THE CULTURAL CONSTRUCTION OF MONSTROSITY AND HYBRIDITY: A
POSTHUMANIST AND ETHICAL ANALYSIS OF EVER AFTER, THE LITTLE
MERMAID, AND FRANKENSTEIN
GER 494-Posthumanism and the Ends of Man
Introduction
The rapid development of technology and persistent ecological crises is shattering
established traditions and expectations about being human. The lines between human and non-
human, natural and artificial have become so blurred that it challenges the assumptions we once
had that defined human identity. As Erle and Hendry (2020) explain, this collapses of rest
because boundaries gestures towards a wider cultural sickness, concerning the sliding away of
categories that once underpinned anthropocentrism. Emerging posthumanist thoughts occurs in
accordance with these changes and serve as a critique of anthropocentric paradigms which have
kept humans superior to all others alive. So instead of deepening hierarchies, posthumanism asks
us for a more horizontal experience of being in the world, one that heightens the entangled
interconnectivity of species, technology, and ecosystem. This frame examines how Ever After,
The Little Mermaid, and Frankenstein build monstrosity and hybridity, with an eye toward
ethical, cultural, and ecological implications of a more-than-human world (Rastelli, 2019). All of
these texts resist rigid binaries that separate human from animal, natural from artificial, and self
from other, and demonstrate how these divisions reinforce exclusion and inequality. Instead of
madness, these narratives hold up hybridity as a mode of transformation, resistance, and novel
ways of being. They should discuss the ethical issues of inventing chimeras and meeting them,
rejecting the human-centered approach. Beyond humanist horizons, their stories perform the
tasks of scouting; they stage the notion that identity is not an essence but a relation of bodies to
environments, histories.
These stories show how hybrid identities, whether biological, technological, or
ecological, both disturb and reshape traditional understandings of what it means to be human.
They reveal entrenched fears regarding the “other,” but simultaneously, they allow for
transformation and release (Arnavas, 2023). The Creature in Frankenstein personifies this
duality, feared for his unnatural existence and yet, too, acting as a critique of his maker’s moral
deficiencies. Victor’s refusal to take responsibility of his own creation reflects discomfort more
broadly with beings who defy categorization. The little mermaid’s transformation in The Little
Mermaid adds another layer of tension to this one. Her hybrid existence is one that demands a
reckoning not only with the limits of human empathy, but with the price of assimilation,
revealing the pressures enforced upon bodies that do not fit. These narratives are more than fear
of hybridity, however, they offer possible new forms of ethics, identity, and relationships with
the world (Smeele, 2018). This reframing feels particularly urgent in the context of modern
global challenges, climate change, rapid technological advancement, and ecological instability,
that inflexible human-centered thinking can no longer address. In these texts, themes of
posthumanism push against the false division between humans and nature, arguing for a human
engagement with the natural world rooted in coexistence rather than in domination. Describing
monstrosity and the monstrous hybridization of beings, these tales provide a mode of
apprehending contemporary ethical and ecological quandaries and yet, also urge towards modes
of co-habitations that linger between dwelling and exodus, life and death, held in fostering
regenerative fantasies as witnessed by the multi-species communities they harbour.
II. Monstrosity as Cultural Otherness
Monstrosity has long been used to enforce social boundaries, marking those who do not belong
as others. What the Creature brings to bear in Frankenstein is fear, not just at his unnatural
form, but at what he represents to established hierarchies. His monstrous body immediately
marks him as an abnormality, plucking him out of any claims of normality, a reminder of how
societies have traditionally regarded racial and physical difference with a kind of fearful
suspicion (Godden & Mittman, 2019). His expulsion is a response not to his actions but to his
simple being, similar to how colonized peoples were presented as both inferior and threatening in
a way that was designed to justify exclusion. And this fear of liminality permeates Ever After,
wherein hybrid figures disrupt rigid social structures by their mere existence in-between
categories of human and nonhuman. The mere presence of these bodies is enough to engender
unease, illustrating the cultural unease with bodies that do not conform to normative chandids
(Carpi, 2019). This is analogous to another famous tale—The Little Mermaid, whose
transformation must adhere to the same logic, she can only become accepted by entirely
obliterating her original shape. According to Weinstock (2017), these stories show how
monstrosity is often an arbitrary designation, placed on people who refuse to conform to
mainstream cultural standards. It is not the characters themselves who are monsters but the
societies that do not accept them as they are. Fear surrounding these figures exposes a phobia of
fluidity, whether racial, physical, or social. By framing them as dangers, these texts double down
on the notion that normalcy must be defended at any cost, even if that cost is the expulsion of
those who do not fit that picture.
