteness is a strategy of gender resistance.”⁷⁰. They embody this doll-like exterior, but in the safety of their homes, they reject this “cuteness” to defy cultural norms and use their power to make creations that surpass reality and what is expected of them. Students may ask: Is this creation and destruction of their hybrids a form of patriarchal resistance? They are unsatisfied with the men of their socially constructed world, so they decide to take things into their own hands.

Hsu argues that the Bunnies are really feminist pioneers showing Samantha that they (women) “can only reach their full potential outside of the classroom and its rigid rules.”⁷¹ They create outside the confines of the patriarchal institution, showing that women can break free. We can read the rules and structure of Warren as a symbol for patriarchy. This idea of female creation without men scares the living daylights out of a patriarchal society. Doyle writes, “The root of female monstrosity… lies right where Revelations and Freud said it did: in sex, and the potent magic generated by sex, the creation of new human beings.”⁷² Creation is where power lies and causes men’s fears. Also, the Bunnies’ power over the “men” flips traditional gender dynamics by aligning them with the castrating woman trope. This mirrors horror’s long-standing anxiety around female sexuality as something that consumes and destroys.

Hsu also suggests that the Bunnies’ cuteness “appear[s] to be a satirical response to the infantilization of women.”⁷³ Yes, I do see that they are meant to be an exaggerated response to this stereotype of the perfect doll-women, but I am not so sure they are this representation of feminist heroes, showing Samantha the way. Hsu makes the point that the Bunnies have created a “feminine heterotopia…that encourages community”⁷⁴ where they can “share with each other without stigma or male obstruction.”⁷⁵ What Hsu neglects to mention though is that yes, they do create feminine space, however, it is fraught with competition with each other and an unspoken hierarchy within the Bunnies, with Samantha being at the bottom, due to her social status, her talent (which exceeds the Bunnies), and her nonconformity. Hsu also discusses the monstrous cuteness of the hybrid bunny-boys, which the Bunnies refer to as “Drafts.” She mentions how “the Drafts are distinctly cockless; they are missing ‘hands,’ ‘genitals,’ ‘an untwisted mouth,’ and ‘possibly a soul.’”⁷⁶ These deficiencies make the Drafts cute while their hybrid bodies make them monstrous. Hsu argues that “Ultimately, the Bunnies’ construction of bunny-boys gives insight into the extent women can thrive in the company of cuter, weaker, and emphatically better men.”⁷⁷

Another important realization Hsu points out is that the Bunnies are a representation of the white elite, and they are afforded to be monstrous cute because of their race and social status. She writes, “They carried out their monstrous actions without consequence because society already assigns innate innocence and cuteness to them.”⁷⁸ The Bunnies capitalize on that to carry out their work, and Samantha, as a poor student, “has decidedly less access to the heterotopia.”⁷⁹ Her creations are a surprise to her and to the Bunnies. The fact that she, not part of the elite, created something that surpasses the Bunnies ability is not acceptable and has to either be destroyed, like Ava, or possessed, like Max. The Bunnies, for all their usurping the rules of patriarchy, cannot stand that someone poorer, more outcasted than themselves, can make something better, thus reinforcing the cage of a male-created society.

While discussing the movies like Jennifer’s Body and Mean Girls, Santamaria Ibor writes how “women sabotage each other because of the insecurity derived from pressures to fit into canonical standards.” ⁸⁰ Within the confines of patriarchy, “femininity is presented as a competition with winners and losers.”⁸¹ The Bunnies want to be the winners and will step on Samantha to do so. Female envy is monstrous. Samantha subverts this by breaking away from the Bunnies, rejecting her escapism, leaving Warren with a creative work that is intact, and accepting a genuine, real friend. Santamaria Ibor describes the friendship of Jennifer, the hypersexual, feminine character, and Needy, the more innocent and less feminine character, in Jennifer’s Body, that highlights the toxicity and monstrosity of teenage friendship, but in the end, they are not that different after all.  Although the Bunnies and Samantha are graduate students, presumably in their twenties, the book emphasizes “there is no ‘right’ way to be a teenage girl [or a woman] in a patriarchal society that inevitably pits women against each other in competition for status.”⁸² This mean girl attitude is women internalizing the messages of the patriarchy and policing other women as well.

Manete points out that “the notion of monstrous women continues to represent a reminder of women’s demonization, especially in regard to their body and sexuality, even when the narrative is rewritten and women are allowed more agency instead of only defining them through notions of passivity and lack.”⁸³ This is important to note because in Bunny, the characters are given more agency and power, but there seems to be a warning in this modern fairy tale to not fall into the traps of competition that are meant to keep women in their place. Women are magical and powerful outside the structures of male-dominated rules; however, even in these liminal spaces, the patriarchy that has shaped their worldviews is the biggest monster and their biggest obstacle to overcome, and ultimately destroys the Bunnies who are trying to play into the hyper-feminized, objectified stereotype, while simultaneously trying to create something outside the confines of society. The Bunnies are seemingly playing by the rules given by the patriarchy while at the same time trying to bend them; however, competition and the need to be perfect, a patriarchal trap, are their ultimate downfall.

