How Does Stephen King Create A Sense Of Self Destruction

Modern society thrives on the adrenaline rush from the being scar. Not just scares, but terrified to the point that fear takes on new meaning, invoking thoughts that were never deemed possible. Despite the popularity of facing these fears, it is not a new pastime as many would believe. Horror and Gothic tradition had its beginnings in the early medieval period that dominated Europe in the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, but it was American author Edgar Allen Poe of the nineteenth century that made Gothic tradition. A popular literary genre. Poe's troubled, short life had great influence on his writing, which is distinguished by specific, unique characteristics, and has in turn

Edgar Allan Poe and Shirley Jackson are two authors both known for their work with horror stories. Each author uses their own lives to help craft beautiful macabre stories that readers have enjoyed for years. Although written almost 100 years apart, Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado”, and Jackson’s “The Lottery”, uses similar elements of suspense and character traits to develop their stories, while using different points of view and critical approaches to keep the readers engaged and interested in the stories. Suspense is one of the key elements to both Poe’s and Jackson’s stories.

Gothic horror stories often seem to instill fear in its audience through murder or mind games. In both, The Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allan Poe and The Shining by Stephen King, there is a presence of one of fear created through murder or mind games. The objects within each story seem to play the role of an animate being as they lead to the deterioration of the characters in different ways when The Cask of Amontillado used it’s wine, crypt, iron staples, and cement and bricks as animate objects that commit and contribute to murder while The Shining’s objects; the roque mallet, the Overlook Hotel, and the scrapbook acted as animate objects when they controlled the minds of its characters and lead to physical and mental abuse.

Have you ever thought about what makes you become scared when reading scary stories? Gothic writing developed in the late eighteenth century and it was mainly a style of writing where abnormal or ghostly experiences were portrayed. In the stories Castle of Otranto, “Sir Bertrand,” and Romance of the Forest, terror is illustrated by emphasizing the architectural environments that are encountered. The architectural environments in Gothic literature, engage readers and immerse them into the story so that supernatural events can be imaginable, by using common features such as darkness, intricate or secret passages, and abandoned or isolated buildings.

One of the scariest experiences of my life was when Hayden was climbing a mountainside. Hayden went to grab a plant to help myself up, but it ripped out. When that happened Hayden’s brother had caught Hayden’s arm and helped Hayden up because if Hayden had fallen, Hayden was most likely going to die. This scenario relates to gothic literature; because I was in a bleak setting and it relates to magical realism because for some reason, my brother, caught me at the perfect time. These genres are similar in that they both use supernatural events in the story. However, Edgar Allen Poe’s “Fall of the House of Usher” is an example of gothic literature because it tells you how the story ends; while Julio Cortazar’s “House Taken Over” is an example of magical realism because it discusses historic facts with a mysterious feeling. Hayden’s scariest experience can best be described as an experience which are examples of the potential tragedies found in Gothic and Magical Realist genres.

Gothic Literature has been around since the late 17th century, slowly progressing in popularity until the mid 19th century where it had much success demonstrated through Edgar allan Poe. Edgar Allan has a number of common Themes, motifs and structures that make his work easily recognizable and more importantly, fits his stories into the classification of the gothic. Among these elements, they include the theme of death and decay, which is almost always in Gothic fiction, the theme or presence of madness, insanity or other internal chaos, and haunted or creepy locations. Some stories by Poe that include these elements are, “Tell-Tale heart” and “The Raven”. Edgar Allan

Scary literature is powerful in the sense that it can cause readers to be on the edge of their seats, keep them up all night, and leave them even more attracted to the allure of fear. In Edgar Allan Poe’s Gothic short story, “The Fall of the House of Usher,” a man visits his mentally-ill old friend, Roderick Usher, and experiences unordinary events following the death of Usher’s twin sister Madeline. Another spine-tingling short story is “House Taken Over” by Julio Cortazar, which falls into the category of Magical Realism and is about a pair of siblings who are driven out of their grand home after a mysterious entity takes control over it. The genres and settings of “The Fall of the House of Usher” and “House Taken Over” share several of the same elements but also differ in numerous ways.