The relationship between monstrosity and gender is evident in how these figures disrupt
conventional roles. Frankenstein’s Creature is frightening not just because of his body, but
because he cannot “do” masculinity in the “right” way (Nakamura, 2020). He has no power,
social standing, or claim to authority, rendering him an outsider in ways that extend beyond his
monstrous exterior. The unease he elicits taps into larger cultural fears about men who do not
live up to prevailing notions of strength and mastery. In Ever After, hybrid characters
destabilize gender binaries, refusing the perverse stereotypes of masculinity and femininity. By
their very existence, they reveal how gender is policed, often through the rejection of those who
do not conform, reasserting the social binaries. Her transformation as a mermaid is a very potent
instance of the system of femininity being tied to silence and suffering when takes away her
voice and when a woman is seen as desirable (Stang & Trammell, 2020). It is merely one
example of a systemic trend of sacrificing female agency for validation in order to secure
validation, fortifying patriarchal ideals. These texts show how figures who disrupt conventional
gender are often presented as monstrous, serving to reiterate the proper and improper, and the
needs of containment and control of bodies. But their very presence also reveals the fragility of
those norms. By resisting definition, they demonstrate that gender is not as immutable as we
think, opening up all the room to accommodate readings beyond strict binaries.
Disability studies is one lens through which to explore the ways that monstrosity
becomes a mode of exclusion. The Creature is not evil by birth, but is treated as a danger due to
his physical deviance, reflecting how disabled bodies have often been perceived through lenses
of fear and suspicion (Godden & Mittman, 2019). His agony does not derive from any inner
failure, but from how others respond to his shape. This pattern recurs in Ever After, where
hybrid beings are feared for their very existence rather than any tangible harm they may inflict.
Their treatment is indicative of the ways in which disability has been framed historically as a
problem needing a solution rather than as a legitimate way of being (Compagna & Steinhart,
2020). The Little Mermaid reinforces this concept, where the nature of the mermaid’s
transformation reinforces that her natural state is not enough and that she must be changed in
order to be acceptable (Carpi, 2019). This indicates a prevailing cultural attitude that
understands bodily difference as something requiring correction not appreciation. By
categorizing these figures as monstrous, societies rationalize the exclusion bestowed upon them,
perpetuating a paradigm of normalcy that privileges the able-bodied. But these stories also
suggest the potential for different approaches. Because monstrosity is socially constructed, it can
therefore as well be deconstructed, allowing for a reimagining of what belonging means in the
world. The stories challenge readers to ask themselves if difference does not always have to be
feared but can be absorbed into the general human experience.
These representations of monstrosity are deeply interlaced with racial anxieties. The
Creature is not simply an outsider; he is positioned as a threat to the very fabric of human
civilization itself. His presence pushes people to encounter their fears of the other in the in-
between, much like how societies with colonial mindsets prohibited the contact of the primitive
threatening other (Weinstock, 2017). It is not what he has done, but that the people perceive that
he does not belong; and this weaves him and them through a tapestry of past rationales for
exclusion and domination. A similar response is provoked in hybrids in Ever After, whose
presence is framed as an unsanctioned corruption of the social order. This expression is a
historical fear about racial mixing, praised purity as superiority and hybridity as degeneration
(Nakamura, 2020). The Little Mermaid operates on the same logic, framing the mermaid’s
sacrifice as a prerequisite for her acceptance. It also portrays the aspect of assimilation of the
marginalized groups as they are forced to vanish and accept the normative rules of the society.
As South suggested, these stories demonstrate how the monstrous is utilised in defining the
perimeters of possessing and of the proper and who is beyond those lines and are labeled as a
menace. However, they also read it as a second interpretation of a primary scene in which
monstrosity as topos is depicted not from the viewpoint of the savage but from the side of the
fighter. In what way they propose the questions that set the boundaries of who is accepted as
human and who is just not human enough.
Although monstrosity is often a tool of exclusion, it is also a way to interrogate
inflexible cultural boundaries. The Creature, although scorned, begins to discover an identity that
retaliates against those who shun him (Godden & Mittman, 2019). His profundity and irony are
a rebuke to the belief that he is inferior just because he seems different. In Ever After, hybrid
characters occupy an ambiguous space, neither totally embraced or entirely expunged. Their
liminal existence compels others to reckon with the instability of fixed categories, demonstrating
that identity is a more fluid construction than a rigid definition (Compagna & Steinhart, 2020). If
her transformation is understood within the context of the previous discussions, The Little
Mermaid does strengthen this idea because her change suggests that the differences between
human and nonhuman are not static (Carpi, 2019). These tests indicate that monstrosity is not
merely a mechanism of oppression, in many cases, it can also function as a source of power. By
welcoming the outcasts who have been demonized, these stories subvert expectations about who
belongs and who is a person. They allow for perspectives that exceed rigid definitions, opening
up a world in which difference is not feared but to which regard is given.
III. Hybridity and Ethical Responsibility
Victor Frankenstein’s treatment of the Creature suggests serious ethical concerns
surrounding accountability toward hybrid beings. He brings a new form of life into being but
refuses to nurture it, abandoning the Creature as soon as it awakens. This act reflects
contemporary ethical concerns in the world about the rate scientific advancement and the
responsibilities that come with the act of creation (Forlano, 2017). Victor’s abandonment causes
the Creature to endure needless suffering, and be forsaken by society for nothing more than the
atrociousness of his form. His fate holds a larger question; what happens when those with power
give life but will not take responsibility? There is thus an ethical imperative to attend to beings
that transgress or obfuscate the boundaries of human idea(l)s (Hamilton & Taylor, 2017).