In her book Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers, Sady Doyle writes, “Beneath all the contempt men have poured on women through the ages, all the condemnations of our Otherness, there is an unwitting acknowledgment of our power – a power great enough, in their own estimation, to end the world.”⁸⁴ The Bunnies and Samantha are using their power of creation in this book, but not to end the world, but to legitimize their identities and create romantic scenarios that are fit for the movie screen. This is something that would scare men – creating the perfect man which at first we think may have a sexual component, but honestly, all they want is validation and total care from their hybrids. They want to be seen and heard finally (this coming from the first all-woman narrative fiction group at Warren). There is something innocent about this request and also limiting – all these women are doing is using their power to create more men – men who serve them but men who are not quite right. Thinking about their creations and then Samantha’s creations – Ava (the Swan), created to counter her loneliness- her not belonging and then Max who seemed to be created as revenge on the Bunnies (he harms them and is violent towards them as well as is playing/ deceiving all of them). All of the women, despite being an insider or outsider, use this great power they have discovered only to create companions or tools of revenge within the confines of the social structure created by the patriarchy. That, to me, is the real horror of this novel.

The Hybrids

All three characters of Ava, Max, Bunny-boys should be characterized as hybrids, connecting to Cohen’s Seven Theses. When describing the idea of hybrids, like selkies and mermaids, Doyle writes, “They seem beautiful and human at first glance, but when you examine them, their bodies are never quite right; they always bear some mark of the animal or the otherworldly. You can never fully understand these women, never fully pin them down, never love them; they are elusive, incomprehensible, practiced deceivers. You can live with one for years and still not see the snake that lives inside their skin.”⁸⁵ Bunny-boys and Max are not quite right, the bunny boys more so with their hair-lips, malformed hands, and inability to think for themselves. These hybrids cannot be controlled. They can be killed, but not controlled. The bunny-boys are essentially female because they lack male genitals and give emotional support and praise like a woman would. Some, who are allowed to live, get dropped off somewhere where they get menial jobs like servants. They seem to be harmless, brainless monsters that the bunnies birthed into the world.  In his A Genealogy of Monster Theory, Jeffery Andrew Weinstock quotes Ambroise Paré who was one of the first people to explain birth defects. Paré writes, “There are monsters that are born with a form that is half-animal and the other [half] human, or retaining everything [about them] from animals, which are produced by sodomists and atheists who ‘join together’ and break out of their bounds—unnaturally—with animals, and from this are born several hideous monsters that bring great shame on those who look at them or speak to them.”⁸⁶  While the bunny boys were not produced by sodomists or atheists, he was created by women, who are just as shunned by society.

Max, however, is a hybrid that can think for himself and is a more dangerous hybrid. He might be described as the Byronic male love interest which Doyle describes as “a man who is not only dangerous and cruel to the women around him, but somehow more attractive because of his terrible personality.”⁸⁷ Max is this; the hybrid bunny boys are imitations of this. Samantha constantly refers to Max as a monster.

Ava, although a hybrid of Samantha’s creation, might be considered a possessed woman. Again, a possessed woman is a woman whose body is overtaken by supernatural forces, often linked to fears of uncontrolled female sexuality or rebellion. Ava is not overtaken by supernatural forces, but she is created by supernatural forces. Hannah Mourousias writes that “The possessed woman is characterized by the monstrosity of her biology. Whether that be represented by pregnancy, menstruation, or something as simple as the depiction of female genitals, the possession is ultimately rendered as a shameful defect.”⁸⁸ Now Ava is not pregnant or menstruating, but she is considered a monster because of her hybrid biology. She does not fit perfectly in this definition – she is no Carrie or Regan, but she does “defy all of the behaviors that are expected of women such as being clean cut and polite”⁸⁹ which does align with the possessed woman archetype. Ava is all defiance and the opposite of the Bunnies – rebellious and breaker of conventional rules. She swears, she smokes, she stares. She was created after a moment where Samantha was violated, psychologically, by the Lion. As a hybrid created from swan and Samantha’s loneliness, she was born “Black silk dress, black mesh gloves. Eyes a different color, one blue one brown, gazing at [Samantha] through a fishnet veil. Platinum hair like white feathers when they catch the light.”⁹⁰

It may be interesting to note that Samantha birthed Ava and Max as a product of her fantasy and what she was wanting in her life. There is a theory mentioned in Weinstock’s essay about how people used to think that women could transmit their troubles to their unborn children. Weinstock mentions how “Montaigne, for example, expressed this belief in his essay ‘On the Power of Imagination’ (1850), writing, ‘We know by experience that women transmit marks of their fancies to the bodies of the children they carry in their wombs.’”⁹¹ Although this theory is antiquated, it is rooted in patriarchal notions of a monstrous birth, and this is what all the hybrids are – women transmitting their patriarchal-inspired fantasies to their hybrid creations.

