In “The Black Cat” by Edgar Allen Poe, the unnamed narrator who is also the protagonist is writing a letter detailing the events of his life to ‘unburden his soul,’ since he is scheduled to be executed the next day. He describes himself as having a docile disposition as a child with a particular fondness for animals. He marries young and the two get many pets: birds, goldfish, rabbits, a dog, a monkey, and a cat named Pluto, who he had a particular affinity for. Over the years he grew moody, irritable, and insensitive, taking out these emotions physically and verbally against his wife and animals. Pluto was spared this violence until one day the protagonist comes home drunk and gouges out his eye with a knife. Although initially guilty he grows to hate Pluto and eventually hangs him, and that night his house catches fire and burns. The only thing that remains is the wall behind his bed with the image of a cat with a noose around its neck. The narrator is haunted by this grows remorseful over Pluto, yearning for another cat. He adopts one by chance that is identical to Pluto (save for a patch of white on his breast) and it’s incredibly fond of him. The narrator quickly grows to hate the new cat, but resists striking it out of fear and remorse. One day as he, his wife, and the cat are in the cellar he attempts to kill it with an axe. His wife stops him, the action turning the narrator’s anger to her. He kills her and hides her behind the cellar walls. For four days the cat is nowhere to be seen and he sleeps peacefully until police come to inspect his house. After finding nothing he boasts about the construction of the house and cheekily taps the spot his wife is hidden under, only for a wail to sound from behind the wall. The police officers tear down the wall and discover the body of his wife and the cat, which had been sealed in as well. The chronic tension is the narrator’s murder of his wife and the acute tension is the narrators imminent hanging.
One important element of this story is how the relationship the narrator has with Pluto and the second cat builds to reflect the state of his mental health. This element of characterization is highlighted in yellow. The narrator has a very clear character arc stemming from his growing emotions of apathy. The progression of these emotions can be seen through the actions the narrator has with his cats. He is not afraid to beat his wife and animals, yet with Pluto he holds back. This can be prescribed to his preference for the animal. He seems to hold the emotions of animals in higher regard to those of humans, stating
To those who have cherished an affection for a faithful and sagacious dog, I need hardly be at the trouble of explaining the nature or the intensity of the gratification thus derivable. There is something in the unselfish and self-sacrificing love of a brute, which goes directly to the heart of him who has had frequent occasion to test the paltry friendship and gossamer fidelity of mere Man.
This could be why he seems to not hold back against abusing his wife who is human and, according to him, the relationships cultivated between humans do not compare to the happiness he derives from the relationships he builds with animals. The narrator personally feeds Pluto and the cat accompanies him all throughout the house, a mutual bond of trust and love. The author is careful to establish this character trait and to stress the significance of their relationship, as the narrators relationship to his wife and other animals is hardly expounded upon in comparison. When the narrator finally does inflict pain upon the animal there’s two factors that have to give him the final push. The first is his intoxication. The alcohol inhibits his rational decision making, making him grab Pluto and get bitten. The narrator describes his emotions as such:
The fury of a demon instantly possessed me. I knew myself no longer. My original soul seemed, at once, to take its flight from my body; and a more than fiendish malevolence, gin nurtured, thrilled every fibre of my frame.
The narrator needs both the induction of alcohol and provocation from Pluto to ever harm him. The deed then festers guilt and anger within him until he hangs the cat, helping the audience see his progression into malevolence with the increasingly violent acts towards a creature he once held so much affection for.
The second craft element I’m going to be looking at is the point of view, highlighted in pink. The entire story is framed as a letter written by the narrator before he is executed. We aren’t reading the story as it occurred, rather we are privy to the inner thoughts of the narrator as we read. The utilization of this helps the audience understand the character better by providing his own commentary. He calls the hanging of Pluto:
…a deadly sin that would so jeopardize my immortal soul as to place it—if such a thing were possible—even beyond the reach of the infinite mercy of the Most Merciful and Most Terrible God.
When he begins likening the white spot on the second cat’s chest to the gallows he thinks:
And now was I indeed wretched beyond the wretchedness of mere Humanity.
The narrator consistently calls his deeds wretched, horrible, and every name under the sun. He thinks of himself as entirely culpable for his actions, claiming he’s past a place of forgiveness. He recognizes his actions for what they are- “…deed[s] of cruelty…”
This goes to show that the narrator not only possesses guilt over his actions, but recognition that they weren’t okay. Think of how this story would be different if it were told through the eyes of one of the police officers who found the body. You’d think the narrator was a murderer who deliberately murdered and hid the corpse of his wife and live cat, smug in his success and going so far as to goad the police. The audience would come to hate the narrator with no deeper understanding of his thoughts or actions. Told through the narrator we learn that he’s a victim of his temper who, during fits of rage, commits major acts of violence that he grieves over, in turn festering into negative feelings that lead into more violence. In both instances where he gouges out Pluto’s eye and kills his wife there was some kind of intervention or external factor that goaded him into it. In the first instance it was the intoxication and bite, the second was his wife’s intervention in his attempt to murder the second cat. Though he was already cynical in nature (not trying to defend the narrator for what he did) he needed an extra push to do acts that hold permeant consequences. All of this detail is something the audience only gets through the point of view of the narrator, without it our understanding of his actions would be greatly lacking in detail.
Discussion Questions:
How does the selection of detail contribute to the story? (i.e. the lack of exposition on the narrator’s relationship with his wife in comparison to his relationship with the cats)
How does the point of view the inform the reader about the characterization of the narrator? How does it progress the readers understanding of him?
Two of the most critically acclaimed horror movies of 2018 include the loss of a sense. Bird Box, a jarring thriller about an unseen force that makes you kill yourself as soon as you set your eyes on it, forces its main protagonists to go through a broken world without their sight. A Quiet Place, as alluded to in the title, is based on the premise that sound is deadly. Supposedly extraterrestrial creatures that hunt by sound have ravaged the earth, and the only way to survive is to not make a single sound. These films obviously produce a sense of horror, but why? The easiest answer would be the unknown. In both movies, the protagonists have no idea what is hunting them or why. But even more pressing is the inhumane loss of senses, leaving them crippled in the world that is so much stronger than they are. This unimaginable horror scenario allows for a wide breadth of suspense and thrill, keeping the audience on edge, suddenly fearing ordinary things. The element of suspense in horror films of this caliber is best represented in A Quiet Place. Forced to view the majority of the movie without sound, the audience’s ears are made sensitive to any noise, attaching the same feeling of peril that the characters feel onto the viewer. The rarity of sound in the movie makes every loud moment significant, as if popcorn in the microwave somehow became machine gun fire. You spend the entire movie with your ears in a liminal space, disconnected and useless, ringing and tense, hairs standing on end. The whole experience is surreal. Bird Box capitalizes less on the lack of sight and more on the compelling mystery of what is hunting them, and the audience is left unhindered, but the shock of the situation still stands, if not more so. A mysterious creature puts you to your own death using arguably the most important of the five senses: sight. This antagonist has an instant impact, even through screens. There’s no way to avoid living blindly. While the threat of Bird Box’s monster doesn’t impact the audience in the same way as A Quiet Place, it still places the mind on edge: What would I do if I couldn’t see? How would I survive?
