What is the horror movie essay?

Essential Questions

1) Romantics display their love and belief of optimism and individuality in the plot line of their stories.  A character usually goes off looking for something that he feels is missing in his life and believes that no matter how long it takes he will accomplish his goal.  He journeys to the most remote places imaginable alone, making his own choices and dealing with whatever consequences can find him on his search.  Over time, how long depends on how much the author likes the character, he will find what he was looking for, usually realizing that it was right under his nose the whole time.

2) Romanticism is a style of living, believing and looking at things, events and people.  As sub-categories to the genre of Romanticism Gothic Romanticism and Southern Gothic Romanticism have these ideals in them.  However they have darker settings and characters and deal more with human frailty than escape from reality.  Southern Gothic Romanticism typically places its setting in the southern potion of the United States while Gothic Romanticism has its setting in medieval-like places all over the world.

3) Authors wanted their stories and themes to hit closer to home so they moved the setting from far away to within the states.  The idea that we are capable and often doing what the characters in small towns do is frightening but we needed that.  We loved Romanticism to much just to let it drop off the radar so the authors took elements of horror placed them in the book and used ethos, pathos, and logos to convince us of what was happening much like the Puritan authors and pastors of colonial days.  They merged the old with the new and created something that the world simply could not put down because it appeal  to both their sense of humanity and amorality.

4) Americans long for a sense of wrongness something we can talk about and make fun of that will make us feel better abut ourselves.  Why else do we crave the court cases with no definite solution or the ones that are pre-determined guilty and are so bloody we feel both hate, and sadness in the same moment.  We got tired of the easy answers and wanted something harder, more realer.  The soppy goodness of the Disney characters was getting to us.  We wanted, needed something to keep up at night squirming with fear and wonder, pondering the moral rightness or wrongness of the characters.  We needed something new and unexplored.  Looking around we still crave that element of unknown in our books, no matter what other people try to tell us.

5) The sense of individuality instilled in the American people by those early Romantic authors keeps present authors on their toes trying to find something the public likes.  But just as we were altered by those early authors so are the authors of the present.  I, as I write books and poems, find myself writing things I didn't know I could write and liking it because it accurately sums up my feelings were other, simpler words were failing.  I choose to write what feels right and not what feels wrong on wording or emotion and that's what's hard for me when righting multiple character stories.  I have difficulty giving them all different personalities, making them individuals, giving them the free-will our founding fathers looked for so diligently.  Has the writing of the past changed the writing of the future?  The answer is yes and it has changed so much more.  In writing we stray away from the strictly informational books the puritans liked toward works of the heart and mind and soul.  We as a society are different because of the early Romantics.  Now what we must do is honor our heritage and the things that have made us who we are.

Romanticism Question

This story captures the imagination of today's readers because Mr. Crane's fate is not officially declared.  He could be dead, living well in the city, carried away like the old wives say or something worse and more interesting could have happened to him.  All it takes is a little imagination and Mr. Crane was kidnapped.  The story ends but unsatisfactorily.  There are too many questions we don't know the answers to for this to rest easy on our mind.  What did Katrina say to Mr. Crane?  Did Brom Bones get rid of Mr. Crane so he could have Katrina to himself?  How did the old farmer know Mr. Crane was alive?  Think about it, read the story and see if you come up with more unanswerable questions.  Then see the wheels in your mind work as you try to come up with an answer.

This song gave the slaves hope as they were working.  While I'll listening I can see another world were this event is occurring and I believe that nearly the same thing was happening to them as they sang.  This song transports you away from your circumstances, gives you hope and encouragement when you have none, and reminds you of what's coming soon.  It tells the slaves that there will be an end to their suffering, they just have to be patient and wait for it to get here.  The song says, "I looked over Jordan" which is the river in the promised land.  It was the Israelites sign that their faith was rewarded and that their hopes and dreams were almost fulfilled.  The slaves were looking for release from their bondage.  This song gave them hope because they "looked over Jordan" and saw relief coming.  In present times this song signifies more of an end of searching.  Many people today are looking for something or someone to tell them what's over the river.  They don't realize that you have to look for yourself to see the promise fulfilled.  The Chariot can't swing low to get you if don't stop searching for it and start looking at it.