Gothic literature was a significant style of writing in the late 1700s and 1800s. It involves several different elements, such as imprisonment, doppelgangers, claustrophobia, haunted settings, unreliable narrators, the Spanish Inquisition, curses, and supernatural elements; therefore, “The Pit and the Pendulum” by Edgar Allen Poe is an excellent example of gothic literature. This story includes many gothic elements, each of which contributes to the horrifying atmosphere of the story. The feeling of claustrophobia, the unreliable narrator, and the imprisonment of the narrator are the three most significant gothic elements in “The Pit and the Pendulum.”

The king of the gothic-horror genre, Edgar Allan Poe, is well-known for intriguing short stories, especially “The Cask of Amontillado”. In cinematic art, Alfred Hitchcock, “The Master of Suspense”, uses similar techniques in his film such as foreshadowing, and suspense to give the audience a sense of an adrenaline overdose. Fear, terror and suspense are the most vivid emotions created by Poe’s stories and by Hitchcock’s films have paved the road for future horror entertainment. Both artistic pieces of entertainment orbit themes of revenge and how it is a major source of destruction of humanity. Acknowledging the madness in the world can be seen clearly through the lenses of both Poe and Hitchcock by using

Edgar Allan Poe, a renowned American writer, was known to illustrate perverse scenarios through his works. Poe believed the goal of a writer was to generate a “concentrated emotional impact.” The term “Concentrated emotional impact” is considered the intense focus on one emotion that transcends all other sentiments. In some of Poe’s works such as The Black Cat and The Cask of Amontillado the use of “Concentrated emotional impact” is highly effective and can even be considered an exemplification of the term. In these those two works he uses point of view and setting to enhance the sensation of horror as his focal point. While these pieces are distinct, they do share some similarities.

“I know not where I was born, save that castle was intently old and infinitely horrible; full of dark passages and having high ceilings where the eye could only find cobwebs and shadows.” (Lovecraft 15) This quote depicts the eerie setting from the short story “The Outsider”. Settings like these can only be found in the exhilarating and heart-pounding horror genre. The horror genre holds many thrilling characteristics. One of these characteristics is suspense, which makes the reader worry about what will happen next in the story. Adding to suspense, comes the super natural event in a horror story that raises questions in the reader’s mind about what is happening in the story. An eerie setting completes the story by sending shivers down the

These implicit forms of ‘haunting’ – evident in both the elements of theme as well as the language of the novel – challenge the conventionality of Gothic literary tradition, and project a modernist understanding of how meaning and importance are not limited by physical presence.

A universal fascination with death is not something newly discovered; in fact there is scarcely any other matter upon which our thoughts and feelings have changed so little over time . As humans we have the unique ability to be aware of our own mortality. This awareness means a preoccupation with death is never far from our minds, it only takes the opening of a newspaper to reveal how obsessed with death we are. However, whilst being an obsession, it is also simultaneously something that culture dictates as a forbidden subject. This conflict society creates about our feelings towards death is largely responsible for the popularity of gothic fiction. After all, life in gothic fiction never frees itself from the presence or threat of

It would make sense to firstly explain and elaborate on Freud’s theory of ‘The Uncanny’. The word ‘uncanny’ derives from German origin, ‘unheimlich’, which translates to ‘unhomely’. This concept regards elements which arouse fear, dismay and unfamiliarity; these apply to “everything that was intended to remain behind closed doors, but has emerged into the open”. The very purpose of Gothic texts regardless of the era coincides with Freud’s theory of ‘The Uncanny’, thus allowing myself to begin the presented investigation.

The term Gothic is significant for the understanding of the origins and development of the horror genre. Both of these genres differ, whilst Gothic literature is the text that explores the frightening extremes in mankind, horror focuses more on the unknown. The Gothic horror genre has changed over time and retains importance because it is the antecedent of the horror genre. Factors such as the definition of the word Gothic, the archetypes of the genre, and its social and historical contexts, have altered considerably as time progressed. The value and popularity given to the gothic horror genre has also varied during the past few centuries. As a result, in order to understand the horror genre’s foundations, it is important to observe the