Both movies feature an unidentified antagonist that arrived for no specific reason at all. The end of our world began, and we couldn’t even begin to imagine to what that entailed. The strange loss of what is familiar and comfortable coupled with the arrival of something new and completely out of the realm of reality is enough to spin anyone out of control. Our ability to perceive and interact with the world around us is tremendously hindered by the situations depicted in these films, almost a direct loss of self, a loss of humanity.
Discussion Questions:
Which one scared you more, Bird Box or A Quiet Place? (If either one scared you?) Which sense do you believe the loss of/ inability to use (besides the ones mentioned above) do you think would be the best vector for a horror movie?
“Supernatural” concepts are brought up a lot in Stephen King books, much Like Carrie, which we’re reading now. While the supernatural entity introduced in the book may not always turn out to be an actual supernatural entity, the way King writes out the events makes it seem so paranormal, you believe something more than it actually is.
In The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, there is no actual supernatural entity, however, because of the circumstances our main character- Trisha- is in, she hallucinates. Since the story is from her perspective that also makes the reader believe that there is something paranormal going on. Rational thinking leaves in stressful situations, and sometimes that makes you think that a bear is a God.
The topic of religion is brought up while Trisha is lost, she flashes back to talking to her dad about the topic
Trisha doesn’t know if she believes in God or not, but still finds herself praying while being lost. This brings up that God and praying is something that we are conformed to do when in need of help. No matter what you’re dealing with, God will help you so anyone should turn to him, even if you (like Trisha) don’t really know if They exist or not.
When talking to her dad about God, He reveals that he doesn’t believe in one entity controlling the whole universe, but instead one ever present something. It’s something that’s always there, it doesn’t control everything but it’s something you’re so used to that you don’t even notice it. The Subaudible is a force that is always there to the point you get so used to it you don’t even notice it anymore. Trisha realizes this isn’t something you can pray to, but it’s something that you can use to your advantage.
The Subadible is a concept that Trisha turns to a lot throughout the story. It’s evident as you learn more about Trisha that she favors her dad over her mom in a lot of situations (though not every situation). This brings her to care more about the subadible than praying to God, though in the end se sort of makes up her own god that combines the two and gives you that feeling of home with two parents living in different places.
While lost in the forest, Trisha becomes convinced that she is being watched by a something. Later on she determines that it must be the God of the Lost and it’s coming to get her.
The first time the something comes up is Trisha’s first night sleeping in the woods. She wakes up in the middle of the night needing to go to the bathroom. When she gets back she psyches herself out, and begins thinking that there’s a big monster, also known as the something, is watching her. Everytime a branch snaps, or there’s even a little bit of a noise she fears the something is coming closer to her. She doesn’t know what it’s going to do if it finds her, but she doesn’t take the chance, and hides under a fallen tree.
The morning after that, when Trisha wakes up, she remembers the previous night’s events and realizes that the something was just in her head and a figment of her imagination and fear of the unknown. She continues thinking about the something throughout the day. She goes from being certain it’s not real, to wondering again if it is, to thinking it it, to thinking it’s not. But still, every night, she becomes afraid of the something.
When the pneumonia hits Trisha hard, she falls asleep quickly in her makeshift shelter under a pine tree. She’s thirsty, hot, cold, sick, tired, and hallucinating. When she finally falls asleep, as described in the book: “something came and watched her.” It then says it watched until the sun started coming up, then it left but it didn’t go far.
One night, thirsty, hungry, and suffering an pneumonia, Trisha begins to hallucinate
The first thing Trisha hallucinates while suffering her sickness, is Tom Gordon. She see’s him in all his glory, still with his glove on his hand and other hand behind his back. She describes him as “real as real,” and his uniform glowing in the moonlight. She claims she knew that he wasn’t real, but she doesn’t seem convinced by herself.
After the night is over, Trisha continues following the stream, hoping it will still elad her to civilization but slowly realzing it probably wont. To get her motivated and continuing to move, she imagines that Tom Gordon is walking with her. The, after a while she begins to ahllucinate him, and doesn’t have to pretend. She still knew he was a hallucination, but he “looked as real by sunlight as he did by moonlight.”
While sitting under a tree at the stream after eating berries to the point of actually being full, Trisha sees, at first, butterflies flying around and having fun in a beam of sunlight, only then to hallucinate figures in robes standing across the stream. The one in the middle is wearing a black robe, the other two are wearing white robes. She isn’t afraid of… all of them, though she doesn’t seem to realize they aren’t real.
The figure on the left then steps forward and takes his hood off to reveal someone who looks like Trisha’s fourth grade science teacher. He tells her he “comes from the God of Tom Gordon.”
The second white robed figure steps forwards and removes it’s hood. It looks like her father. It tells Trisha that it is the Subadible. It apologizes for not being able to do anything to help Trisha, explaining to her that it’s weak.
The one in the black robe steps forward next, before it even removes it’s hood, Trisha is filled with a sense of fear and dread. This feeling is only worsened when the creature goes to remove it’s hood and she sees it’s long yellow claws. It reveals itself as coming from the god of the lost that is looking for Trisha.
Trisha also hallucinates her best friend Pepsi and a helicopter while walking through the woods. She also doesn’t notice that these are hallucinations and thinks they’re real until Pepsi walks behind a tree and doesn’t come out on the other side. She hallucinates mutilated deer corpses hanging from trees, and a “drowned face but still living” at the bottom of a stream.
Just before being saved by the farmer, Trisha comes face to face with the God of the Lost. She doesn’t recognize it as a bear, instead she perceives it as a swarm of wasps disguised as a bear. She can see worms moving in it’s eyes and the wasps crawling around in it’s mouth. She takes the role of Tom Gordon saving the game and stills herself, ready for the pitch. She waits until the perfect moment, and pitches. The God gets startled just as the farmer shoots at it. Only then does Trisha ever see the God as a bear, and even the farmer says in his interview that he didn’t even think it was a bear, or at least entirely a bear.
What makes something supernatural, supernatural? How do you know it’s actually something paranormal and not just your imagination playing with your brain?
How can you use your imagination playing tricks on you more in writing? Making something that is perceived as supernatural but is actually completely normal events that you think is something else.