Victor’s inability to encompass the needs of those who fall outside the rigid boundaries of social
expectations reflects a broader pattern of neglect. The Creature was not within himself a
monster, but his trauma shapes him into what society fears. It dovetails with theories that refute
anthropocentric superiority as a determiner of moral value for all living entities, underscoring
responsibility to all creatures great and small (Braidotti & Bignall, 2018). If hybridity is to be
welcomed and not feared, narratives like Frankenstein imply we will need to develop ethical
responsibility that does not adhere to received schemes. Victor’s failure does not only refer to
one abandoned being; it is indicative of a larger issue of unbridled scientific ambition not
grounded in moral foresight.
The hybrid figures from Ever After are confronted with a similar but different and
equally troubling dilemma, being stuck between human schemas and nonhuman worlds. Instead,
they are viewed as freaks to be regulated or terminated, not as unique people with rights. This
reflects real-world fears about those who fall outside of the social norm (Elton, 2019). Their
existence shines light on the shortcomings of ethical frameworks that privilege stability over
justice. Affect theory helps to elucidate the effects of their exclusion and how repeating
exclusion damages these subjects emotionally or psychologically (Ferrando, 2019). The anxiety
these figures induce is not a threat of physical harm but a threat to the stability of social order.
Rather than accommodating hybridity, however, society imposes rigid divisions that render
them perpetually liminal. Posthumanist scholars assert that ethical consideration must transcend
biologically or culturally defined notions of purity (Rugo, 2020). These liminal figures prompt
readers to reconsider morality, asking if ethical responsibility should rest exclusively on human
identity. The story then makes the case that hybridity is not a weakness, but a chance for
development, a weakness of a moral system that cannot factor in varying forms of character.
Through rejection of hybrid beings, societies legitimize exclusionary power relations that
adversely affect affecting not only marginalized subjects.
Another such example is the mermaid in The Little Mermaid, whose hybridity is
received not with acceptance but with hostility. She gives up her voice to become human, a
potent metaphor for how societies get hybrid beings to excise essential parts of themselves for
the privilege of membership. This indicates that there is a pressure applied on marginalized
groups to assimilate into the broader cultural norms, but often at personal expense (Rosenberg,
2017). The ethical failure here is not that the mermaid chooses to transform, but that she
believes there is no other choice. The story reveals the moral flaws of a system that does require
conformity but never offers true acceptance, instead embrace hybrids (Hamilton & Taylor,
2017). The mermaid’s sacrifice resonates with affect theory, which studies the intersectionality
among emotional regulation, social networks, and affluent king-specific standards that shape
identity and emotional well-being (Ferrando, 2019). Her metamorphosis is cast as essential, but
it results in emptiness, not satisfaction. This means that societies that impose strict human-centric
norms will not God value hybrid identities. The mermaid’s fate poses an ethical dilemma which
is whether progress should force all beings into a single template, or should it expand the
parameters of the accepted. The story shows that to choose the moral thing or act to become the
determinate of goodness of other people it happens in the world where the figure of difference
erase instead of finding a place so it can coexist.
Victor’s symbolic creation in Frankenstein similarly alludes to the perils of qualitative
dispositions in hybrid beings as disposable. He not only disowns his creation, but also refuses to
take responsibility for the misery his choices wreak. His unwillingness to take responsibility
signifies a larger ethical problem, that of what happens when humans are given the ability to
create life yet refuse to face the ramifications of doing so (Rugo, 2020) The Creature is forced to
make his way in a world that views him as a monster, not for his deeds but for who he is. His
experience mimics historical patterns in which individuals who are perceived as “unnatural”
have been excommunicated rather than embraced. Such exclusion is challenged by new
materialist theories that call for an ethics that is inclusive of all life forms rather than simply an
ethics that ensures human supremacy (Braidotti & Bignall, 2018). Victor’s neglect shows that
one-dimensional approaches to hybrid beings spell destruction instead of progress. If hybridity
continues to be framed as an error, then ethical debates about science and creation will always
be clouded by fear, not potential. It approaches moral responsibility not as jousting but as a
conscientious embrace of what ought to be (rather than a blind shove away of what ought not to
be). The downfall Victor serves as a cautionary tale of the perils of scientific ambition, divorced
from moral responsibility.
Cultural and ethnic impurities hence defeat ethical systems that cannot tolerate people
who cross the set boundaries from one class to the other. It is with this background that they
suffer not from their hybridity but from a society that still deems them to be inferior. It is evident
that the existing moral structures aim at regulating the division or distinction of the body, but
they do not alter it; they merely categorize the body as uncertain all the time (Elton, 2019). It
reflects theoretical frameworks on how to change the direction of ethical approaches which do
not violently categorize all beings into rules (Forlano, 2017). Here also affect theory provides an
understanding of how repetition of paradigms of exclusion served as the formation of affect and
the psychology of the margins in the lives of those excluded far beyond (Ferrando, 2019). And
thus these hybrid figures mostly enter the world of traditional morality and scream at the white
Kino of traditional morality and show that it has its bigotry flaws and intersections. This is
implying that what many consider as hybridity could, in fact, be seen as no mistake but a chance
for humanity to shift the perception of moral responsibility. It is therefore on these grounds that
the novel dares to pose a very important question concerning whether the line of moral
consideration should be drawn on the ability to set an identity or if it should be flexible to
accommodate every living thing that has the ability to feel pain or suffering.