Gothic Romanticism Questions

1)  Before I answer the question please note that while I see where the idea comes from I do not agree with it nor would I find it in the reading if I was not looking for it. 
          Mr. Usher sent for his childhood friend because he was beset with a kind of depression and ill in mind.  The narrator upon arriving sees that indeed his poor friend does seem afflicted with an illness of the mind, and that the illness seems to be revolving around his sister Ms. Usher.  Ms. Usher is afflicted with, as the story says,

"A settled apathy, a gradual wasting away of the person, and frequent although transient affections of a partially cataleptical character"(Poe).

One then can imagine that Ms. Usher did look remarkable similar to a vampire and through Mr. Usher's admission that they were twins, we can believe that Mr. Usher cared for her a great deal.  Even so to the point that when she died he persevered her "corpse" for  a fortnight. After putting her body in a temporary tomb located in a locked cellar where, presumably, no one could get out or in Mr. Usher became very nervous.  The Narrator comments that,

"There were times, indeed, when I thought his unceasingly agitated mind was labouring with some oppressive secret, to divulge which he struggled for the necessary courage"(Poe).

 

 

 Mr. Usher seemed to be an the verge of telling his friend something dreadfully important but it takes a fearful storm to drag it out of him.  A week after Ms. Usher's entombment Mr. Usher came into his friend's room where his friend, seeing that he was unwell, proceeded to read to him in an effort to calm him down.  He did not get a chance to finish the book.  Soon Mr. Usher rose from his chair and pointed saying, 

 

"Madman! I tell you that she now stands without the door!....

there did stand the lofty and enshrouded figure of

the lady Madeline of Usher. There was blood upon her white robes, and the evidence of some bitter struggle upon every portion of her emaciated frame" (Poe).

 

There, in front of their faces, stood the woman they had buried a week ago.  A woman who by the doctor's accounts was, and should be, dead.  But there she is, alive, moaning and not at all dead.  It is at this point that she falls upon her brother who in turn falls upon the floor, dead.

 This supernatural appearance, very much real and in-the-flesh, gives rise to, " Oh my gosh, She must be vampire!"  However to get to this assumption you have to skip over a great many details.

2)  Authors criticize human nature in their choose of characters.  They use a character that is greedy, abusive, wanting and/or insane and give them a counter-part who is perfectly sane, aware of the first person's faults and unable to do anything about it.  This is how authors mock human inability and stubbornness's. The first character is completely convinced that he/she is right and everyone else is wrong, in the way, or irrelevant right up until death where the realize in a final, or in some cases first,  moment of sanity that what they did was wrong.  After realizing that they tell everyone that they did it, then shortly after they die.  This mocks human frailty and our moral sense of rightness by allowing the person's consciousness to realize he/she is wrong at the moment of death rather than before they committed to their actions.  The criticisms are relayed to the reader primarily through the sane character in the story.   Most Gothic authors have the same ideas about human nature.  Their opinions relayed through the story are part of the criteria for the gothic genre.  The story "Dr. Heidegger's Experiment"  mocks the human mind by allowing the characters to believe they are young, which they aren't, and then taking the illusion away from them and watching their reactions of sadness, horror, and resolution.  In "The Masque of the Red Death" Poe mocks the human mind by having all his characters hide from the Red Death only to for the characters to find out that no place is truly safe from death despite their personal beliefs( note they found that out in their graves after everyone at the party died).