In “In the Cave of the Delicate Singers,” by Lucy Taylor, Karyn, our main character with synesthesia, enters the Brotterling Cave complex in search of four missing cavers. Their superior Boone of Bluegrass Search and Rescue is not happy with this decision. We are then introduced to Pree who Karyn has a quasi-relationship with. Pree was the one to let Karyn know about the dangers of the cave, about how some people die, and or emerge insane. We learn that Mathew and Lionel Hargrave have entered the cave, Lionel, a deaf Iraqi War Vet, was the only one who made it out. This causing Bruce Starkeweather, Issa Mamoudi, and Pree Yazzie to go in search of Mathew. These 3 cavers along with Mathew are the four our main character is in search of. Karyn enters the cave with noise-canceling headphones and finds Mamoudi dead. It takes them a while and lots of stress plus compression to get them out, but eventually, they do. Karyn then hears eerie singing, getting distracted only to find Starkeweather ready to kill her. We then go into the past where the Bluegrass Search and Rescue is having a meeting where no one is paying attention to Karyn. Karyn goes outside and Pree follows, Pree tries to reassure that the certified cavers would take care of it, while understanding that Karyn thinks they have the same skill levels because of their synesthesia. This upsets Karyn and they get into the fight. We then go back to the present where Karyn is fighting Starkeweather and Starkeweather is also fighting the cave. They end up falling in water, Karyn making it out alive, Starkeweather drowning. Karyn follows the sounds, finding Mathew dead and Pree convulsing. Something has eaten them, devouring pieces of them. Karyn then decides to escape, returning back to the surface. They make it, take off their headphones and attempt to warn the others of the danger. Words do not come out of their mouth but singing does, causing the people to rend their own flesh and tear each other apart. Our main character Karyn has turned into the throat of the Delicate Singers.
Acute and Chronic tension
The acute tension of this story is the 4 cavers being missing.
The Chronic Tension of this story is the bizarre knowledge of the singing cave and whether or not people believe it.
What makes the story compelling or interesting to read?
The setting of this story made it compelling and interesting to read. I personally have never gone spelunking but I would love to in the future. I am claustrophobic in small spaces so this story in a way has many elements of horror. The imagery that was created to describe the setting was phenomenal. I never had to wonder what Karyn’s surroundings looked like. I always had a clear picture of it in my head. The cave had pools of water inside which fascinated me. I have watched nature videos of the inside of caves and love marveling at the way the moon can reflect upon the water if there is an opening in the ceiling. Below are 3 of my favorite bits of text describing setting.
Looking around, I find myself in a wide, high-domed chamber forested floor to ceiling with dripstone. Farther back, overlapping ledges of white limestone crease and crinkle like bolts of brocade. The scene is enchanting and eerie, a grand Gothic hall carved out of calcite and ornamented with aragonite blooms. At one end glimmers a deceptively shallow-looking pond where eyeless albino salamanders laze on its mineral shores.
I think he’s going to pound me to mud, but to any real caver, what he does next is unimaginably worse: he starts attacking the cave itself, swinging viciously, destroying elaborate lacework and yards of dripstone that have grown at a rate of a half inch per century. Clusters of wedge-shaped helictites explode overhead; stalagmites as tall as a man shatter and crash into the sump.
And stop. Above me, imbedded into the hivework, loom strange columns worked into the stone, skeletal formations lifting toward the obsidian sky. Sections are patterned with ovoids and creases of lighter stone, the pale areas inlaid with vertical striations of crimson.
Compare what you think of your craft vs. Matthew Salesses
Mathew Salesses mentions that in the craft element of setting, “what is noticed depends on who does the noticing?” They give examples such as an alien returning to their home planet as usual vs an alien arriving to a new planet. When one is accustomed to the place around them, their vision begins to blur in the eyes, storing in the brain. One no longer needs eyes to see the layout in front of you. But when one encounters a new place, the mind has not yet had time to create a mental picture. I agree with these statements and believe that Karyn would as well. Karyn was twenty the first time they went into the Brotterling Cave. I believe this story captures their second time entering the cave very well. At this point the mind already has the mental picture loaded to ten percent but everything is still fresh on the eyes. I think the author made a great choice with the timeline, being that this was the first time the reader has experienced the setting so it still needs to be fresh in a sort of sense.
What is surprising in this story?
I found the relationship in the story surprising. There is not a lot of queer representation in the media, and if there is the relationship is always described as toxic. This case here was no different. There are pieces of work that portray queer relationships in good light, but these are not numerous. Being that I understand this trope you would assume that I would not be surprised by this occurrence. I am, unfortunately. At the beginning of the story, I thought the relationship was going to be wholesome, it was not. This may come from me being you and thinking the best of people but I really want Karyn to be happy. I did not appreciate that Pree was already engaged, this made me despise them moraly. At the end of the story, Karyn chooses herself over Pree for the first time that is known. Making their way up to the surface instead of trying to save Pree. This shows character growth and arc. Go, Karyn. So to conclude, this never-ending trope surprised me but blessed the story with the growth of the main character.
What can you find to imitate or use in your own writing?
I can imitate the character growth in my own writing. I tend to write about very docile, kind characters and in horror, these qualities do not come into play. The presentation story I chose includes insanity and strength. I believe that when I start writing my horror story, I need to add some proportion of these qualities into my characters.
Make a writing prompt
Take your main character’s strength and make it diabolically evil. Will they still be as powerful as they were, will it help them in the long run, or will it manipulate the storyline causing a change in everything.
What “moves” did the author make with respect to the characterization that you yourself could make?
The author included the main character’s sexuality in this story. When writing short stories I normally do not include this. However, it does give the reader something to emotionally connect with. I believe that if I were to write a long piece, I could implement this.
What can I learn from this piece that will help me write my own pieces?
From this piece I can learn how to make better conclusions. I typically end my stories with them being happy. Not all stories need to have a happy ending, especially horror stories. I like the twisted plot ending, it brought a sense of intrigue that I would love to copy.
2 discussion questions
-Other cavers have emerged from the Brotterling Cave complex before. These cavers are typically in bad shape. Yet it is not mentioned that any of them have ever turned into the throat of the Delicate Singers. Why do you think this anomaly exists? Why does our main character get to be the throat of the Delicate singers now after all this time?
-Why do you think the delicate singers themselves have never emerged from the cave before?
H.P. Lovecraft is regarded as the father of cosmic horror, inspiring many writers (i.e. Stephen King) and influencing the horror genre as a whole, going as far as to create a subgenre under his name—interchangeably called “Cthulhu Mythos,” which is named after one of his most iconic and well-known creations. However, before I can really get into how Lovecraft has influenced modern literature, I must first discuss what influenced him whilst defining what is Lovecraftian Horror.
After some research, and mostly stumbling across google until I found something of interest, it was discovered that Lovecraft’s main source of inspiration for his many recurring literary themes were from the nightmares that terrorized him as a child. Contemporary researchers believe that this was caused by sleep paralysis, a serious form of parasomnia that he suffered from. Lovecraft eventually utilized his night terrors to write the poem “Night Gaunts,” named after the faceless devil-like creatures that crept into his room and haunted him in his dreams, later using them once more for the novella “The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath”. This time, the Night Gaunts were introduced as a species in the realm of Cthulhu with claws and wings and a dark complexion.
