Lusus Naturae, meaning like a monster, is a story about an innocent young girl that transforms into a hideous monster. As tension grows between her and her family a consensus is reached for her to disappear. After living a solitary life in the comfort of the shadows for many years, her desire for human connection grows strong and it inevitably seals her fate. The girl in the story has a kind and humble soul. She takes ownership of her disease, shows compassion for her family and retains her innocence. In the end, despite being treated cruelly by her family throughout life, it is her need for human connection that ultimately leads to her demise.
The story is written as seen through the eyes of the young girl. Attwood introduces her in a familiar scene. She is listening to her family while they sit around the kitchen table discussing what to do with her as if this is an intervention. She is extremely understanding of her own situation; the disease is transforming her into a monster. Attwood describes her monster like characteristics as, ‘ my yellow eyes, my pink teeth, my red fingernails, the long, dark hair that was sprouting on my chest and arms” along with the fact she eats blood. The girl’s family rejects her and show their feeling towards her by saying she is a curse, a judgement and possessed by a demon. The girl owns her disease even after the doctor called her a monster. She overhears them talking and thinks “It’s nobody’s fault” (Atwood). Countless times throughout the story the girl agrees with her family when they speak of her as a burden.
For example, her sister states “Curse or disease, it doesn’t matter,” “Either way, no one will marry me if they find out” (Atwood). The girl thinks “without me, her coast would be clear” (Atwood). She blames no one for her disease and does not lash out at her family for their selfishness. After all this, the girl says, “It was decided that I should die” (Atwood) and explains how this is the best option for her sister and her family with no regards for herself. Evidence of her taking ownership of the entire situation is in her positive attitude. She pretends to be dead as she lies in her own coffin, like an actress in a play, giving one hundred percent to her performance.
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Analogous to owning her disease she retains her innocence. Attwood depicts this by saying, “Once she’d held my head under the water in which the dirty clothes were soaking, praying while she did it. That was to eject the demon she was convinced had flown in through my mouth and was lodged near my breastbone.” Here her grandmother is trying to exorcise a demon she thinks has possessed her granddaughter. The girl has no idea this is wrong and wants to help her family no matter how ridiculous they sound or what they do to her. In the story, the family fakes their daughter’s death, they have her lie in her coffin and hold her breath while people come to pay their respects. The family morns their daughter’s death and the girl understands this to be as it should. Moving forward, she is isolated from everyone. The only education she has is with her father teaching her to read. This tells us she has little knowledge of the rules of her society and what is right or wrong.
The girl says “In the dimness I read Pushkin, and Lord Byron, and the poetry of John Keats. I learned about blighted love, and defiance, and the sweetness of death” (Atwood), this gives her a skewed reality and the injustices in her life seem normal to her. As the girl grows older she becomes the monster her family made her out to be in the beginning. She retains her innocents by always seeing herself as the little girl she once was, as she says here, “They say dead people can’t see their own reflections, and it was true; I could not see myself. I saw something, but that something was not myself: it looked nothing like the innocent, pretty girl I knew myself to be, at heart” (Atwood).
Above all the girl has demonstrated her desire for human connection from the time her father stopped holding her until the end of her life. Even though her family resents her and does awful things to her she invited their actions as if they were hugs and kisses. She defends their actions throughout the story. After her screen played death, she is isolated from people, in her room during the day and at night roaming around while people sleep. As family members get older and die the only person left in her life is her mother. When she can no longer take care of her the girl gives her blessing for mom to sell their house and move in with her other daughter.
After this, the girl begins seeking human interaction by only partly being seen, as a creature in the dark, scaring unknowing victims with her childish pranks. This only satisfies her needs for a while. One day she observes a couple that, through her innocence, looks to have similar issue as she does. The girl observes them making love and thinks this part of a disease they are struggling with. The attraction of human connection is too strong and her faith in humanity leads her to exposing herself to them. The couple reported to others what they had witnessed which led to the discovery that the girl was alive resulting in an angry mob coming to get rid of her once and for all.
The unnamed girl in this story starts out her life as a normal child. After being diagnosed with a horrid disease she transforms into a catlike vampire that her family is ashamed of and feels brings a curse upon them. The girl takes ownership of her disease from the time she is diagnosed. Despite her families selfish, resentful, and cruel behavior towards her she remain empathetic to the burden her disease has put on them. Always seeing herself as she was before the transformation and lack of knowledge throughout all of the injustices she endured. She retains her innocence to the last minutes of her life when the need for human interaction leads to her death.
