Of Monsters, Myths and Marketing: The Case of the Loch Ness Monster

• Authors: Moir, James

Abstracts

EN

This paper examines the status of the Loch Ness Monster within a diverse body of literature relating to Scotland. Within cryptozoology this creature is considered as a source of investigation, something to be taken seriously as a scientific or quasi-scientific object to be studied and known, particularly in light of its elusive nature. In terms of mythology the creature is bound up with Scottish cultural identifications through references to a rugged wilderness landscape and to iconic, if stereotypical, images of tartanry, bygone castles, and folklore. Both sets of ideas have been used with great effect to generate a diversity of literature: from books and scientific papers that chronicle the sightings and “hunt” for the creature as well the possible case for it being a line of long-surviving plesiosaurs, through to children’s literature that deals with the mythic element that is so often used to appeal to childhood imagination, and on to a plethora of tourist marketing booklets and brochures.

Keywords

EN

Loch Ness; monster; Scotland; myth; marketing

• Publisher: Uniwersytet Łódzki. Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego
• Journal: Analyses/Rereadings/Theories: A Journal Devoted to Literature, Film and Theatre
• Year: 2015
• Volume: 3
• Issue: 1

Dates

published

2015

Contributors

author

Moir, James

other

Abertay University

other

James Moir is a senior lecturer in sociology at the University of Abertay with a research interest in the application of discourse analysis across a range of topics. This has included an examination of the discursive constructions of tourism as visual experience, environmental sustainability and responsibility, political discourse and opinionation, and, in the volume, the Loch Ness Monster as an icon and motif of Scottishness

Identifiers

URI

http://hdl.handle.net/11089/21964