The best way to sum up his nightmarish conceptions is through the literary philosophy he helped develop and used in his writing: Cosmicism. This philosophy states that there is no recognizable divine presence and that humanity is insignificant in the larger scheme of intergalactic existence. We are not special nor are we the only ones in the universe. Through this, Lovecraft manages to convey a sense of cosmic dread, a fear of the unknown and unknowable, since his characters often don’t recognize their own incompetence, or the indifference of the universe and its true nature. If they do, they’re detached from society and on the brink of madness (insanity being a common theme), leaving little hope for either character types to change the course of events or unveil the unseen. The characters that do leave an impact are usually led to their demise or the impact itself is only temporary.
He also drew inspiration from ocean life and his fascination with astronomy and the occult.
And his blatant racism.
But since it’s rather difficult to cancel a dead person despite them being a xenophobe, now would be an opportune time to remind you that we would not have Stephen King had H.P. Lovecraft not released his works, such as “The Call of Cthulhu” and “The Shadow over Innsmouth”, to the world. I.e. King’s short story “Jerusalem’s Lot”, where it shares a similar tone to Lovecraft’s, and “Needful Things,” where the entity Yog Sothoth from the Cthulhu Mythos is mentioned. Nor would we have slasher films or Dungeons and Dragons, both of which could be traced back to Howard Phillips Lovecraft.
The plot of “Good Country People” by Flannery O’Connor begins when a Bible salesman appears at the door of the Hopewell family’s residence. He explains that he’s selling Bibles, and Mrs. Hopewell invites him to stay for dinner, much to the dismay of her daughter Hulga, who wants him gone. During dinner, the Bible salesman, named Manley Pointer, continually eyes Hulga, until after dinner is over and Manley has left, Hulga agrees to meet with him at 10 O’Clock the next day. The following day, Hulga and Manley meet, and they go off to a barn together. When they get to the barn, they climb up to a second floor where Manley repeatedly kisses Hulga. Eventually, Manley asks to take off Hulga’s prosthetic leg. After she does, Manley takes out a hollowed-out Bible from his suitcase and reveals a flask of whiskey, a pack of cards, and a condom. Manley and Hulga then start arguing, after which Manley steals Hulga’s leg, reveals to her that he enjoys stealing disabled peoples’ prosthetics, and then leaves her on the second floor as he escapes from the barn. The acute tension in this story is the arrival of the Bible salesman and his seduction and deception of Hulga, and the chronic tension is the presence of Hulga in the house and the mutual disdain between her and her mother.
“Good Country People” is one of the most evident examples of the genre of southern gothicism to date. Flannery O’Connor blends themes of ugliness, religion, atheism, and philosophy with dry wit and the distinctive culture of the American south. The plot doesn’t actually begin until about the sixth page, as prior to that is mostly establishment of character, some scant anecdotes about them, and general personality building through small vignettes. We have Mrs. Hopewell, the main character of one portion of the story; Joy/Hulga, Mrs. Hopewell’s thirty-two year old one-legged philosopher daughter and the main character of the other portion of the story; and Mrs. Freeman, the housemate of the Hopewells with whom Mrs. Hopewell has conversations with every morning. The most important of these vignettes to the story concern Hulga, such as this one:
Her name was really Joy but as soon as she was twenty-one and away from home, she had had it legally changed. Mrs. Hopewell was certain that she had thought and thought until she had hit upon the ugliest name in any language. Then she had gone and had the beautiful name, Joy, changed without telling her mother until after she had done it. Her legal name was Hulga.
In this, we learn some fundamentals about both Hulga herself and the relationship between Hulga and her mother. Hulga does things she believes to be intellectual partly to assert her individuality and the power she has over herself, and partly to irritate her mother. Her mother, in turn, regards her daughter and her actions as the groans of an insufferable child, despite Hulga being both thirty-two and far more educated than Mrs. Hopewell, a fact that Hulga loves to accentuate with occasional references to philosophical writings she knows her mother doesn’t understand.
And she said such strange things! To her own mother she had said – without warning, without excuse, standing up in the middle of a meal with her face purple and her mouth half full – “Woman! Do you ever look inside? Do you ever look inside and see what you are not? God!” she had cried sinking down again and staring at her plate, “Malebranche was right: we are not our own light. We are not our own light!” Mrs. Hopewell had no idea to this day what brought that on.
Hulga fully knows that her mother won’t understand her reference to 17th-century French metaphysical philosopher Nicolas Malebranche, but she says it anyway to assert her intelligence over the people around her. This is an example of the chronic tension between Hulga and her mother, as her mother doesn’t understand Hulga and her interests and Hulga is uninterested in living like her mother.
A commonly used phrase throughout the story is “Good country people.” Besides being the title, it’s often used to describe a specific kind of person liked by Mrs. Hopewell. Good country people don’t get a conclusive definition within the story, but we pick up what Mrs. Hopewell means when she says it through the descriptions of the people labelled as such. Though it remains unspoken and unsaid throughout the story, there’s an evident tension about the characters not being “white trash.” The closest we get to the phrasing specifically of “white trash” comes on the first page of the story.
Mrs. Hopewell liked to tell people that Glynese and Carramae were two of the finest girls she knew and that Mrs. Freeman was a lady and that she was never ashamed to take her anywhere or introduce her to anybody they might meet. Then she would tell how she had happened to hire the Freemans in the first place and how they were a godsend to her and how she had had them four years. The reason for her keeping them so long was that they were not trash. They were good country people.
All the characters we know in this story, save (possibly) Manley Pointer, are rural country folk living on farms. Mrs. Hopewell scorns the label of “trash,” which we can assume is a simple shortening of white trash. She seeks out tenants who she believes are good country people, such as the Freemans, despite the fact that Mrs. Freeman’s daughter Carramae was fifteen years old, pregnant, and married.
By most any city-going definition, a fifteen year old pregnant married girl living on a farm in rural Georgia would constitute the label of trash. But to Mrs. Hopewell, they’re salt-of-the-earth honest folk. She especially takes offense to the accusation of not appreciating good country people by Manley on page seven after she presents as standoffish to the bible salesman being in her home at dinnertime The moment that she’s accused, she fervently defends herself.
He glanced up into her unfriendly face. “People like you don’t like to fool with country people like me!”
“Why!” she cried, “good country people are the salt of the earth! Besides, we all have different ways of doing, it takes all kinds to make the world go ―round. That’s life!””
Actions like these originate from characterization, making the plot of this story chiefly motivated by character. This story solidly falls into the western literary tradition of character motivated plot, and basically every movement of the narrative is caused by the actions of the characters and their personal motives. Take, for example, Manley’s infatuation with Hulga. By the end of the story, we know that he manipulated her and her mother so that he could steal her prosthetic leg.
