May: A Multi-Faceted Monster

Childhood is the foundation of stable mental bases. If not provided adequate amounts of nourishment, the disruption of sanity can be inevitable. The effects of this malnourishment are clearly highlighted by the character May, in Lucky McKee’s aptly named movie May. May is the tragic story of a girl ostracized as a child and left friendless and socially crippled. This movie illustrates a multi-faceted monster. It shows a monster created out of difference, a monster of homicidal proportions, and focused mainly on the true monster of isolation. The blatant social abandonment is a monster in its own right and caused the girl, May, to grow into a debilitating life psychopathy. This film can directly relate back to the cultural fear of being left alone. May is a movie that delves in to the horror of isolation and abandonment that leads to emaciated social skills and the inevitable damnation of becoming a monster.

May Dove Canday, in the movie May, was an ordinary little girl in every respect other than her left eye which was slightly turned in, leaving her with a lazy eye. In an attempt to have a normal well-adjusted daughter, May’s mother fitted her with an eye patch and adjusted her long dirty-blonde hair to fall in front of the patch. Grasping the importance of blending into a group, her mother sharply advised, “If you want to make friends, than keep it covered” (May). On May’s first day of school, the eye patch was blatantly apparent to the other children. The separation between May and her classmates was almost instantaneous, and the rejection that she felt was palpable. May went through her childhood friendless and alone. On one of her solitary birthdays, her mother gave her a gift. It was a pale porcelain doll in a glass case...

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