The Lion and Ursula

The Lion represents the monster within and Ursula represents the archaic mother. The Lion is always wearing a “T-shirt that is of a monster devouring a girl”⁹² or “a large-busted woman getting strangled by a horned monster. The woman looks, of course, as if she is in ecstasy. They always do.”⁹³ His clothing choice is a symbol of his use of and violence towards women. He presents as a man you can trust, hiding behind “his deep Scottish lilt”⁹⁴ and “the scent of green tea.” ⁹⁵ When we first meet the Lion, Samantha describes how he knows that she is “running from him like a scared little bitch. What’s the prey of a lion again?”⁹⁶ We can answer that – a bunny. This predatory description aligns with the concept of the monster within – a monster who looks like a nice normal human, but inside is definitely waiting to hurt and devour others.

Weinstock writes about the monster within by noting that “human monstrosity is defined most immediately by a lack of sympathy on the part of someone committing or contemplating what are perceived to be physically and/or psychologically harmful acts by an observer who considers those affected as deserving of compassion.”⁹⁷ Readers, even before finding out what happened between the Lion and Samantha, know to not have any care for this character. So even if the Lion did not do physical harm Samantha, he did so psychologically. He used his academic power to strip her down to nothing. Not only is she very inebriated, using words like slurring, spinning, barely remembering, but she notes how she cries and “Tell[s] him everything. Embarrassing things. Shameful things…I sobbed like a child except I was a grown woman slurring these words into her lace thighs… But he kept drinking and kept watching… The absence of his voice and touch so palpable it acquired physical weight.”⁹⁸ In Invisible Monsters, Weinstock writes, “Through his antisocial actions, the psychopath… make visible the internal lack of humanity obscured by their human facades – they are monsters on the inside.”⁹⁹ The Lion’s inaction, his lack of care, is what makes him a monster.

Next, we have Ursula who can be read as the Archaic Mother which is a figure that represents primal, engulfing maternity. She is associated with birth and creation but also with destruction and death. Now she does not do the birthing or creating, but she is the leader of the coven, Warren’s all female Writer’s Workshop. She is described as using “a lot of birthing metaphors”¹⁰⁰ and embracing “the alchemical experience of Creation” when leading these workshops. Although she does not know what the Bunnies are actually up to, she is inspiring their work, mothering them, judging their writing, and forcing Samantha to stay in the Workshop when she explicitly asks to leave. After sharing their Max writings, Ursula says, “The Wound is tapped and it bleeds.”¹⁰¹ She is the mother of the abject.

Samantha

I would argue that Samantha fits Creed’s witch archetype. Again, the witch is described as a powerful, often older woman who challenges patriarchal authority, either through magic or independence. While Samantha is not an older woman, she is a younger woman who does challenge patriarchal authority  through magic. She might not be entirely independent, due to her dependency on Ava and the Bunnies. In “The Monstrous Girl: Teen Witches, Abjection and the Horror of Femininity,” Miranda Corcoran writes, “The teenage witch exists between these spaces, in the liminal stage of adolescence. As a teenager she is situated in an intermediary state, somewhere between child and woman. She is neither sexual nor asexual, neither adult nor infant. Instead, she is a being that exists on the cusp of adult sexuality, on the verge of womanhood.”¹⁰² Although Samantha is not a teenager, she is in the space between true adulthood and her teenage self – relying on the patriarchal construct of higher education. She even has feelings and thoughts of a teenage girl who isn’t accepted by the mainstream Bunnies. Even with her fantasies/ adventures with Ava and Max, which border the sexual and adult,  the tension there is not overtly graphic. Corcoran also mentions how the teen witch, “In her metamorphic state, transitioning between childhood and womanhood, she epitomises the uncanniness, the suspicious interiority our culture associates with femininity as whole; yet, because she is only just emerging into this feminine identity, the teen witch also embodies unique cultural anxieties about the fluidity, the uncertainty and the subversive power of adolescence.”¹⁰³ Again, this describes Samantha and her insecurities as a woman, writer, and creator and the unseen, unknown power she actually has.