In a subtle movement of narrative by O’Connor, the plot moves forward because of the motives of a character despite the reader not yet knowing those full motives. The reason the two of them go on a date is so that Manley can steal the leg, but we don’t know this until it’s revealed. We’re given subtle hints as to the characterization inherent in Manley, but never enough to piece it together. One of the first direct mentions of Hulga by Manley when they meet outside after dinner is pointed directly at her leg.
His smiles came in succession like waves breaking on the surface of a little lake. “I see you got a wooden leg,” he said. “I think you’re real brave. I think you’re real sweet.” The girl stood blank and solid and silent.
The motivations of Manley are set out from this moment, and the plot moves forward because of his internal motive, but we’re presently unaware of this. The characterization of Manley, unlike the rest of the characters, is hidden from direct view. With Hulga, we know exactly what she’s about through numerous vignettes describing her personality, and moments of internal dialogue, and the same goes with Mrs. Hopewell.
…Mrs. Hopewell would say, “If you can’t come pleasantly, I don’t want you at all,” to which the girl, standing square and rigid-shouldered with her neck thrust slightly forward, would reply, “If you want me, here I am – LIKE I AM.””
Everything about these characters is what we know. We know their characterization, we know their motives, we know their history. The way in which we learn about Manley are through the characters’ interactions with him. We’re told a story about his adolescent life growing up on a farm near a town and the tragedies that befell him, but by the end of the story when his truest characterization as a nihilistic atheist conman is revealed, we don’t know if this story he tells is actually factual or not. Given his skills at manipulating people without their knowledge, like he did with Hulga, this could be another scheme.
The story is also carried forward by the motivations of Hulga’s character. She intends to seduce Manley for the sake of entertainment or to see that she could. Part of this desire to seduce him stems from her mother’s scolding about the lack of nice young men that she was interested in or that were interested in her.
Sometimes she went for walks but she didn’t like dogs or cats or birds or flowers or nature or nice young men. She looked at nice young men as if she could smell their stupidity.
We can take away from this story the idea of a character motivated plot in which we don’t fully know the actual motivation yet. The motivation is hinted at through what it causes in the plot like we’re studying quantum mechanics (if that’s what happens in quantum mechanics, it sounds right but I’m not a STEM person), and is only revealed at the end. I think that’s an interesting way of creating a character driven plot.
Questions:
Is Manley’s personal backstory real or a fabrication given his characterization as a lying conman?
What message about religion is O’Connor trying to communicate by making the rural Christians fools being taken advantage of by an exceedingly cruel nihilistic atheist?
Critically acclaimed horror movie The Ring was directed by Gore Verbinski and inspired by the Japanese film Ringu (Ring). The success of The Ring spawned a wave of American adaptations from Asian films, including One Missed Call (2008), The Grudge (2020), and Pulse (2006). Verbinski is a former punk rocker from his high school days and sold his guitar to buy his first camera. Now he has enough money from directing Rango and Pirates of the Caribbean to buy all the guitars and cameras he wants.
(Gore Verbinsky, courtesy of Rotten Tomatoes)
However, the scariest part of The Ring is not how many guitars its director can buy with his famous director money, nor is it the haunting reprieve of one of the movie’s protagonist passing the horror of Samara onto the next unwitting viewer of the tape. It is what they all have in common. Children.
(Satan)
The children of The Ring are not only the driving force behind the solving of the story’s main mystery, but also the very reason for the story to exist at all. From the story’s protagonists, Rachel and Noah’s desire to protect their son, to the movie’s antagonist, Samara and her will to kill. (Insert synopsis of the plot)
(Rachel and Noah)
(Samara)
But, first, we must preface this exploration with some information. Why is it that we find those small little versions of us so darn scary in horror movies? This Ambient Mixer Blog article sheds some light on the matter.
Children are small. They are unassuming and incapable of inflicting serious harm, save for your eardrums if they start to cry. The defenseless and innocent look of a baby is hard-wired in our genetic code for the preservation of the species. What’s your first instinct if you see an adorable little baby in the rain on your doorstep? Your instinct is likely to give it shelter.
This is where the horror movie strikes. You know who’s not unassuming and defenseless?
(Aidan Keller, Satan 2)
This kid. His actor, David Dorfman, was 9 years old when he played Aidan, so we can assume he is around that age and we see in the movie he is in elementary school. LOOK AT HIS FACE. Imagine you’re this kid’s mother. You pick him up from school at the start of the movie, he packs all of his things and goes into the car to wait for you to take him home whilst his teacher asks you if he’s mentally insane for predicting his cousin’s death via coloring on paper. He does not call you “mommy” or even “mother.” He calls you by your first name, Rachel. He doesn’t explain why he does that, no one does. So, you’re left with a kid whose face he will grow into like a puppy does their paws, who calls you by your first name, and can predict the future. Subverting your expectations of children, yet?
(Aidan Keller again)
As unsettling as this introduction to the world of The Ring is, Aidan is but a stepping stone to the movie’s antagonist, Samara.
The only signs that she is even a child is her height and voice. Her face is completely obscured by her long, black hair that drapes down like a cover of the night. Not only is this striking visual the audience’s first introduction to her via the tape, but we also witness what happens when your kid sits too close to the TV and starts to ruin their eyes.
As the story progresses, we start to understand that Aidan is Samara’s preferred company during her stay with the Keller side of the family. Seemingly being able to understand Samara, Aidan informs Rachel throughout the movie that Samara only wants to kill. From the wiki, Rachel mistakes this for a misguided attempt at revenge for the hard life she lived at the hands of Richard and Anna Morgan, her parents. After Rachel finds the place where Anna Morgan suffocated and drowned Samara, Samara’s remains are found and she is finally given a proper burial. Happy ending.
However, this is not to last. After Rachel finds that Samara has killed Noah, even after being supposedly saved. Rachel then comes home and does this. (she destroys the tape and then realizes what she has to do)
That’s right, Samara doesn’t care about burials or justice or humanly trivial matters. She was as clear as could be when she said that she just wants to kill people who watch her tape, and the only way out is if you make someone else watch a copy of the same tape that will kill them. Samara’s own, twisted psyche is explained in the second movie, and its theorized that her father is a demonic ocean deity, and transferred into her body per the wiki. If there was a polar opposite from the idea of the helpless child, it would be Samara.
The children of The Ring add their own subversions to the instinctively innocent and protective view of a regular child. Aidan clues the audience into the unsettling and grief-stricken world the characters inhabit, while Samara is the overt cause of this main conflict of the story.
Whenever we’re watching a horror movie or reading a horror novel, there’s always little moments that particularly creep us out. Sometimes these are universal chills, but sometimes they’re niche and only apply to your specific tastes. Today I’m going to go through two different moments that stick out to me as particularly creepy, unsettling, or disturbing, and break down exactly why that is.
