Carrie, by Stephen King, and the Columbine High School Incident; looked at separately, they are to things that have nothing to do with each other. Carrie was Stephen King’s first major novel and a New York Times bestseller. Columbine was and incident in Colorado that happened in 1999, where two high school seniors orchestrated a bloody massacre at their high school. The two events occurred over twenty-five years apart, but when juxtaposed we can see many similarities between the book ant the incident, the fact that they are gothic in nature in particular.
Gothic Literature is a literary style made popular during the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th . This style
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As Burton Halten suggests, “the dynamics of Chamberlain hinge on the relationship between ‘outsiders’ and ‘insiders’(Halten).” Carrie was an outsider always looking in. “[Carrie] had tried to fit. She had defied Momma in a hundred little ways had tried to erase the red plague circle that had been drawn around her from the day she had left…the small house on Carlin Street and had walked up to the Barker Street Grammar School with her Bible under her arm”(King 23). That was the day Carrie had gotten down on her knees and began to pray prior to eating lunch. The ridicule began that day and continued through her years at school. Even outside of school Carrie was made fun of. Once, Carrie had earned enough money to attend a Christian Youth Camp with her peers and was warned by Momma not to swim or have any fun on her trip for it was sin. Though Carrie did partake in all of the activities “a thousand practical jokes had been played on ol’prayin’ Carrie and she had come home on the bus a week early, her eyes red and socketed from weeping”(King 24). “She was the ultimate sacrificial goat”(Halten). She was never really given a chance to fit in, resulting in fueling the fire for
There are many reasons that the Sandy Hook shooting and The Crucible could be compared. To begin with, things were blown completely out of proportion for both of these two events. When the shooting happened, everyone said it was all the governments fault because the gun laws were not strict enough to stop him from getting a gun, however even if the gun laws were more strict he still would have been able to find the guns for himself either way if that's what he really wanted. Many people went crazy over the fact that it was still as easy as it is to get a gun and made it a much bigger deal than it was. Also during the
Gothic texts are typically characterized by a horrifying and haunting mood, in a world of isolation and despair. Most stories also include some type of supernatural events and/or superstitious aspects. Specifically, vampires, villains, heroes and heroines, and mysterious architecture are standard in a gothic text. Depending upon the author, a gothic text can also take on violent and grotesque attributes. As an overall outlook, “gothic literature is an outlet for the ancient fears of humanity in an age of reason” (Sacred-Texts). Following closely to this type of literature, Edgar Allan Poe uses a gloomy setting, isolation, and supernatural occurrences throughout “The Fall of the House of Usher”.
Now we have examined three stories written by two well distinguished authors known for their Southern Gothic Literature and found many similarities in each story. Each story has its form of the grotesque we have Miss Emily, the Misfit, the Grandmother, and Marley Pointer and let’s not leave out Helga. The characters of each story has some form of cringe inducing quality, meaning some kind of attitude about themselves that gets under ones skin. Then as we can see from the stories they all are Southern based each story is in a Southern setting. And the final thing we look for in Southern Gothic literature is tragedy which all three stories possessed.
She did it because she had been the object of every prank throughout her life, and she finally had enough. Carrie is the story of a girl who has been the odd one all her life, the misfit, the picked on loser. Carrie was left at the bad end of every cruel joke, the object of any malicious prank. We first see this in the opening scene of the book, all the girls are in the showers after gym class and Carrie is the last to leave the showers. When she comes out, she has blood running down her leg, which we know is from her period. When all the girls in the showers nearby her see this occurring and circle her and start chanting "PER-iod, PER-iod, PER-iod!" (King 7). The use of capital letters along with separating the word period into two shows the genuine cohesiveness of all the girls bullying carrying and how aggressive they were being towards her. When they started throwing tampons at her, "They flew like snow and the chant became: "Plug it up, plug it up, plug it up, plug it-"" (King 8). This just furthers the argument of how cruel people were to Carrie. As we all know, Chris Hargenson was always the worst one of all the people who picked on Carrie. She would just do uncalled for malicious things from the get go, like call Carrie and ask her if she knew pip poop was spelled like C-A-R-R-I-E. Chris is the girl whom had the idea to dump pigs blood onto Carrie at
The term ‘Gothic’ conjures a range of possible meanings, definitions and associations. It explicitly denotes certain historical and cultural phenomena. Gothicism was part of the Romantic Movement that started in the eighteenth century and lasted about three decades into the nineteenth century. For this essay, the definition of Gothic that is applicable is: An 18th century literary style characterized by gloom and the supernatural. In the Gothic novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, a wide range of issues are explored. Frankenstein represents an entirely new vision of the female Gothic, along with many other traditional themes such as religion, science, colonialism and myth.
Gothic literature was developed during the eighteenth and nineteenth century of the Gothic era when war and controversy was too common. It received its name after the Gothic architecture that was becoming a popular trend in the construction of buildings. As the buildings of daunting castles and labyrinths began, so did the beginning foundation of Gothic literature. The construction of these buildings will later become an obsession with Gothic authors. For about 300 years before the Renaissance period, the construction of these castles and labyrinths continued, not only in England, but also in Gothic stories (Landau 2014). Many wars and controversies, such as the Industrial Revolution and Revolutionary War, were happening at this time, causing the Gothic literature to thrive (“Gothic Literature” 2011). People were looking for an escape from the real world and the thrill that Gothic literature offered was exactly what they needed. Gothic literature focuses on the horrors and the dark sides to the human brain, such as in Mary Shelley’s book Frankenstein. Gothic literature today, as well as in the past, has been able to separate itself apart from other types of literature with its unique literary devices used to create fear and terror within the reader.