 

 

 

 

Southern Gothic Blog Questions

         Southern Gothic Romanticism is a sub-genre to Gothic and takes place primarily in the Southern portion of the United States.  The plot is pushed along by ironic occurrences and situations.  The stories "A Rose For Emily" and "The Life You Save May Be Your Own" are examples of Southern Gothic Literature. Both stories take place in the south and have plots pushed along by irony.  In "A Rose For Emily" Emily lives in an old broken down house refusing contact with the outside world.  This allows the town gossips to create many fantasies about what is happening to Emily without ever finding out if the stories were true.  This is the unwelcome side of society that Faulkner shows us. In  "The Life You Save May Be Your Own" Mr. Shiftlet leaves his wife that he just married at a gas station and drives because he is depressed about her and then he picks up a hitch-hiker and tries to convince him to go back to his mother.  The boy insults him and jumps out.  The Irony here is that Mr. Shitlet is doing the close to the same thing.  The difference being that he is running from his wife and mother-in -law.  The stories are related to Dark Romanticism by motif.  The Motifs from Dark and Southern Gothic Romanticism and similar, at least as far as these stories go.  They have the sense of darkness and danger that come from particular settings in a story and the settings are based off of the same idea.  However, Southern Gothic Romanticism is not as dark and evil.  Like romanticism There is a gentle light that pervades the story, allowing one to hope for a happy ending.  We know that there will be one, it just won't be the same one we were thinking of.  For example, "A Rose For Emily" has Emily getting married and living happily together with him, after he is a corpse.  Gross and ironic? Yes, but still a version, albeit a twisted one, of Happily Ever After.

          In "A Rose For Emily" Homer's murder went unnoticed and uninvestigated until after Emily's death for 3 reasons.  Reason number 1, she convinced the druggist not to ask about why she was buying poison.  The story tells us that

"he looked away and went and got the arsenic and wrapped it up. The

Negro delivery boy brought her the package; the druggist didn't come back.

When she opened the package at home, there was written on the box, under the

skull and bones: "For rats"(Faulkner). 

The Druggist assumed that it was for rat poison, after all its an old house, its bound to have rats.  Reason number two, Emily never left the house and the door was almost always closed, the story states that,

"From that time on her front door remained closed, save for a period of six or

seven years, when she was about forty, during which she gave lessons in china

painting. She fitted up a studio in one of the downstairs rooms"(Faulkner).

 No one was giving access to the upper rooms even when they were inside the house.  But then you could ask the negro servant, after all he was the only one allowed in the house, he brought the poison to Emily.  Shouldn't he know what happened to Homer?  The answer, we don't know.  The story tells us that

"He talked to no one, probably not even to her, for his voice had grown harsh and rusty, as if

from disuse"(Faulkner).

Then after Emily's death he opened the door and left never to be seen again. no one questioned him because he wouldn't talk to them.  Then right before they had a legal excuse to hold him for questioning he vanishes.  At this point the people found out their if their suspicions about Homer were true, and they were.  There he was, dead on the bed, probably from poison.
             The Hitch-hiker at the end of "The Life You Save May Be Your Own" does complete the story.  If you think about Mr. Shiftlet was probably in the same situation as a boy.  The segment brings him full circle and makes him want to stop someone from making his mistakes.  After all didn't he just throw away his best chance at married life?  Yes, he also threw away the chance of inheriting a paid-for farm.  He is trying to make the boy see that what his mother is doing is probably for the best in the long run.  Mr. Shiftlet realizes all he left behind and knows he can't go back because hat is were the storm of wrath is coming from.

Socratic Questions

Close -Ended: Who does Arnold talk to Connie about?   

 Answer:  Arnold talked about Jane, Mrs. Hornsby, And Connie's Mother at the BQQ as if he could see them.  He also mentions the old that used to live down the road from Connie's house.

