Horror/Sci-fi/fantasy Literature

For this weeks reading, I dove into the world of Coraline, Gaiman's short fantastical novel. Within this story Gaiman explores major elements revolving around dreams and dream sequences, a theme commonly found in mythic reading. Majorly, there is the portal which transports Coraline into the world of "dreams" where she finds other personas of her family and friends around her. A very prominent and important character that follows Coraline along her journey and aids in assistance in her understanding, is her feline friend, the cat. This character archetype is seen many times before, one example being C.S. Lewis's cheshire cat. Which also derives from mythological animal characters, helping the protagonist in their journey or battle. Of course, the other mother is a very iconic mythic and fairytale archetype seen as the step mother. At first appealing as an even better version of Coraline's mother, but soon is revealed to be an evil entity trying to posses Coralin...

J.R.R Tolken is one of the modern masters of the heroic journey and its construction. His saga of The Lord of the Rings is one of the greatest fantastical hero adventures in the recent time, following a character arch that is dynamic and ever growing. Tolken's novel, The Hobbit also follows the pattern of a hero during his journey very closely. As the tale begins, it shows the hobbit Bilbo Baggins, our main character, as an unsuspecting, non heroic individual living a quiet life. Once the story progresses, we come to find Bilbo following the patterns closely related to the "pattern of a hero". Such as, when he is bestowed with the task of burglar for the group of dwarves, and first refuses the task but there after chooses to go along on the journey. This is seen as the refusal to adventure at first but then leads to the crossing of the threshold of the adventure, thus beginning the many challenges and obstacles the hero must face and conquer. Bilbo faces many along the wa...

Witches in literature, and frankly all form of the arts, are one of my favorite subjects. As spoken about in class, witches form a "new" role for women in horror as the dominating or powerful being within the story. Females in the horror genre went from posing as the damsel in distress to the over ruler as a witch. Akata Witch illustrates a few different "species" of witches within the same magical community/ world. The characters are taken from archetypes that have been around in many stories past. Such as the main character, Sunny, being a "chosen one" of the leopard people and her comrades. This novel also depicts strong women in power and their roles in a dominantly female community.

How does one describe the genre of "weird"? What is the "weird" genre within horror literature and film? I believe the weird derives from a variety of aspects of horror such as a particular inexplicable occurrence, unsettling images or sounds that aren't directly horrific, or behaviors that cannot be described or discerned with certainty. For instance, the read for this week, the novel Annihilation. The books main theme is the inexplicable and uncertainty dealing ongoings in the world around the explorers. There is a great deal of described anxiety as well, within the diction of the author that causes the reader to take on such emotions. There is a particular part of Annihilation that I particularly enjoyed; while the biologist and surveyor are descending into the tower, after being "persuaded" by the psychiatrist to go by themselves, the biologist sees the "stone" walls to be alive and moving. How the author describes this makes your hair st...

  The nature of J horror and its origins is widely different than those of western horrors. To break it down, in most asian horror stories or films there is not the same blatant good vs evil theme as in westerns. We are used to a formal distinction, possibly in the form of a monster (or evil person) and the "hero" or protagonist as the good element. We are used to an evil that you can directly "see" or identify physically, such as a killer monster, killer human, or evil entity. These ideas are easy to take in and understand, without usually having to reach far below the surface (even though in some cases there is an underlying message).   However, within the sub genre of asian horror, there is a distinct difference in the "evils" opposed to western's. J horror stories seem to have a higher meaning than just a blood thirsty creature, or psychotic human. They deal with the order of the universe, or the nature of the spirit world, rather than the demoniz...

In Anne Rice's novel, Interview With The Vampire, there are many complicated and different types of relationships throughout the book. I think the main relationship we dwell on throughout the course of the book is Louis's back and forth connection within himself. Starting from the beginning of the story, as the Vampire tells the situation of him and his brother (before he became a Vampire of course). Louis is entrapped with horrible guilt and depression after the death of his brother, which he blames himself for the tragic death. He wishes himself to be dead, drowning in alcohol night after night. This goes on until Lestat chooses him, and embeds the Vampire into Louis, which then ignites a whole new sense of a complicated relationship between the two night walkers. Louis was enchanted by Lestat upon first and second eyeing, due to his Vampire charm and beauty. However, once Louis becomes the vampire, he sees Lestat in a whole new light. The magic of deception is gone and he s...

Frankenstein is one of my most favorite classic horror films of all time, so I was intrigued when asked to do a reading of the novel. When first delving into this gothic, of course the most prominent aspect was the dialect and vocabulary used. Being written in the 1800s, the dialect is far different from how we speak today. But the diction used surpasses even the language of the time, I do believe.  Of course Mary Shelley knew exactly what she was doing, while she chose her words and exaggerated them with the upmost scrutiny and care. And with this electing of words, it transforms this literary work up to the horror which the tale is about. Thinking specifically of a scene where Shelley describes the environment in which chapter 10 commences with, as follows: "...the solemn silence of this glorious presence-chamber of imperial nature was broken only by the brawling waves, or the fall of some vast fragment, the thunder sound of the avalanche, or the cracking reverberated along th...