When writing of Cecy from Bradbury’s “April Witch,” Corcoran writes, “She resides in the liminal space between sleep and waking, physical and spiritual, tangible and intangible. She embodies the instability and ambiguity that are the essence of the uncanny.”¹⁰⁴ This reminds me of Samantha and her imagination and power. She is able to create hybrids that are just as real as you and me. She created Ava as a physical manifestation of resistance of the Bunnies and Warren – her alter ego, the ultimate rebel and nonconformist. As an unreliable narrator, her character exists partly in her imagination and partly in a surreal reality, but we all recognize her uncanny power and can characterize her as the witch archetype in the monstrous feminine.

Still writing about Bradbury’s “April Witch,” Corcoran explains, “Cecy’s capacity to enter other bodies is explicitly connected to adolescent sexual fantasy throughout the story.”¹⁰⁵. Like Cecy, I often wondered if Samantha’s capacity to create other bodies is connected to female sexuality and fantasy. Her fantasy of Ava (an airtight, close, homoerotic fantasy) is rendered dangerous by the Bunnies, and they take her away from this with drugs, community, and creation. Because Samantha cannot enact her actual love for Ava and as she is leaning into her hate for the Bunnies and her own self-loathing, she creates the hybrid Max. He, as a masculine entity, can A. acceptably show his love for Ava and B. manipulate the Bunnies through their sexual desire and competitive natures to destroy them, the collective monster. Doyle also says, “The fear of female sexual liberation has always been partly a fear that women will develop desires that don’t include men.”¹⁰⁶ This may play into Samantha being thwarted by the Bunnies, who are policing Samantha’s behavior to actually be in line with patriarchy. She is not allowed to love or express love, outside the acceptable female friendship. And the Bunnies make sure of that by killing Ava.

Cocoran points out that teen witches “serve[…] as a literal embodiment of the adolescent proclivity for fantasy and erotic daydreaming.”¹⁰⁷ Again, I wonder if that is what Samantha is–an embodiment of fantasy and daydreaming (and literally creating) something that poses a real threat to the patriarchal structure, fitting into a witch archetype.  If she stayed there in her fantasy with Ava, she would need no competitive female friendship or a man to control her. She and her hybrid creation are the ultimate threat to male dominated structure.

From the YouTube video “Abject Women: The Greatest Horror of All,” Deschanel mentions how Rebecca Wanzo discusses how “rather than restraining the abject – or using it to cast others away… we should use it as a compass for unearthing all our complexities and contradictions.”¹⁰⁸ This is what Awad does. She uses the abject, the witch, the castrating women, the monstrous cute, as a metaphor and a modern fairy tale, warning women about the embarking outside of patriarchal construction, the various traps put in place by this structure, and ends with an idea of hope that it can be done. As Doyle reminds us, women’s “power is waiting for us, out in forbidden spaces, beyond the world of men. Step forward and claim it. Step forward into the boundless and female dark.”¹⁰⁹ This is what, at the end of this cautionary tale, Samantha does at the end of Bunny. At the end of the book, Samantha describes Jonah as “maybe he isn’t so oblivious after all. Maybe he knows and he just doesn’t give a fuck. How would that be?”¹¹⁰ This is when Samantha decides not to indulge in an imagined world with another Ava creation. She decides to stay in this world with a real friend where she makes decisions and finally enacts agency by inviting Jonah over, clearly rejecting the patriarchal rules enforced by the monsters in the book.

Samantha is the ultimate source of abjection because of her social class, gender, and her lack of family structure as defined by the patriarchy. In the “Abject Women” video, Wanzo is quoted again: “Abjection is often a principal sign of these character’s precarity – they inhabit spaces where they often recoil from others and others recoil from them and their constant association with the gross (things like dirt, vomit, and feces) are habitually signs of what emotional and economic insecurity has wrought.”¹¹¹ This describes Samantha. She might not have vomited or taken a poop, but when she is alone, she is sick or in her gross apartment. There is a stark contrast in environment and health (physical and mental) with the abject Samantha and the Bunnies, and even Ava. Deschanel asks the question about why we continue to consume media about the abject woman. She says that female-identifying consumers feel “a catharsis at the abject – a great release of social constraints. This media alienates and discomfits male audiences, but its abjection distorts social boundaries and images that confine women.”¹¹²  Books like Bunny with characters like Samantha, with her messy insecurities and innate powers of creation, are powerful for women to see. As Deschanel reminds us, these abject women transfer their power to the female viewer.  She did not get taken down by the cute Bunnies, she did not get eaten by the Lion, she did not succumb to living in fantasy like a ghost with the hybrids.  She took all the monsters down. She drinks her champagne and walks away, not looking back and choosing the world beyond men, not the world patriarchy tried to cage her in. Doyle says that “the cage of patriarchy is flimsier than it looks, and it is only a matter of time until we find our way out.”¹¹³ (xx). If Samantha can do it, so can we.

