On peut enfermer les monstres dans leur placard

“On peut enfermer les monstres dans leur placard” is Shelby Anderson Barnum’s image for the possibility of resisting an abuser’s control. Rather than treating the “monster” as unbeatable, the expression makes it something that can be contained—and gives encouragement a concrete, memorable form. Its significance grows when Ye-jun carries the idea into his own troubled relationship with their father.

Meaning and First Use

Shelby Anderson Barnum introduces the image while speaking with Jungkook Jeon about the hold his father has over him. She acknowledges that the father is an awful man, but rejects the belief that he cannot be defeated: even in a difficult world, she insists, nothing is impossible, and monsters of any kind can be shut away. The line does not deny the danger or difficulty of escaping control. Instead, it separates a person’s power to harm from any claim to be invincible.

The metaphor gives Shelby Anderson Barnum’s reassurance a practical direction. The monster is not described as vanishing; it is put somewhere it can no longer dominate the whole space. The expression therefore offers hope without suggesting that confronting an abuser is easy.

Ye-jun’s Reuse of the Image

Later, Ye-jun recalls Shelby Anderson Barnum’s advice as he speaks with Jungkook Jeon about their father. Ye-jun explains that their father did not hit him, but subjected him to sustained psychological pressure, which continues to make it difficult for him to leave his position and openly defy him. Taking up Shelby Anderson Barnum’s metaphor, he says he should be able to assert himself against the monster.

The repetition links two different experiences of the same father’s control: Jungkook Jeon’s account of abuse and Ye-jun’s account of psychological pressure. In Ye-jun’s retelling, Shelby Anderson Barnum’s words become more than comfort offered in a single conversation; they are language he can use to imagine resistance for himself.

Shared Resistance

Ye-jun’s admission also changes how Jungkook Jeon understands his older brother. Jungkook recognizes that his own anger kept him from seeing what Ye-jun was enduring, and that Ye-jun had wanted them to stand together. When Jungkook acknowledges that Shelby Anderson Barnum gives good advice, he offers to confront their father alongside Ye-jun.

The expression thus moves from reassurance toward solidarity. Its central image remains a way to name the threat, but the closing offer turns the idea of containing the monster into a shared act of facing him.