 Open-ended: How did Arnold Get Connie to leave with him?
Answer:  Notice that both Ellie's radio and Connie's radio were tuned to the same station.  Remember that when Ellie asked Arnold a question he," held the radio away from his ear and grimaced, as if without the radio the air was too much for him"(Oates).  Also note Connie's reactions during her conversation with Arnold Oates talks about how dizzy and sick-feeling Connie is.  It is possible that Arnold was using the radio to persuade people to come with him.  Arnold specifically says,"Listen, that guy's great. He knows where the action is"(Oates).  This statement combined with the persuasion theory leads one to suspect that Arnold knows Bobby King personally and is getting favors out of him.  You can also tell that Connie is holding out much longer than his usual victims.  In the middle and end of the novel he is trying really hard to get Connie to come of her own free will.  He walks up to her which gives her a better look at him which scares her since he looks rather odd.  Then when she runs to the phone she feels as though the air is stabbing her.  I think that Arnold lost patience with her and decided to convince her to come with him, possible using hypnosis or something along that line to make her feel things that weren't there.  He even insinuated that her family might get hurt if she didn't come with him. Though by that point it wasn't necessary, she was already his.

World-connection Question: How does Connie's situation relate to the real-world?
Answer: Connie's situation is the one I have been warned about repeatedly, both by my parents, in broad terms, and by the people who come to school, in more detail. The tale of the cute girl who attracted the attention of an older guy who then decides to stalk her.  Occasionally it can go farther, kidnappings, and coercion for example.  This is a story that I have never been close to but I have little doubt in the fact that it does happen. 

Universal Theme/Core Question: How do our relationships with family members effect our activities?
Answer:  In life we are assaulted by feelings (including gut-instinct and emotions) and images. Often these two will tie together and form our opinion of a person. This opinion can lead to us wanting to spend more time with the person or wanting to spite them.  Connie's wish was to spite her mother so refused to go to the BQQ which gave Arnold the opportunity to get at her.  If Connie and her mother and not been constantly quarrelling she might have gone wit them to the BQQ and avoided the entire situation.  Instead she choose to anger her mother which got her stuck with Arnold with the possibility of never seeing her family again.  Possibility that probably became reality.

Literary Analysis Question: Is Oates right to surround Connie with jealous, uncaring and manipulative characters?
Answer: Oates' characters correctly identify with the situation.  What the story needs is a man who can use a family against a young girl, aka Connie, and family members to fit the bill.  If there had been a character who genuinely cared about Connie the struggle against Arnold would have been both longer and stronger because Connie would want to stay with that person. Whereas she went with Arnold fairly easily because deep down she felt unwanted and unappreciated.  The characters fit the story, they are what is needed for this plot.  If the plot were to change even a tiny bit the characters would need to different.

Romatic Project

Washington Irving- Washington Irving is the author of “The legend of Sleepy Hollow” and “Rip Van Wrinkle.  He encouraged Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe in their writing careers and perfected the  American Short Story.

Edgar Allan Poe- Edgar Allan Poe was part of the American Romantic Movement and created short stories full of mystery and macabre.  He is credited with creating the detective-fiction genre and influencing the science-fiction genre.

Charles Baudelaire- Charles Baudelaire is a French Poet who changed the workings of French Literature.  His poems have greatly influenced modernism and later poets.  

Nathaniel Hawthorne-Nathaniel Hawthorne is part of the Dark Romanticism movement.  His writing centers around humanity’s sin and inherent evil.  His works help us confront our greatest fears and sins.

Flannery O’Connor-Flannery O’Connor was an important Southern Gothic writer.  She focused on the grotesque elements

Wallis Willis- Wallis Willis is well known for the negro spirituals that he composed.  His songs give us insight to the lives of slaves and what they hope for and believe in.

William Faulkner-William Faulkner is an important author in both American and Southern literature.  His writing was emotional and had characters from a wide variety of social classes.  His novels show us how different types of people react and live in society.

Connie Barbie- "Where are you going, Where have you been?"
3 Accessories  -Telephone to provide fear relief and back up
                           -Screen Door with stand(new) to talk through and give sense of security
                           -a Radio to provide background music while making important decisions
1 Vehicle           - Shiny gold jalopy with assorted dents(comes with freaky Eddie figurine)
3 Features          -Two style walk button(for town and home)
                           -Whisper voice pull cord for talking to friends( friends sold separately)
                            -Annoy Mom Mode, complete with glazed expression and rolling eyes (all you have   to do is find the secret button!)
Also Collect       -Hot Stalker Arnold and Perfect Dull Jane