Teaching Strategies

Visual Note-Taking

As you teach a new subject, I have found that encouraging visual note-taking or sketchnoting is a valuable tool in my classroom. As noted earlier, my students are hyper visual and by adding an element of imagery in note-taking helps with retention and interest in the subject. An article published on Edutopia argues that “Instead of passively writing down everything a speaker is saying, the practice pushes students to actively process and make sense of what they’re learning.”¹¹⁴ This article also notes that when students sketch out their notes, they are twice as likely to remember the material.¹¹⁵You might provide some examples of visual note-taking to show the wide variety of ways to approach this, from the more simple to the more illustrative – that way for your students who feel they are less artistic, they can see this can be done in a variety of ways. I would let students know that these notes will be graded, but only for completion. A teacher can present the information in two ways. One, in class, they write down the pertinent information and for homework, they go back through and create images/symbols for the information. Two, while they are taking notes, you pause for their images and symbols to be created. They can also talk to their classmates for ideas about what to draw.

Character Analysis Chart

As students read a short story or a novel, I would have them create a chart of the major characters, if you are planning on students creating any kind of analysis of character or theme.  This simply could be their names written on notebook paper and bullet point of major characteristics, physical and emotional, and major actions. This will come into play when writing their final essay. These will act as concrete annotations to build upon analysis later on.  Maybe by using the visual note-taking strategy mentioned, students can create images of the major characters as well.

Podcasting

Having students create a fictional podcast for a book or movie will be a good way to get your students to embody the characters and themes of a work. Not only does it promote critical thinking, it also helps their technological skills.¹¹⁶ In the article “Get Your Students Creating Their Own Podcasts,” the author mentions that “Throughout the podcasting process, students apply research, writing and verbal skills to communicate a message. When students create their own podcasts, they act as knowledge constructors and empowered learners.”¹¹⁷. I will have students create a podcast of around 5 to 15 minutes about the book. This can be broken down in parts depending on the text. This should be a casual but intelligent discussion. Make sure students have fun with it but have a purpose and structure to it. The podcast should have three levels of discussion in it: Level 1:first impressions of what you are liking/disliking so far, clarifying confusing elements, plot discussion/predictions. Level 2:referring to specific passages that you have marked ahead of time that you want to discuss that are significant to character, setting, conflict, or theme. Level 3: start making connections between elements of the book and possible thematic topics. Students can create introductions and commercials.

Classroom Activities

A Book of Monsters: Visual Guide about Monsters and Monster Theory

For this first introduction of monsters and monster theory, I will have students take notes over Cohen’s Monster Theses, Creed’s Monstrous Feminine, and Kristeva’s definition of the abject. In order to appeal to my students, I will have students use visual note-taking strategies to create a Book of Monsters. This will serve as their base knowledge before they start reading Bunny. I want students to really understand these concepts so that they can apply them to what they read and watch during this unit. Notes will be given in class, and I will give time for students to start creating their visuals for their notes, coming up with concepts together in class, but allowing them to finish and enhance for homework. I will provide students with more resources, mostly YouTube videos, so that they can add to my notes with their own research. I will have students create a book cover that reflects images of what they learned through these notes and research. We will bind our books using yarn when the assignment is complete. Each student will use their own book and even share theirs while we continue our exploration of monster theory and Bunny.

Applying the Monstrous Feminine to Pop Culture

Using movies like Heathers, Mean Girls, The Craft, Yellowjackets, and Carrie, I want students to apply Creed’s concepts of the monstrous feminine to these movies/ shows.  There are a variety of other films that could be used like Jennifer’s Body and The Substance as well, so teachers do not have to stick with the first five mentioned. I plan on assigning one movie, and in the case of Yellowjackets – 2-3 episodes, per group of 5 students. I usually have more than 25 students in my classroom, so I would most likely choose one more to work with. You may want to have your students choose their own, but I would just make sure that each group has a different movie or show. Students can create Prezis or Google Slides presentations about applying their movie or show to Creed’s monstrous feminine archetypes. A teacher may want to assign a few chapters of Sady Doyle’s book Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers to students to understand how to apply monsters to different works and archetypes. I want each student to design one slide where there are at least two images and written analysis, connecting their chosen character or scene to what they have learned about the monstrous feminine by using their Book of Monsters and Doyle’s chapters. They will then present their findings to the class, with the goal of enticing their peers to watch their movie/ show. This will help them understand and apply monster theory and the monstrous feminine in a way that is less intimidating than something more academic, and it will give them practice for their podcasts and final essay.