First up is a scene from a recently popular analog horror YouTube series by the name of The Walten Files. For a little bit of background (spoiler warning) the series is split up into three parts and focuses on the mysterious disappearance of Jack Walten, his startup children’s entertainment restaurant called Bon’s Burgers, and his business partner Felix Kranken. It tells the disturbing story of Felix accidentally murdering Jack’s two children in a drunk driving accident, and subsequently making Jack Walten ‘disappear.’ His wife and a couple other unlucky Bon’s Burgers employees also go missing, presumably their paralyzed yet still alive bodies have been stuffed into the Bon’s Burgers animatronics. This knowledge isn’t told to the viewer outright, and instead they must piece together clues throughout the series to piece together the whole story. The following is a clip from episode two.
In this clip we see Banny, the purple bunny, try to exit a room only to re-spawn back where she started. Trapped inside of the rabbit, paralyzed but conscious, is Susan Woodings- someone who witnessed something she shouldn’t have about the disappearance of Jack Walten and was swiftly taken care of. What makes this clip scary are the implications.
The line “the bunny rabbit needs to get out” accompanied by the visual of Banny trying to escape the room implies Susan’s silent desperation to escape her prison before she wastes away inside of it. “The rabbit is starving” has a literal interpretation- Susan is starving and dying inside of the animatronic. We watch as Banny runs throughout the room before stalling in the middle, breaking down into tears as the text-to-speech voice gets choppier and louder, symbolizing the end of Susan as her body eventually shuts down from malnutrition and dehydration.
The clip follows a natural progression of panic- the need to escape, the reality of lack of basic needs, and the eventual death of the victim. The slow realization of what’s happening on screen accompanied by the disturbing visuals is what makes this scene stick out. The clip plays off the audience’s empathy by showing them a hopeless situation, one they know is doomed from the start.
The knowledge that the scene has no happy ending and is only going to get worse builds a steady sense of dread as the background vocals get choppier and the image on the screen distorts further. It’s a moment that not only spells out the fate of Susan Woodings, but also the fate of anybody else stuffed into an animatronic and left to rot. It provides context for the rest of the story in a unique way that engages the audience and leaves them disturbed.
This next clip is a scene from The Shining (1980) (starting at 1:16) that depicts Danny repeating the phrase ‘Red Rum’ as he draws it out on the wall. He wakes his mother up who sees the reflection of the word in the mirror and realizes the phrase her son has been saying all night is actually ‘murder’ backwards.
So, what about this scene makes it scary? The main factor here is realization. Redrum is a phrase that Danny has been repeating throughout the course of the movie before this scene. The audience and other characters are none the wiser about the true meaning of the phrase (unless some audience members are particularly clever) and we finally get the true meaning after a disturbing sequence of events.
Danny, brandishing a knife, writes the word out in crayon on the door. Four of the letters are backwards which helps the audience and mother read the phrase properly, and the fact that half the word is written the wrong way adds to the creep factor. It’s that genre of horror where, the more you look at something, the more things you notice are wrong with it. You slowly get more and more disturbed the longer the scene and realization drags on. The final nail in the coffin is the view through the mirror where, if the audience hadn’t gotten the hint, they certainly got it now.
The zoom in accompanied with the background music create a crest of tension that’s been built up to throughout the course of the movie. Again, there’s that feeling of dread that premeditates disaster, now that the secret is out the audience can’t help but wonder what significance this will now have on the story now that it’s been revealed. You also come to the conclusion at the same time as the mother and her fear helps to fuel the audience’s own while also creating a connection between the watcher and the fictional character.
Discussion Questions:
What do you think a piece of media needs in order to become a striking horror moment? What makes it effective? What makes in ineffective?
Do you think shock value is necessary for a horror piece? If no, why? And if yes, to what degree is it necessary?
How do you think the two scenes compare? Is one more striking than the other? If so, why is that?
Setting out to compare film adaptations of Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula is an impossible task, considering that Count Dracula/Nosferatu has been portrayed onscreen upwards of two hundred times. However, the scope of this comparison has been limited to four adaptations: 1922’s Nosferatu, 1931’s Dracula, 1979’s Nosferatu the Vampyre, and 1992’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula. These films appeared over a span of seventy years and address the legend of the vampire with approaches that run the gamut from kitsch to seriousness.
The plot of Dracula has been altered each time it’s been adapted. However, the main arc of the story is that Jonathan Harker, a solicitor, visits Count Dracula in Transylvania to arrange for the Count’s move to London. The local peasants try to warn Harker, giving him crucifixes and other helpful objects, but Harker puts their fears down to superstition and proceeds to go to Dracula’s castle. The carriage conducted by the locals drops him off in the Carpathians, refusing to take him farther, and another carriage conducted by a man who turns out to be Dracula himself picks him up and takes him to the castle. On the way, they encounter wolves, which Dracula is able to control so they don’t harm Harker. Harker enters “freely and of his own will” and eats dinner with Dracula, who delivers various iconic lines: “I don’t drink….wine” and “Listen to them, the children of the night. What music they make!” are two examples. Dracula sees a picture of Harker’s fiancée (or sometimes wife), Mina, and becomes infatuated with her. Harker spends more time at the castle and encounters Dracula’s three wives, who attempt to suck his blood and are only stopped by Dracula commanding them to wait. Harker also realizes he is a prisoner and witnesses Dracula doing odd things, such as lying open-eyed and still in a dirt coffin and crawling down the walls of his castle. Dracula eventually abandons Harker and returns to London (in a boat with boxes of dirt—vampires must sleep in the dirt of their homeland), where he meets Mina and her friend Lucy. Harker barely escapes and is cared for by local Romanians. Lucy is enamored with him, and Dracula uses this opportunity to suck her blood and kill her. Lucy then becomes a vampire and wanders through the night looking for small children to suck on before being killed. In some adaptations, Dracula has brought many plague-ridden rats into the city on his ship, starting an epidemic (he is depicted as having dominion over rats, wolves, and bats). Dracula also starts preying on Mina, and a doctor of paranormal diseases, Van Helsing, tries to determine the nature of the situation because the regular doctors cannot. Mina begins to act different, and her fiancée/husband worries about her newfound hysterical nature. Dracula is eventually identified as the vampire, and Van Helsing leads an expedition to drive a stake through Dracula’s heart. Depending on the adaptation, this either happens in the abandoned abbey in London where Dracula keeps his boxes of dirt or back in Transylvania, where Dracula attempts to flee.
There is a multitude of themes in the story, most of them stemming from white, male, Western anxieties. Dracula challenges modern science in an era when science was becoming embraced by the masses as ultimate truth. Dracula is also a depiction of an Eastern European foreigner and has been described as a Jewish caricature, reflecting the xenophobia of 1890s London. Eastern Europe’s embrace of iconography in the practice of Christianity has historically been derided by Western Europe and was the reason for the Great Schism between the two regions’ religious bureaucracies in 1054. The vampire’s desire to prey on women and transform them into fellow vampires is a manifestation of anxiety about women’s sexuality and ability to evade the control of proper, upright men (though they are still controlled by Dracula when they become vampires). Vampirism is often depicted in erotic terms (and continues to be to this day). The Count also preys on Renfield and Harker, indicating a fluid sexuality that reflects the time’s insecurities about queerness. Further complicating the story is Dracula’s status as a nobleman; another part of Dracula’s evil is his oppression of and habit of literally preying on the local peasants. The idea of the evil noble stems from 19th century Western notions of democracy and the backwardness of feudalism.