The fate of the mermaid in The Little Mermaid also highlights the dangers of pressuring
hybrid beings into conformity. Her transformation is not something to be celebrated; it is a loss,
highlighting the real price of difference erasure. Her experience highlights a larger historical
trend of marginalized individuals being pressured to conform to dominant cultural paradigms,
often at the cost of their own identity (Rosenberg, 2017). Posthumanist thinkers claim that ethical
responsibility ought not to require compliance with the same identity but instead is to enable the
cohabitation of many identities (Hamilton & Taylor, 2017). The mermaid’s transformation
causes her suffering instead of acceptance, which is consistent with affect theory in that forced
assimilation results in suffering instead of acceptance. As per Ferrando (2019), it is a story
critical of a world that prefers uniformity to diversity, supporting the notion that ethical progress
means making room for hybridity instead of eliminating it. Emphasizing the extraction of
transformation, the narrative compels readers to interrogate whether morality is a tool to preserve
the status quo or construct a more expansive idea of identity. At last The Little Mermaid tells us
that true ethical responsibility is to honor the whole spectrum of life, not only those forms of it
that can be contained within borders.
IV. Technology and Posthuman Agency
The question of the role of technology in determining agency sits at the heart of
Frankenstein, with Victor’s experiment questioning human control over life. His creation of the
Creature parallels technological progress in the world, with new technologies giving rise to
ethical challenges about responsibility and unintended consequences (Rose, 2017). This
characteristic is a slight intrusion of science fiction, but the Creature has agency, thus possibly
reflecting that man is not always able to contain his inventions. This is in line with the Actor-
Network Theory in which agency does not lie with the human being but is achieved in the
relations among humans, objects and surroundings (Schandorf & Karatzogianni, 2017). Where
Victor tries to dominate life by holding technology in his hands, the Creature looks for autonomy
and tries to comprehend the world. It raises more general question of artificial intelligence and
biotechnology especially when one has ability to create, one does not always have ability to
decide what will be created. The distinctions of bio-politics only make the matter more complex
as Victor's project may be read as an ultimate manifestation of humankind’s various strategies to
control and govern life itself, i.e. designating the types of individuals to be cherished and
including, versus excluding and pushing aside (Lewis 2017). The Creature's rejection by society
and subsequent resistance demonstrate that creations of technology often exist outside existing
structures of power, hence forcing them into positions of resistance. Technology, rather than
being an instrument of total control, is more often a source of unintended consequences, the
many ways the end of civilization has failed to occur, whether because of lines of code or due to
their creators challenging any attempt to exercise authority over them at all. Technological
agency is not limited to the human in Frankenstein, the Creature himself is a technological
being, and the novel showcases the limits of human mastery over posthuman life.
Technology in Ever After is something that works differently; hybrid technologies
become part of everyday life and change people and the social order in which they are
embedded. Unlike Frankenstein, whose own creation leads to conflict, here we are presented
with a world where humans and hybrid beings can live harmoniously, although not without
challenges. It could be explained through Actor-Network Theory, which suggests that
technological agency is a product of the relationships between humans, machines, policies, and
industries, and that these interactions shape new forms of power and resistance (Wiley & Elam,
2018). The hybrid beings in Ever After are shaped by the technologies that created them, but
they also resist these technologies through their own sense of identity. Instead of being simple
tools reclaimed by human innovation, these beings gain agency that upends notions of
technological dependency. According to Beinsteiner (2019), Speculative Realism goes further,
suggesting that technology is not simply instrumental to human concerns but has its own logic, at
times producing immanently autonomic forms. In Ever After, the existence of hybrid beings
challenges rigid definitions of humanity, and the nature of the human experience, which is how
technology blurs the boundary between organic life and artificial intervention. Some characters
struggle to control these hybrid figures, but their resistance demonstrates that technological
agency is not unidirectional; once created, techno-formed beings forge their own trajectories.
Instead, she argues, we shouldn't take for granted that technology remains under human control;
technological intervention produces forms of life that presents new obstacles to human
expectations.
The little mermaid’s transformation in The Little Mermaid considers hybridity as a kind
of bio-technology and one that exacts a personal toll. She is “changing” through artificial means,
leaving no option but to sacrifice essential parts of herself along the way. Bio-technological
intervention here takes center-stage as it is important to know who in fact controls the process
and who the outcome is for (Clinkenbeard, 2020). Although she is granted entry to the human
world, her sacrifice, her voice, implies that the agency afforded by technology is more a matter
of outside forces than a question of personal choice. To understand this dynamic, one can turn to
biopolitical theory that studies how power manifests itself in and through life by determining the
condition of existence (Schandorf & Karatzogianni, 2017), allowing for certain transformations
and not others. The tale of the mermaid shows that bio-technological agency is not neutral, it is
intertwined with systems of control that determine who has to change in order to belong. Actor-
Network Theory also supports this reading, as it disrupts the idea that technology only serves a
human end, and instead, draws attention to how technological modification structures new
relations of being and power. Lewis et al. (2017) says the mermaid’s transformation ultimately
leads to an important question on whether bio-technology an expansion of agency, or if it does
become a tool of conformity. The cracking of her voice implies that technology does not always
intervene liberatingly, it can also be a form of social apparatus. So they play to that trope by
presenting her transformation as a prerequisite for acceptance, the story calls out the way
technology so often is used only to control, and not empower.