Bunny Podcasts Interviews

Students will create two podcast episodes of about 5-15 minutes. The first podcast will cover the first half of the book and the other the last part. This can be done as a group or as a solo project. Students will need to have a host or hosts, and the host will be interviewing one of the monster characters from Bunny using their character analysis chart and their Book of Monsters. Students should not come up with a script, but use bullet pointed ideas or questions that they want to cover or mention. They need to have a name for their podcast, an introduction or theme song, and do at least one commercial that makes satirical commentary about the book. They should use the three levels of questions mentioned in the teaching strategies, but with level 3 questions, I will have students not only connect to the themes of Bunny, but also connect to monster theory, monstrous feminine, and the abject. By embodying a monster from Bunny, students should clearly understand the commentary about society Awad is trying to make and hopefully, have fun doing it. Students can use iMovie or voice memo to record their podcasts. My school has two podcast recording studios which I will encourage students to use. Students should use a different character/ monster from the book for the second podcast. 

Academic Monster Analysis for RAWR: The Journal of Monsters and Monster Theory

As a culminating activity, students will show off their analysis skills and their ability to use a monster lens to identify Awad’s critiques about society. I will have students embody the voice of an academic who is publishing a peer-reviewed essay, showcasing their research on monsters in a made-up journal: RAWR: The Journal of Monsters and Monster Theory. Students will write a character analysis from the book Bunny about who they believe to be a true monster and why. Students will connect this analysis to the author’s purpose and connect to monster theory. Then, students will need to get their essays peer-reviewed. I want students to understand the importance of peer-reviewed articles by having them go through the process. Reading about the steps in the article “Understanding the Peer-Review Process,” I will have students mimic this process. I will act as editor of this fictional journal. They will print off  three copies of their essay with only their student ID as their only identifying factor. I will give their essay to 3 random classmates to evaluate the essays in terms of grammar/mechanics, research validity (checking sources and citations), ethical issues like possible AI use, and quality of analysis and connection to monster theory, monstrous feminine, and the abject. Each reviewer will make a short written “recommendation on whether the article should be published, including whether the article needs major or minor revisions.”¹¹⁸Students will get their recommendations for their essay, fix any problems, and then submit for final publication. I envision making a blog site for this fictional journal and have students submit for online publication for extra credit.

Appendix

Oklahoma Academic Standards for English Language Arts: 11th grade

11.1.S.1 Students will work effectively and respectfully in diverse groups by showing willingness to make necessary compromises to accomplish a goal, sharing responsibility for collaborative work, and recognizing individual contributions. In their podcast groups and their pop culture and the monstrous feminine projects, students will work together to create fun, creative podcasts and presentations. They will have to decide roles and who will do what.

11.1.S.3 Students will conduct formal and informal presentations in a variety of contexts supporting their message with evidence and using verbal and nonverbal cues. With their project using the monstrous feminine and pop culture, students will create presentations to deliver to the rest of the class.

11.3.R.1 Students will analyze the extent to which historical, cultural, and/or global perspectives affect authors’ stylistic choices in grade-level literary and informational texts. By focusing on the cultural lens of monster theory, students will analyze Bunny and connect to the author’s purpose.

11.3.R.3 Students will evaluate how literary elements impact theme, mood, and/or tone, using textual evidence. As we read, we will focus on themes, tone and, specifically, characterization, especially with their character analysis essay.

11.2.W.5 Students will routinely and recursively publish final drafts for an authentic audience (e.g., publishing digitally, community and professional audiences, newspapers and magazines, entering contests). Students will write their character analysis essay with the recursive writing process in mind. They will be published in the fictional RAWR: The Journal of Monsters and Monster Theory after being peer reviewed.

11.6.W.3 Students will integrate quotes, paraphrases, and summaries from research, following a consistent citation style (e.g., MLA, APA) to avoid plagiarism. In their Academic Monster Analysis, students will use research about monster theory and the monstrous feminine, using MLA style.

11.7.W Students will create engaging multimodal content that intentionally enhances understanding of findings, reasoning, and evidence for diverse audiences. Students will create a podcast, interviewing their chosen monsters from Bunny.

Bibliography

“Abject Women: The Greatest Horror of All.” Created by Broey Deschanel, YouTube. Accessed March 23, 2025. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1yfsfQphmo. This may be a great video to show students or at least give them access to it.

Awad, Mona. Bunny. Penguin Books, 2019.

Brzozowska-Brywczynska, Maja. “Monstrous/Cute. Notes on Ambivalent Nature of Cuteness.” Monsters and the Monstrous. Myths and Metaphors of Enduring Evil, 2007.