Many of the attributes that Stoker used to make Dracula appear monstrous are rooted in bigotry. However, this creates interesting possibilities for retellings of the story that reclaim the vampire as a complex symbol of liberation. Though the narrative can be traced back to Bram Stoker, the events of Dracula have achieved a myth-like status, so the archetypes in the book can be easily manipulated by contemporary, postmodern writers to tell a different story.
1922’s Nosferatu (d. F. W. Murnau) was an unofficial adaptation that was legally meant to be destroyed after a lawsuit, but a few copies survived. The characters all have different names here: Dracula is Count Orlok, Jonathan Harker is Thomas Hutter, and Mina is Ellen. Instead of being set in London, this adaptation is set in the German city of Wisborg. Bela Lugosi’s suave Dracula isn’t present; instead, Orlok (played by Max Schreck) is bald, with long fingernails and prominently sharp teeth. The parallels between the Count and the plague-ridden rats he introduces to Hutter’s city are obvious. Scholars have argued that this particular adaptation’s vampire is a Jewish caricature, playing into the escalation of anti-Semitic paranoia in pre-fascist 1920s Germany. This element of the narrative has been traced back to Stoker’s text, and Murnau chose to play it up in his adaptation, likely influenced by the postwar scapegoating that infected his country. Notably, Nazis used vampires as a metaphor for Jews in their propaganda.
Even though Orlok’s character design looks exaggerated, the artistry in this film is without irony. Because the film is silent, the brooding score does much to control the dynamic, and every shot is filled with the deep, emotive shadows typical of German Expressionist film. No Count Chocula cereal boxes, cartoons, bad Halloween costumes, and b-movies existed to influence Murnau’s vision. The vampire is treated with a real fear that is rare in most modern depictions.
Ellen also has a more active role in this adaptation than Mina does in the original book (or most other adaptations). She reads in a book about vampires that Hutter brought back from Transylvania that a woman can defeat Dracula by allowing him to suck her blood and thus distracting him until sunrise, when the first rays of light will destroy him. She follows these instructions and saves the town from the vampire’s ravages. This element will appear later in Nosferatu the Vampyre.
Tod Browning’s 1931 adaptation Dracula, starring Bela Lugosi, was the greatest influence on caricatures to come. The Eastern European accent and stilted yet self-possessed speech that characterizes the modern-day notion of Dracula comes from Lugosi, a Hungarian immigrant who memorized his lines phonetically the first few times he acted in the United States. Lugosi’s round face, jet-black hair, and sleek charisma are also elements of our modern-day picture of Dracula. This adaptation downplays the animalistic attributes Nosferatu emphasized, instead focusing on the danger of the vampire’s sex appeal.
Renfield’s character is much more complex in this adaptation than in the book or Nosferatu. Renfield, not Harker, visits Dracula in Transylvania. Dracula only meets Harker after he arrives in London. We get to see Renfield (played by Dwight Fry) transform from a businesslike Englishman to the vampire’s raving, fly-eating, pathetic servant. In other renditions, Renfield is only shown after he has become a madman. Renfield tries to warn Van Helsing, Harker, and the rest of the men who are attending to Mina about Dracula and then suffers retribution from Dracula. When Van Helsing et. al. find Dracula and Mina (who he kidnapped and took there) in the abbey, Dracula kills Renfield out of a belief that Renfield had led Van Helsing there.
Also, Dracula has a direct confrontation with Van Helsing in which he admits to being the vampire. Dracula then unsuccessfully tries to hypnotize Van Helsing after the doctor promised to find his coffins of dirt and destroy him. The narrative possibilities introduced to both Renfield and Dracula add complexity to their characters, a trend which will continue in future adaptations.
1979’s Nosferatu the Vampyre, directed by Werner Herzog and starring Klaus Kinski, uses the 1922 adaptation as a reference. Kinski’s Nosferatu has Schreck’s distinctive look, and some scenes are recreated shot for shot. However, Kinski’s Nosferatu is portrayed with more humanity, as he openly discusses his weariness with immortality. This shows the influence of the 1931 adaptation. Kinski doesn’t use the alternate names of the 1922 adaptation, though Lucy plays Mina’s role.
The townspeople assume that the deaths from Nosferatu’s vampirism derive from the plague, and the rats that arrive on Nosferatu’s ship contribute to this perception. Lucy is the only townsperson to recognize the situation and uses Harker’s vampire book to devise a plan, as in the 1922 adaptation.
A unique narrative element in this adaptation is Harker’s successful transformation into a vampire. Dracula abandons him in the castle, as in the book, after having fed upon him, and he is eventually found and sent to the hospital. When he returns home, Lucy suspects his vampirism and entraps him in a circle of crumbled Communion wafers. After Lucy has tricked Dracula into encountering the sunlight, which severely weakens him, Van Helsing drives a stake through the vampire’s heart. Harker finds out and accuses Van Helsing of murder, asks a housecleaner to sweep away the crumbled Communion wafers, and rides off into the sunset dressed like Nosferatu. The familiar ending of the story, which restores order and conservative security, never comes.
The visuals of the film are colorful but subdued, without the brashness of Coppola’s adaptation. The town is colorful yet feels just the slightest bit faded, which is effective in demonstrating the decay Dracula’s presence has caused.
Bram Stoker’s Dracula, directed by Francis Ford Coppola and starring Gary Oldman, includes every single vampire movie trope before its 1992 release. Gary Oldman’s Dracula has many different looks, ranging from long hair and blue John Lennon glasses to a white-haired updo that would be more at home in Star Wars to wolf-man. It includes the legacies of both Lugosi and Schreck. It also takes the liberty of creating a tragic backstory for Dracula, whose wife killed herself in the 15th century after hearing mistaken news of Dracula’s death. The Count proceeds to renounce Christianity when he learns of her death, causing the curse of his vampirism. Of course, Mina is the spitting image of Dracula’s dead wife, and he successfully charms her over secret candlelit suppers while Harker is trapped in the castle with Dracula’s brides. The movie ends with Mina driving the stake through his heart at his bidding, so he can finally experience the peace of death.
Despite the aforementioned liberties taken with the plot, the movie includes aspects of the book that aren’t included in other adaptations, such as the Romani people who work for Dracula and prepare for his departure, the hair on Dracula’s palms, and the flight/chase back to Transylvania. The plot sometimes sticks unusually close to Bram Stoker’s storyline and otherwise deviates wildly from the original text, making Bram Stoker’s Dracula a strange title.