The Creature in Frankenstein and the mermaid in The Little Mermaid both show how
technological agency is governed by control, but their resistance also hints at technology not
always working as planned. In the respective narratives, technological involvement results in
entities that question human dominion, thereby revealing the limits of biopolitical might. Victor
thinks he can master life entirely through science, but his creation will not prohibit him,
demonstrating that agency is not something that can be offered by human ambition (Rose,
2017). Likewise, the mermaid experiences a change intended to give her a new existence, but it
does not stop there; it strips her of agency, echoing the notion that in most successful
incarnations of technology, there comes a cost (Beinsteiner, 2019). The speculative realism:
technology has agency, once in motion it operates outside human intention. Both the Creature,
and the mermaid embody this concept, ultimately emerging as the anthropomorphous damning
by-products of mankind's desire for ultimate control over its environment. Wiley and Elam
(2018) assert that their stories imply that technology, rather than being a tool of dominion, often
leads to disruptions that extend beyond user control. This problematizes the idea that human
ingenuity alone shapes the future, technological agency is much less predictable. Both texts
invite a re-examination of whether technological intervention is an actual benefit to life or just
creates fresh varieties of dependency and suffering.
Ever After offers a final counterpoint by revealing that even if technology is at the helm,
it does not necessarily obliterate our individual choice. In this world, nobody fully determined
by technology, but a hybrid compromise, or symbiont, is free, allowing for a posthuman
existence, with incidental technological effect and interaction overlaid with autonomy. In
contrast to Frankenstein, where the Creature is forged by expulsion, or The Little Mermaid,
whose transformation is exacted, Ever After’s hybrid persons negotiate their agency in a
technoscape (Forlano, 2017). This resonates with Actor-Network Theory, which posits an agency
that is an effect of interplay of multiple forces rather than imposed by an authoritative force.
Ever After’s characters show that technology does not necessarily stifle identity, but rather
opens up new avenues of self-definition. Schandorf and Karatzogianni (2017) indicate that even
as technology imposes limits, as these entities manage to align with and slip through forced
matrices and established structures, it provides a way to highlight the possibility of continued
agency. This perspective, emphasized by Speculative Realism, posits that technological agency
is relational, emerging from interactions rather than rigid control (Clinkenbeard, 2020). The plot
ultimately critiques deterministic accounts of technology, positing instead that agency is always
in play. Rather than being passive subjects of technological intervention, hybrid beings are
active agents who shape their own futures.
V. Embodiment and the Politics of Hybridity
The Creature’s appearance shapes his experience in ways that are more complicated than
mere rejection. His form, an unnatural blend of various bodies, instantly distinguishes him.
People are not responding to him based on his actions or personality but based on a visceral fear
of something that seems strange. And in part, it is that he is different that his rejection consists
of, but it is also that fact of difference that societies make into fear, and fear into rejection, and
rejection into mobbing, and mobbing into violence. His pain is not only physical but social, a
consequence of a world that is unwilling to look deeper. His attempts to ask for understanding
are rebuffed, and he's left isolated in a way that has nothing to do with anything he has done,
and everything to do with his outsider status in his own home. He is stripped of being able to
possess his own identity, instead condemned to exist as a projection of other people’s fears.
Whatmore (2017) states that phenomenology indicate that identity is shaped through lived
experience, not the body, and, therefore, how “humanity” is not merely biological. However,
one should also mention that it also questions the principles of human orientation ethical
approach applied in understanding monstrosity or in fact why it does seem as if monstrosity is a
status assigned to people who are in one way or the other are outcasts. For instance, ethical
frameworks that challenge reductionist notions of superficiality like Posthuman Ethics are
cognisant of the fact that consciousness, agency and recognition and responsibility are not
properties of exteriorities (Porpora, 2017). In essence, he poses a challenge to the rigid notions
that societies have erected regarding the status of who or what a person is and its rejection
reveals the depth of human insecurity about the other especially when defining the self.
In Ever After, hybrid characters live in perpetual partial acceptance. They are not
completely rejected a la the Creature, but are never completely accepted. Their existence is
discomfiting to everyone else because, on a physical level, they do not conform to widely held
perceptions of what it means to be human. Unlike the Creature, who is wholly rejected, they
find themselves in an uneasy middle space where their difference is tolerated but never forgotten
(Tarr & White, 2018). Their very being blurs lines, leaving others without understandable labels
for them. Their presence complicates the assumption that identity is something fixed, and shows
how much it derives from perception rather than some inherent quality. As Whatmore (2017, p.
