ABSTRACT
The chapter addresses hybrids, “monsters” and “extra-ordinary bodies” in order to consider the themes of dualism, dichotomizations, and easy classifications, since posthumanism internalizes the hybrid and the monster as a starting point, to destabilize the symbolic boundaries set by the notion of the human as referred to in Western history. After an introduction to the different notions of the monstrous, from classical culture onwards, a review of the representation of the non-“normate” body is made. Then, the chapter takes into account two very different texts, The Dolphin People (2006) and The Shape of Water (2017). Their point of contact is given by the opposition between those who want to impose order, and therefore consider scientifically impure and expendable those who have an extra-ordinary body, and those who defend the right to be non-“normate.” The chapter ends with a paragraph devoted to Truismes (1996), a novel about a metamorphosis. The body (in this case, the body of a woman) here varies, in the course of the narration, from “normal” to “monstrous,” as, through various stages, it is transformed into the body of a sow.