This adaptation is known for being the most lurid version of the story. Unlike any other adaptation described here, there is frequent nudity, and vampirism is portrayed in sexual terms, consensual and not. This throws the sexual politics of the text into sharp relief. Lucy, more sexually direct than Mina from the beginning (flirting with Quincey, another relic from the book whose inclusion is unusual), is the first to become a vampire after Dracula rapes her in a maze in the back gardens. She responds sexually when Dracula preys on her later, to the concern of the men in her life, and kidnaps small children to feed upon after becoming a vampire. The small children motif, present in the book, reflects a paranoia regarding women’s childcare duties and the transgression of failing to discharge them. Mina, meanwhile, is pursued by Dracula and eventually warms up to him, though she resists his advances at several points. Though Dracula scares the men in the story because he incites sexual feelings in the women he preys upon, he also controls and harms the women themselves. This aspect of the narrative is ever-present but especially easy to spot in this version.
There are also two instances of lesbianism in the film—Mina and Lucy share a kiss in the maze before Dracula finds Lucy, and Dracula’s brides kiss each other while preying on/having sex with Harker. Mina and Lucy’s kiss is shown as an example of their sexual naivete, as Lucy is about to be victimized. This is reminiscent of the horror trope that the female characters who have sex are the first to die. Dracula’s brides’ lesbianism is depicted as a sign of their depravity. Though Mina and Lucy’s kiss has no precedent, there was always an undertone of lesbianism in Dracula’s brides. They prey upon Harker together, and the potential of Dracula’s fluid sexuality opens up the potential for theirs too. Stoker was inspired by another vampire story, Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu,which involves a lesbian vampire. Critics have pointed out that story’s impact on Dracula’s brides.
The directorial choices are distinct. The first part of Harker’s carriage ride to the castle is bathed in bright red—an exaggerated indicator of sunset. When Dracula walks around downtown London, the scene consists of shaky, retro, grainy footage at first before suddenly reverting back to a contemporary, clear-eyed view. The audio of the score is imbalanced with the dialogue, Winona Ryder and Keanu Reeves have trouble maintaining British accents, and the whole film frequently veers into camp. This is a production that was touched by the b-movies of the past seventy years; whether this was intentional or not, it feels a world apart from its 1922 counterpart.
Summary: In “The Mark on The Wall” by Virginia Woolf, the unnamed narrator and main character remembers when she first noticed a mark on her wall, and spends the rest of the story trying to figure out what the mark is from- without rising from her chair. She thinks about the people who may have previously owned the house, and Shakespeare, all to try and distract herself from her current life. She thinks about life before the war, which inevitably leads her to thinking about the war itself, particularly about how it has shown that the rules of previous life were false, that she and others were living in a false freedom. After her thoughts continue on about the war and the people who are in charge of it for a while, coming back shortly onto the mark on the wall, she turns her brain to the pleasantness of thinking about wood and trees. She is then interrupter by someone else, who tells her that they are going to get a newspaper- and reveals that the mark on the wall was a snail the entire time. The acute tension is the mark on the wall, the chronic tension is the war going on at the time.
Blog Post:
“The Mark on The Wall,” like many of Virginia Woolf’s works (specifically Orlando), plays with time as a reflection of its theme. In traditional storytelling, the events of the plot happen over a specific and defined amount of time. In the first paragraph of the short story, Woolf seems to set up such a type of story, writing:
Perhaps it was the middle of January in the present year that I first looked up and saw the mark on the wall….Yes, it must have been the winter time, and we had just finished our tea, for I remember that I was smoking a cigarrette when I looked up and saw the mark on the wall for the first time.
This would seem like the usual sort of set up- she has defined the setting as a winter’s day in January of the year the story is set in the main character’s past. It would seem that the entire story will be a recollection of a past event then, with past tense being used for the events of that day, only her thoughts being in present tense. However, by the end of the story, the tense has shifted.
Indeed, now that I have fixed my eyes upon [the mark on the wall], I feel that I have grasped a plank in the sea… Someone is standing over me and saying
The story is now told in present tense- the main character is not recolecting her thoughts about the event, she is living through it, watching the mark on the wall in real time. There is no specific line which would indicate that she changed from remembering a past event to start looking at the mark on the wall again, in her own time- she has not even left the chair. Instead, Virginia Woolf has twisted her audience into following the train of thought so that they do not even notice when she changed the time when the story is taking place. This is all thematically connected to the story- it is an intentional shift, not an accidental tense shift that as writers, we are prone to doing. As stated before, the chronic tension of the story is the war- presumably World War I, since the story itself was published in 1917, and the Tube, mentioned in the story, was only built in 1890. World War I would have been the major war Britain was involved in between those two dates. The intentional shifting of tense reflects how the war seemed endless- days blurred into weeks into months. As the other character in the story states:
“[I]t’s no good buying newspapers… Nothing ever happens. Curse this war[.]”
The war has caused in its characters a disconnect with time, which the story has choosen to represent through the use of an unfixed time over which the plot takes place. Perhaps the narrator is thinking about the mark on the wall for a second time in her present, but it is left intentionally unclear- it wouldn’t make sense for her to have not moved from the chair since that January, to have not looked at the mark on the wall and seen what it truly was. Another element of the story that compounds this analysis is the mark on the wall itself. As is revealed by the end of the story:
“Ah, the mark on the wall! It was a snail.”
Snails infamously move incredibly slowly- just as time during the war has passed both incredibly slowly and incredibly quickly for the main character, so much so that time no longer has meaning. The fact that the mark is living also adds to the confusion of time in the story- while a stationary object could be repeatedly looked at over a long period of time, a living one, with no bounds to its cage, could not- so the time during which it was observed must be short- the reader is left without answers as to over how long a period of time the events of the story took place.
Matthew Salesses defines setting as a character’s awareness of the world. This definition is particularly applicable to this story, in regards to the function of time. Because the character has lost sense of time due to the war, so has the story, as reflected in the changing tense.
This story exemplifies how setting doesn’t always need to be static or pinned down- sometimes it suits the story better if the reader doesn’t quite know what time or place it is. The story is also a prime example of stream of consciousness storytelling, without much of a plot- instead it moves based on the thoughts of its narrator. It has an unconventional narrative structure, complemented by an unconventional use of time, which both serve its theme- something that all creative writers can use in their own work.
Discussion Questions:
How does the setting (specifically the time) inform the plot of the story/ how does the plot and themes of the story reflect its setting?
How does the unconventional narrative structure (stream of consciousness) hold the reader’s interest and move the plot forward? Does it?
![Bram Stoker's Dracula – [FILMGRAB]](https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/qOX4wbl71OCT9xQY7_CyNMGIjEbm0cMoRt2f9jeSuwbWWFwo-DhDUkmzMV9lYpopaAOZn_bbHTHoAdnIsQ658b8-7iG7y8OSrdHij0iPh92gBMuWX25gBugAdvvZRwCM7Us5NFA=s0)
the pva creative writing review 