10) contends, phenomenology of the sort that guides the investigation here indicates identity is
not something owned however drawn based on interaction. They do not merely feel different in
their bodies; they are regularly reminded of that difference by those around them. Now, ethical
dilemmas emerge in the form of agency, as they are contained within a paradigm that recognizes
yet constrains their self-definition (Erasmus, 2020). And the discomfort they inspire is not
because of anything they do but because of what they reveal, the instability of the categories
upon which people depend to define belonging. Their being pushes humanity beyond where it
wants to fully go, beyond whether it would even consider going; it forces a revisit of identity
being fluid, not fixed. It is because to believe one is defined by physical features is to brand
oneself and humanity with racism leading to oppression and oppression itself.
The mermaid’s transformation provides an alternate view of the price of inclusion. It is
not enough for her simply to exist on the periphery, she has to disappear altogether if she wants
to fit in. Her original form is not simply seen as another form but something that needs to be
shed. The transformation muting of her voice is indicative of assimilation being a silencing of a
person and removing a person's ability to exercise their true identity (Jackson & Jackson, 2017).
This is similar to real life, where members of marginalized groups are asked to erase parts of
their identity in order to gain presence. This expectation that she and who she is, not them, who
they are, had to change to belong, echoes the wider exclusionary mechanisms that writ the value
of being valued in this world. Critical Race Theory talks about forced assimilation being
presented as integration when rather it is a way of silence those who do not fit the frame of the
dominant narrative (Melleström, 2019). Her real loss is not only physical; it symbolizes power’s
definition of belonging. It is only proper to reposition ourselves in the framework of inclusion
into what in the more recent Posthuman Ethics approach that the ethics of inclusion should not
constitute one of transformation but occupies the space of difference itself (Porpora, 2017). Her
pain comes not from simply being different but from a world that refuses to abide difference. Her
narrative critiques such a framing, which suggests that acceptance must come at a loss of
selfhood, revealing that there is a less than equitable conditional inclusion in practice. The hope
that she need change is not one of acceptance but control, revealing a world that views hybridity
as a problem rather than a possibility.
Unlike the mermaid, who gets to undergo a transformation, the Creature has no shot at
redemption, so his rejection is final. He must not negotiate his right to exist or reshuffle himself
to belong. His pain is not simply that he was rejected; it is that he had no choice in the matter.
He is not just another, he is a violation, an entity that should not be (Tarr & White, 2018). He is
not the person he is, he is the person society wants him and everyone to be in those tenets of
humanity they so rigidly enforce. Predictably, those who fall outside the so-called normal state of
being are cast as threats to be neutralized, thus solidifying exclusionary practices as a form of
domination. Evidenttly, his story shows how rejection is not just about physical appearance, but
the deeper structures that determine who deserves to be recognized. According to
phenomenology, identity is formed through ways of being treated rather than some essential
state (Whatmore, 2017). The Creature gets no opportunity to define himself. His fate has little
to do with what he actually does but everything to do with what other people think he is. His life
questions whether personhood is a matter of conformity and illuminates the perils in a world that
prioritizes homogeneity over understanding. His rejection is not based on any genuine threat that
he presents, but instead a desperate attempt to preserve the illusion of certainty in a system that
will not accept difference.
The hybrids in Ever After inhabit a space in which they are recognized but never really
accepted. They are neither banished to the margins, nor fully accepted; they are a reminder of
the lines society draws. They challenge the idea that identity is a simple thing that can be easily
defined. Their presence destabilizes the assumption that humanity is divided by unambiguous
physical differences and they do not belong to clearly defined boxes, and that lack of certainty
makes others uncomfortable. In contrast to the Creature whose exclusion is total, these beings are
somehow agentic, but within limits set by those who make the rules (Erasmus, 2020). Their
presence upends the idea of identity as a kind of permanent state, illuminating instead the ways
in which identity itself is crafted in relationship, perception and social dynamics. The discomfort
they engender has nothing to do with any direct threat they pose but with revealing the fragility
of rigid classifications. People depend on these categories to make sense of things, but the
hybrids show you how artificial and limiting those boundaries are. Unlike the Creature, they are
not outsiders but are only allowed so much freedom, they cannot fully belong. The book argues
against the reductionism of personhood via corporeality, attention is given to thought, agency
and relation as more significant markers of subjectivity (Porpora, 2017). They make us rethink
why we still exclude some and include others and if belonging should be decided by antiquated
definitions of what it means to be human.
The mermaid’s metamorphosis emphasizes another outcome of nonconformity since she
has no room to simply be as she is. Unlike the hybrids in Ever After, who keep their bodies but
occupy an uncertain social space, she has to completely renounce her original form to enter
human society. However, the change she undergoes is not framed as empowerment but as
obligation, a transaction in which her difference must be erased. The loss is not merely one of
physical alteration, it robs her of independence, most importantly the power to speak. Edwards
(2018) states that by surrendering her voice, she forfeits the ability to advocate for herself, which
further underlines the concept that assimilation requires silence. This parallels real-world
historical trends in which marginalized groups have been encouraged to change some aspects of
their identities in the name of assimilation. According to Porpora (2017), the narrative is a
reminder of the way power acts, constructing inclusion that empowers the powerful while
seeking to demean those who do not conform. The Critical Race Theory describes the ways
assimilation is often framed as an opportunity while in actuality it is an imposition of sameness
(Jackson & Jackson, 2017). This expectation for her to transform herself to earn acceptance is
not inclusionist; it is a function of control. Posthuman Ethics argues that true belonging should
not be based on transformation but rather allows for difference. The mermaid’s ending is a
rebuke of a society that rewards uniformity and punishes noncompliance. If we have to give up
our sense of self in order to be accepted, then acceptance is not really acceptance at all, it is
merely the erasure of identity masquerading as belonging.