Chusna, Aidatul and Sho Mahmudah. “Female Monsters: Figuring Female Transgression inJennifer’s Body (2009) and The Witch (2013).” HUMANIORA, vol. 30,no.1, Feb. 2018, 10-16.

Cohen, Jeffrey Jerome. ““Monster Culture (Seven Theses)”” In Classic Readings on Monster Theory: Demonstrare, Volume One edited by Asa Simon Mittman and Marcus Hensel, 43-54. Amsterdam: ARC Humanities Press, 2018.

Corcoran, Miranda. “The Monstrous Girl: Teen Witches, Abjection and the Horror of Femininity.” University College Cork Ireland, 2018.

Creed, Barbara.  The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis. 2015, Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group. This book is a must read for understanding the monstrous feminine.

Doyle, Sady. Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers: Monstrosity, Patriarch, and the Fear of Female Power. Melville House, 2019. This book has many chapters a teacher could use to accompany the studying of monster theory and applying it to Bunny. Focus on the chapters “Seduction” and “Birth.” The “Introduction” is important too.

“Get Your Students Creating Their Own Podcasts.” Accessed March 22, 2025. https://iste.org/blog/get-your-students-creating-their-own-podcasts.

“How—and Why—to Introduce Visual Note-Taking to Your Students.” Accessed March 22, 2025,  https://www.edutopia.org/article/how-and-why-introduce-visual-note-taking-your-students/.

Hsu, Leina. “The SCUM of Daddy’s Girls: Monstrous Cuteness as Gender Resistance in Bunny.” Embodied: The Stanford Undergraduate Journal of Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, vol. 2, no. 1, 2023.https://ojs.stanford.edu/ojs/index.php/sjfgss/article/view/2382/1604.

Kristeva, Julia. Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection. Columbia University Press, 2024. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7312/kris21457.

Manente, Sara. “Female Bodies and Posthumanism Series: The Psychology of the Monstrous Feminine.” Arcadia, January 15, 2023. https://www.byarcadia.org/post/the-psychology-of-the-monstrous-feminine.

Mourousias,Hannah,. “Possessed by Puberty: Dissecting the Monstrous Feminine.” Independent Magazine, April 26, 2024. https://independent-magazine.org/2024/04/26/possessed-by-puberty-dissecting-the-monstrous-feminine/.

Nechamkin, Sarah. “Mona Awad, Author of ‘Bunny,’ Is Kind of Terrified of Bunnies.” Interview Magazine, June 11, 2019. https://www.interviewmagazine.com/culture/meet-mona-bunny-penguin-novel-terrified-bunnies.

Santamaria Ibor, Victoria. “‘I Eat Boys’: Monstrous Femininity in Jennifer’s Body.” Babel-Afial, vol 31, 2022.

Sears, Sofia and Eli Cohen. “Unwomen: The Monstrous-Feminine in Contemporary American Pop Culture: Defining the Monstrous Feminine.” Accessed February 12, 2025. https://scalar.usc.edu/works/monstrousfeminine/defining-the-monstrous-feminine.

“Understanding the Peer-Review Process.” University of Nevada, Reno. Accessed March 24, 2025. https://library.unr.edu/help/quick-how-tos/evaluating-sources/understanding-the-peer-review-process.

Weinstock, Jeffery Andrew. “A Genealogy of Monster Theory.” The Monster Theory Reader, University of Minnesota Press, 2020.

Weinstock, Jeffery Andrew. “Invisible Monsters: Vision, Horror, and Contemporary Culture.”

The Ashgate Research Companion to Monsters and the Monstrous, Routledge, 2012.

