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There are many paths into entomophobia, and social messages can play a potent role in reinforcing fears. Literature tells us that insects can…
Invade our homes, bodies, and minds. Insects are scary when they enter our bodies. “I know an old lady who swallowed a fly”—and from there every kid knows how things spin out of control. The lesson: Don’t let insects into your body or perhaps you’ll die. And when you die:
“The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out // The worms play pinochle on your snout.”
So, when insects invade, they...
Overwhelm our sense of individuality. Throughout western literature, masses of insects have played a disturbing role, described by Jussi Parikka in Insect Media: An Archaeology of Animals and Technology as “horrors of nonindividual groups [in which] the power of swarms was a frightening one, emerging from the sheer size of the pack … as in the case of locusts.” And for centuries we’ve been reminded that these creatures…
Attack our health, food, and property. If the Bible is our guide to faith and fear, then there’s little wonder that we’re entomophobic. Tallying up references to insects reveals 46 negative allusions (e.g., “At his command came swarms of flies and maggots the whole land through” Psalms 105:31) and just four positive mentions. God coerces a recalcitrant Pharoah with gnats, flies, and locusts, while Beelzebub, the prince of the devils, is the “lord of the flies”. In modern literature, Eric Carle’s endearing insects are undermined in children’s literature by works such as Douglas Florian’s Insectlopedia. Dangerous insects include: mosquitoes (“They feast on your skin // For take-out food.”), locusts (“Your grain, // Your grass. // They disappear // Each time we pass”), and beetles (“We are weevils. // We are evil. // We’re aggrieved. // Since time primeval.”). This takes us to the realization that insects…
Perturb our tranquility through their monstrous otherness. No piece of literature more powerfully taps into monstrous otherness than Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, in which Gregor Samsa wakes up to find himself transformed into a gigantic insect. Those who once loved him are repulsed: “[Gregor’s mother] looked first with hands clasped together at his father, then took two steps towards Gregor and collapsed…” Kafka reminds us that insects…
Defy our will and control through their amoral autonomy. With the rise of fascism and communism in the last century, the lives of ants, termites, and bees became ominous representations of forced collectives in which individuals were enslaved and sacrificed for the good of the whole. Maurice Maeterlinck’s novels allude to the eerie communication within a hive manifest as a “murmur, whisper, and a refrain that even the bees might not hear but sense in some uncanny way.” Likewise, Sylvia Plath’s poem "Swarm" attributes “a black intractable mind” to insect masses. And so…
The infested mind is filled with skittering shadows, as we’ll explore further in the next installment which considers the role of film in how we mis-perceive insects.