VI. Ecology and Posthuman Interconnectedness
The Creature’s connection with nature goes beyond serving as a backdrop to his
existence; it informs the way he experiences the world. He traverses forests, mountains, and ice
without the artifice of human borders, unlike people, who craft man-made frontiers between
themselves and the “natural” world. Posthuman sustainability challenges the anthropocentric
idea that only human beings have an influence in the shaping of ecosystems containing a myriad
of life forms; rather, it posits that nonhuman beings also actively participate in the processes of
formation of environments (Cielemęcka and Daigle, 2019). His presence upsets human-centered
notions of space, exposing our surroundings as interactive, not passive, an agent, not a backdrop.
His existence is based on land, harvesting food, looking for heat in the flame, an ecological
interdependence that is overlooked by society. He is no outsider to the natural world, but an
extension of it, complicating the notion of the separation of humanity and the rest of nature. This
reflects the definition of ecocriticism, which holds that human exceptionalism frames nature as a
resource under control, rather than as an interconnected system of living systems (Zapf, 2022).
The Creature is fundamentally a rebuttal to this belief, living inside an ecosystem that welcomes
him when humans will not. His collage of bodily bits reflects the patchwork composition of
ecosystems, and everything works together to create a functional organism. According to Clinci
(2023), Assemblage Theory asserts that beings do not exist independently of one another, but
rather as products of a series of dynamic relationships with organic and inorganic matter. His
mere presence demands we rehash the question of who belongs in nature and who does not, a
question that carries with it the weight of the social construct of exclusion rather than an
objective reality. The Creature’s affinity with nature takes a scalpel to rigid conceptions of
identity, revealing hybridity as a status that transcends bodies and infuses the environment itself.
Ever After's hybrids challenge human/nature divisions, exposing the artificiality of such
boundaries. They sit in a liminal space where they are visible but never fully accepted, much like
the way human society interacts with nature, as something to be used but never completely
enmeshed. Conceptually to post-humanism, it suggests, has also argued that connectedness
occurs beyond that of human-human relationships, and creates the need for a subject that moves
understanding of ethical responsibility beyond human interactions to nonhuman life (McIntosh,
2018). These hybrids embody that and show that identity is never static but is always formed
between the worlds in which beings exist. They are not quite human, nor are they entirely
something else, and they are unsettling in a world that relies on neat divisions. Ecocriticism
argues that human narratives commonly promote an artificial separation from nature to
rationalize supremacy and exploitation (Zapf, 2022). And these hybrids upend that illusion,
illustrating that human life is thoroughly enmeshed in the ecosystems it seeks to dominate. They
are not an aberration to the natural order but an illustration that hybridity is part of life itself.
According to Clinci (2023), under Assemblage Theory, beings should not be viewed as self-
contained and independent units but rather are defined or emerge through their relations to the
world. The truth is affirmed in these characters, who show that identity is a process of regular
relations, not a frame of close-up facts. It is not the fact of their existence which is so deeply
frightening, but what it signifies, how fragile, how tenuous, human-defined boundaries are.
Expressing its truth forces the forging of a world where nature and humanity are not opposed
but rather one and the same.
The sea in The Little Mermaid, far from merely a site, is an active force rewriting identity
in a posthuman space where the codes of human life no longer take hold. “Make the sea work,”
as Darling tells Sibyl, the film’s protagonist, “which really goes on, goes out of some sort of
human law, where body and movement are in a kind of state, instead of how to embody the wax
and the index of it finely.” Gaard (2017) explains that both posthumanism and ecofeminism are
critical of anthropocentrism, or human-centered ways of thinking that assume mankind has
dominion over nature, it promotes an alternative way of seeing that recognizes the agency that
nonhuman beings possess. This is reflected in the mermaid’s being in the ocean; she is at home
in a realm where rigid categories are unnecessary. Her metamorphosis into human, though,
requires her to relinquish that fluidity for a rigid, hierarchical world that spurns hybridity. Not
only does she transform herself, but the one where her physical existence used to matter. The
loss of vocalization points to the inequality in strength between the beast and the world of the
civilised society where she will not be able to voice out her individuality. Transcorporeality
addresses the concept that bodies are not separate from their environment; surprisingly, they are
always in the state influenced by the ecological processes (Jeong et al., 2021). Her
transformation of “turning into a land creature” is not a simple transformation in the matter, but
it is the removal from her surroundings, from nature that tells that in order to be a part of the
human society, one must lose one’s nature. However, the ocean does not belong to this binary, as
it is a realm where the process of becoming an insider feels less perverse. This is in line with
Assemblage Theory that holds that there is no entity in existence, which exists independently but
rather they are put together by relations with the material world (Clinci, 2023). The mermaid’s
tale depicted how it feels to have discontinued those constrictions highlighting the fact that being
is not giving out some parts of oneself to own one story in a holistic world of living organisms.