Notes

1. Awad, Mona. Bunny, 40.
2. Ibid., 37.
3. Nechamkin, Sarah. “Mona Awad, Author of ‘Bunny,’ Is Kind of Terrified of Bunnies.”
4. Ibid.
5. Awad, Mona. Bunny, 90.
6. Ibid., 91.
7. Ibid., 91.
8. Ibid., 91.
9. Ibid., 96.
10. Ibid., 96.
11. Ibid., 109.
12. Ibid., 113.
13. Ibid.. 113.
14. Ibid., 125.
15. Ibid., 127.
16. Ibid., 165.
17. Ibid., 169.
18. Ibid., 180.
19. Ibid., 181.
20. Ibid., 181.
21. Ibid., 181.
22. Ibid., 186.
23. Ibid., 189.
24. Ibid., 192.
25. Ibid., 204.
26. Ibid., 223.
27. Ibid., 229.
28. Ibid., 230.
29. Ibid., 231.
30. Ibid., 233.
31. Ibid., 257.
32. Ibid., 260.
33. Ibid., 261.
34. Ibid., 271.
35. Ibid., 271.
36. Ibid., 272.
37. Ibid., 282.
38. Ibid., 286.
39. Ibid., 286.
40. Ibid., 290.
41. Ibid., 291.
42. Ibid., 291.
43. Ibid., 291.
44. Ibid., 292.
45. Ibid., 293
46. Ibid., 295.
47. Ibid., 295.
48. Ibid., 300.
49. Ibid., 301.
50. Ibid., 302.
51. Ibid., 304.
52. Ibid., 305.
53. Cohen, Jeffrey Jerome. “Monster Culture (Seven Theses),” 4.
54. Ibid., 6.
55. Ibid., 7.
56. Ibid., 15.
57. Manente, Sara. “Female Bodies and Posthumanism Series: The Psychology of the Monstrous Feminine.”
58. Creed, Barbara.  The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis, 265.
59. Corcoran, Miranda. “The Monstrous Girl: Teen Witches, Abjection and the Horror of Femininity”
60. Sears, Sofia and Eli Cohen. “Unwomen: The Monstrous-Feminine in Contemporary American Pop Culture: Defining the Monstrous Feminine.”
61. Kristeva, Julia. Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection.
62. Ibid.
63. “Abject Women: The Greatest Horror of All.” Created by Broey Deschanel.
64. Chusna, Aidatul and Sho Mahmudah. “Female Monsters: Figuring Female Transgression inJennifer’s Body (2009) and The Witch (2013),” 13.
65. Doyle, Sady. Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers: Monstrosity, Patriarch, and the Fear of Female Power, xvii
66. Ibid., xi.
67. Brzozowska-Brywczynska, Maja. “Monstrous/Cute. Notes on Ambivalent Nature of Cuteness.”
68. Ibid.
69. Awad, Mona. Bunny, 110.
70. Hsu, Leina. “The SCUM of Daddy’s Girls: Monstrous Cuteness as Gender Resistance in Bunny.”
71. Ibid.
72. Doyle, Sady. Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers: Monstrosity, Patriarch, and the Fear of Female Power, xvi.
73. Hsu, Leina. “The SCUM of Daddy’s Girls: Monstrous Cuteness as Gender Resistance in Bunny.”
74. Ibid.
75. Ibid.
76. Ibid.
77. Ibid.
78. Ibid.
79. Ibid.
80. Santamaria Ibor, Victoria. “‘I Eat Boys’: Monstrous Femininity in Jennifer’s Body,” 161.
81. Ibid., 161.
82. Ibid., 162.
83. Manente, Sara. “Female Bodies and Posthumanism Series: The Psychology of the Monstrous Feminine.”
84. Doyle, Sady. Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers: Monstrosity, Patriarch, and the Fear of Female Power, 243.
85. Ibid., 68.
86. Weinstock, Jeffery Andrew. “A Genealogy of Monster Theory,” 9.
87. Doyle, Sady. Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers: Monstrosity, Patriarch, and the Fear of Female Power, 93-94.
88. Mourousias,Hannah,. “Possessed by Puberty: Dissecting the Monstrous Feminine.”
89. Ibid.
90. Awad, Mona. Bunny, 110.
91. Weinstock, Jeffery Andrew. “A Genealogy of Monster Theory,” 11.
92. Awad, Mona. Bunny, 249.
93. Ibid., 186.
94. Ibid., 14.
95. Ibid., 14.
96. Ibid., 15.
97. Weinstock, Jeffery Andrew. “A Genealogy of Monster Theory,” 22.
98. Awad, Mona. Bunny, 271.
99. Weinstock, Jeffery Andrew. “A Genealogy of Monster Theory,” 363.
100. Awad, Mona. Bunny, 56.
101. Ibid., 257..
102. Corcoran, Miranda. “The Monstrous Girl: Teen Witches, Abjection and the Horror of Femininity.”
103. Ibid.
104. Ibid.
105. Ibid.
106. Doyle, Sady. Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers: Monstrosity, Patriarch, and the Fear of Female Power, 73.
107. Corcoran, Miranda. “The Monstrous Girl: Teen Witches, Abjection and the Horror of Femininity.”
108. “Abject Women: The Greatest Horror of All.” Created by Broey Deschanel.
109. Doyle, Sady. Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers: Monstrosity, Patriarch, and the Fear of Female Power, 244.
110. Awad, Mona. Bunny, 304.
111. “Abject Women: The Greatest Horror of All.” Created by Broey Deschanel.
112. Ibid.
113. Doyle, Sady. Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers: Monstrosity, Patriarch, and the Fear of Female Power, xx.
114. “How—and Why—to Introduce Visual Note-Taking to Your Students.”
115. Ibid.
116. “Get Your Students Creating Their Own Podcasts.”
117. Ibid.
118. “Understanding the Peer-Review Process.”
119. Ibid.