Mythological Criticism--The Shadow People?

*This post may or may not contain spoilers.

You spot something from the corner of your eye.  It seems to be dark and shadowy, yet nothing is there. What was it?  Your imagination? Shia Labeouf?  Or perhaps, a shadow person--those creatures that are seen briefly out of the corner of one's eye. 

According to legend, these entities appear in a variety of forms.  They may simply pass through our bedroom as we sleep at night, or lurk in our doorways--watching, waiting.  These figures have become so widely recognized as paranormal entities, that people have taken up the study of these beings.  Several theories have been offered as an explanation of the origins of the Shadow Person.  They may be demonic entities, ghosts, inter-dimensional travelers, astral bodies, or just a figment of the imagination.  My research led me to the multiple classifications of the Shadow People: the benign shadow, negative shadows, red-eyed shadows, and hooded shadows.  The benign walk through one's room, never straying from their path and never paying the living any attention.  Their only purpose is to walk the Earth for the rest of eternity.  The negative shadows lurk, causing an unnatural feeling of terror.  The red-eyed shadows are a form of the negative, which stare at their victims with glowing, red eyes.  Supposedly the negative and red-eyed shadows feed off of their victims' fear.  The hooded shadows appear to be dressed in ancient garb, similar to that of a monk.  They appear to those who are experiencing an immense amount of rage.  Whatever these entities actually are, they each prove to be equally shocking for a human to come into contact with.

 David Wong made use of the "negative shadows" in his book, John Dies at the End.  People can rarely make out the features of these dark figures that lurk in the corners of your room.  After a shot of soy sauce however, John and David the ability to sense these "people" at all corners of the universe.  According to Mr. Wong, the Shadow People are dark messengers from a universe parallel to Earth.  His adaptation of the paranormal phenomena, described them as malicious, soul hungry beings that sought to take over the universe.  The Shadow People in John Dies at the End were the inter-dimensional beings described by the theorists that I came across during my research.  It is discovered toward the end of the novel, that an alternate dimension exists almost identical to that of the Earth.  The Shadow People from the alternate dimension, had found a way to intrude Earth in attempt to take over it's inhabitants.  The only difference between Mr. Wong's Shadow People and those of paranormal myth, is that they can cause physical harm to their victims.  They prove to be rather dangerous enemies, as John and David attempt to save the world. 

Rather than using the sun or the moon to foretell the end of the world, David Wong used the elusive Shadow People, a figure which many readers can recognize, in order to evoke a universal feeling of fear and terror.  John Dies at the End is recognized as one of the scariest books of the modern era.  Why is this so?  Well, it is primarily due to Mr. Wong's expert usage of myth and archetypes, both of which induce a realistic interpretation of the novel as a whole.  

After I finished the novel, I found myself thinking about the possibilities of an actual alternate universe, full of actual Shadow People.  Shaken by this thought, I set the book down and started a more lighthearted read.  The point of my saying this was to emphasize the effect that the Shadow People in John Dies at the End had on me.  I was terrified.  I found myself checking my back when I took my dog out late at night.  The shadows in the corner of my room seemed to take on a life of their own.  After experiencing that kind of fear, I would say that David Wong's use of a mythological archetype proved to be rather successful.