VII. Monstrosity, Identity, and Liberation
Monstrosity in Frankenstein becomes a dialectic of exclusion and resistance, whereby the
Creature’s body is placed in opposition to humanist parameters of identity. Built from disparate
human parts, his physical form prevents him from fitting the mold that would allow him to be
recognized as human, placing him in a position of certain rejection. In this ecological
interrelatedness, Gates (2021) suggests an individual identity gets complicated, for agreements
with the entire world constitute a public identity; beings cannot be disconnected from their ties
to everything around them. The Creature’s struggle for belonging is an embodiment of this idea
as his existence underscores the artificiality of identity categories. It is not his body that makes
him human, it is his mind and ability to feel. Yet he is treated as an outlier, and this only
reinforces the way societies have rigidly structured rules that decide who becomes part of the
community and who finds themselves on the perimeter. Similarly, Ulmer (2017) said that,
according to critical Disability Studies, monstrosity, like disability, is seen as a deviation from
the norm. Thus his exclusion shows the flaw in humanist paradigm of ethics where the disabled
are often denied their personhood due to their physical status and not their undesirable character
or lack of intelligence. As Gonzales (2021) postulated, posthumanism implies a new way of
understanding identity and subjectivity; it is not an identity connected to the body but the one
that exists in the world and in relations. The Creature has brought about a scandal with relation to
what counts as an acceptable or real body in the context of embodiment. His monstrosity is a
way to resist, because inclusion that aims at turning him into one of them is a false promise. It is
not simply an invention of Victor but a person who is crafted by a society that shuns him.
Unquestionably, his story erases a culture of exclusion and informs us that liberty is an outcome
of the consequences of hybridity as opposed to fleeing from it.
Ever After and The Little Mermaid do feature hybrid subjects that disrupt rigid notions
of identity in, but in different ways. The hybrid figures here resist the notion that identity always
should, or must, be singular and fixed, reclaiming a place in a world that would marginalize
them. Their very being is a quiet rebellion against a world that often demands conformity and
compliance. Ecological posthumanist theory asserts that identities cannot be reduced to
categories, Malone (2017) explains, as identities emerge from networks, entanglements amongst
beings. It is, these characters show us, when who we are is fluid, a becoming drawing us,
identifying us through relationship rather than a biological determinism to whom we are bound.
Their rejection of being defined by human standards destabilizes major power hierarchies to
unveil identity not as a possession but as a performance. Identity is not only constructed
internally, but affects, performs, and occurs through the relationship of the body with the world,
so it is felt (Harrington, 2017). Instead of replacing her original self, her transformation becomes
an act of self-determination, identity's endless possibility. According to Propen (2018),
posthuman conservation theory is constructed in opposition to anthropocentric dualisms, which
seek to establish hierarchies of built-in superiority within all forms of life, depicting hybridity as
the opposite of nature when, in fact, it is an essential adaptation to the rigidity of structures in the
world that delineate existence. Her narrative denounces the notion that one must assimilate to
belong, and sets identity instead through agency rather than validation from the outside. These
characters let us know that liberation lies not in holding on to roles but in the freedom to exist
outside of them. It is clear from this that their stories resist the notion that identity needs to be
singular, instead prioritizing hybridity as a form of resistance and self-determination.
VIII. Conclusion
Ever After, The Little Mermaid and Frankenstein provide spiritual consideration of
monstrosity and hybridity and the transformative ability of posthumanist thought to reconfigure
identity, ethics and the relationship to the non-human world. These narratives reject strict
humanist divides, showing that bodies labelled unnatural or threatening can act as sites of
resistance rather than simply represent exclusion. Monstrosity, then, is not a negative quality; it
operates as a political and cultural signifier, highlighting social unease and concerns (Torrano
2019). The monstrous and the hybrid challenge and dismantle dominant paradigms, revealing the
instability of identity categories (or a specific way to understand normality) that depend on
exclusion to be defined with respect to limits of normalcy. Human-animal hybrids or artificial
constructs, these characters’ push back against human-scaled paths to assimilation and open
alternative horizons for understanding selfhood. Déborah, in particular, will end up forcing an
ethical rethinking of the ways in which societies define inclusion and exclusion, developing the
idea that identity is not a state of being but a mutual and oftentimes violent definition of
belonging. As a chief example, McIntosh (2018) further describes how monstrosity, per se, and
its figuration, are imbricated with race, gender, and performance, detailing how identities not
quilted into dominant discursive tropes that exercise normalized marginalia are entombed in
monstrous figuration that makes its other a monstrous signifier justifying refusal. These
narratives resist such framing, remapping hybridity to an exercise in agency, rather than
oppression. The stories we have examined here demonstrate that posthumanism is not about the
absence of difference but about forging new modes of relating to it. According to Beghetto
(2022), liminality represents a central trait of the monstrous, venturing to bridge categories
instead of acting like a deviance from those categories. Monstrosity and hybridization are not
simply the threats to humanity; they are the fertile conduits of becoming that are a critical
ontological acceptance of a more encompassing and sustainable ontological acceptance.
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