Key Elements of Gothic Literature Jasmine Giles People enjoy reading gothic literature due to its heart rate exciting nature. Without having to engage with any real danger, it is common for the reader to feel anxiety and impaitence when reading gothic fiction. In order for the reader to feel these emotions, the author uses certain elements, such as a gloomy setting and old-fashioned dialoge. In the stories “The Black Cat” and “The Tell Tale Heart”, by elgar allen poe, and “The Landlady”, by Roland Dahl, there are many similarites that remanticize the idea of horror and mystery. Some elements, however, bring out the disbolical horror of gothic literature: the setting, characterization, and the motif of suspense.
Older Gothic literature was in castles and deserted buildings. Modern Gothic novels were written in more populated areas. Another text that can be classed as ‘Gothic’ is the novel ‘Frankenstein’. The reason for it being a ‘Gothic’ novel is the way it has a mutant character. Frankenstein is a mutant and is made by a crazy scientist ‘I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of.
The period of the gothic novel, in which the key gothic texts were produced, is commonly considered to be roughly between 1760 and 1820. A period that extended from what is accepted as the first gothic novel, Horace Walpoles The Castle of Otranto ( 1764 ), to Charles Maturins Melmoth the Wanderer ( 1820 ) and included the first edition of Mary Shelleys Frankenstein in 1818. In general, the gothic novel has been associated with a rebellion against constraining neoclassical aesthetic ideals of order and unity, in order to recover a suppressed primitive and barbaric imaginative freedom ( Kilgour, 1995, p3 ). It is also often considered to be a premature ( and thus somewhat crude ) manifestation of the emerging values of Romanticism. Although the gothic genre is somewhat shadowy and difficult to define it can be seen as having a number of characteristics or conventions which can be observed in Frankenstein including stereotypical settings, characters and plots, an interest in the sublime, the production of excessive emotion in the reader ( particularly that of terror and horror), an emphasis on suspense, the notion of the double and the presence of the supernatural. (Kilgour, 1995; Botting, 1996 ; Byron, 1998 : p71 )
One great American Gothic story written by Poe is The Tell Tale Heart. What makes this story Gothic/creepy is how the narrator describes the old man 's eye. Also the fact that the narrator is constantly thinking of killing the old man because of his eyes. Then again he still wants the reader to believe that he is not insane for having these thoughts. And that he has a legitimate reason behind his own crazy reasoning. In the first paragraph of page 41 of the story he says “True! Nervous very very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that i am mad?” then later he goes on to say “I heard many things in hell. How then am I mad?” The narrator is the perfect example of a character from a Gothic novel. He is extremely irrational and believe he has a right or even a duty to kill the old man and to put a stop to his
The literary elements of remote and desolate settings, a metonymy of gloom and horror, and women in distress, clearly show “Frankenstein” to be a Gothic Romantic work. Mary Shelley used this writing style to effectively allow the reader to feel Victor Frankenstein’s regret and wretchedness. In writing “Frankenstein” Mary Shelley wrote one the most popular Gothic Romantic novels of all time.
of an occult power,. Carrie begins flexing her phenomenon and unleashes. her frightening power upon a small New England town for revenge. The novel Carrie by Steven King starts off with old news reports. stating how stones fell principally on the home of Mrs. Margaret White who lives with her 3 year old daughter, Carietta.
Southern Gothic literature is a group of words bonded together to set a mood, message, plot, etc. Overall Southern Gothic Literature can be interesting and creepy at the same time, its style has been practiced for many years by southern writers which are located in the American South. Its popular writings have grew from generation to generation and is now a world wide genre. Works Cited Alice, Petry. A Rose for Emily.’
A painting known as American Gothic was painted in 1930 by Grant Wood. It portrays a farmer with pitchfork (Grant’s dentist) and a woman (Grant’s sister) in front of a house. After Grant Wood won his competition with the painting, it became extremely well known and was often borrowed for cartoons, commercials and novels. Novels such as Gothic literature, even though Gothic literature was “invented” about two hundred years before the painting, people still somehow connected the two. Whenever people read Gothic literatures they would visualize the painting or vice versa. “Gothic literature is part of fiction that became popular during the late 1700s in Europe.”(Brooklyn.cuny.edu) Many of the stories generally have combinations of horror, mystery and romantic with a particular focus of settings. Settings such as inside a castle are used often in the earlier Gothic literature along with the supernatural elements.
There is one known very influential writing style called Gothic Literature. It is not only considered to involve the horror or gothic element but is combined with romance, superstition, women in distress, omens, portents, vision and supernatural events to name a few (Beesly). The history and beginning of this era is not well known. From a few writers came this writing style that has impacted the world. A famous artists known for this type of writing is a man named Edgar Allan Poe. He wrote many short stories and poems that include horror, gothic, and romance just mentioned.