Ghost stories and supernatural fiction have entertained readers for centuries. Margaret Oliphant wrote a short story, “The Library Window” about a young woman who sees a man working in a room through his window, but the room does not exist. J. M. Barrie’s story Farewell Miss Julie Logan is about a young minister who sees a young woman and falls in love with her, but no one else can see her. In “The Watcher by the Threshold”, John Buchan writes the story of a man who has an illness, believes he is being haunted by the Devil, and forms a connection with Justinian as a form of relief. Some supernatural fiction, however, can do more than simply entertain. It can also be used to reveal truths about humanity and the conditions of the mind. Buchan, Oliphant, and Barrie use a supernatural plot to explore the mental state of characters who are isolated from human interactions and the consequences of isolation.
In the short story “The Library Window”, Margaret Oliphant writes about a young woman who is isolated from the people around her. One reason for this isolation is that she is the only young person in a house with an elderly aunt and her friends (1, 3). Almost every time her aunt or her aunt’s friends are mentioned, they are referred to as being “old” (1,3, 6). She feels “unconsciously the contrast of [her] youngness to their oldness” (3). She passes the majority of her time sitting in “the deep recess of the drawing-room window” (1). From this situation she is able to watch the street below her, the windows across from her, listen in on the conversations in the room, or read her books. (1, 5). As a result she is merely a spectator of the world around her, and the elderly friends of her aunt recognize that there is something odd abo...
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...rrie, J. M.. “Farewell Miss Julie Logan” Farewell Miss Julie Logan: A J. M. Barrie Omnibus. Ed. Andrew Nash. Edinburgh, Hewer Text Ltd, 2000. 248-330. Print.
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Calder, Jenni. “Through Mrs Oliphant’s Library Window.” Women’s Writing 10.3 (2003): 485-502. Print.
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“J. M. Barrie Biography” BBC Two: Writing Scotland. British Broadcasting Corporation, 2013. Web. 2 Dec. 2013.
“John Buchan Biography” BBC Two: Writing Scotland. British Broadcasting Corporation, 2013. Web. 2 Dec. 2013.
“Margaret Oliphant Biography” BBC Two: Writing Scotland. British Broadcasting Corporation, 2013. Web. 2 Dec. 2013.
Oliphant, Margaret. “The Library Window.” Gaslight, 1896. Web. 13 Oct. 2013.
The following is a list of explications pointing towards British and Celtic myths and figures. While pursuing the Celtic influences of Middleton's novel, I found myself searching for the meaning of other present mysteries. This author's twist of two cultures creates a spectrum for possible explication. It seems that the Celtic material melds into British society throughout this novel. In search of specific markers I found myself concentrating mostly on Haydn Middleton's use of names.
Under the orders of her husband, the narrator is moved to a house far from society in the country, where she is locked into an upstairs room. This environment serves not as an inspiration for mental health, but as an element of repression. The locked door and barred windows serve to physically restrain her: “the windows are barred for little children, and there are rings and things in the walls.” The narrator is affected not only by the physical restraints but also by being exposed to the room’s yellow wallpaper which is dreadful and fosters only negative creativity. “It is dull enough to confuse the eye in following, pronounced enough to constantly irritate and provoke study, and when you follow the lame uncertain curves for a little distance they suddenly commit suicide – plunge off at outrageous angles, destroy themselves in unheard of contradictions.”
Jokinen, Anniina. "Luminarium: Anthology of English Literature." Luminarium: Anthology of English Literature. N.p., 1996. Web. 9 Nov. 2013. http://www.luminarium.org/
The tales were rediscovered around 1880 inspiring the Irish literary revival in romantic fiction by writers such as Lady Augusta Gregory and the poetry and dramatic works of W.B. Yeats. These works wer...
Macbeth's tragic downfall into insanity could be diagnosed as the mental disorder schizophrenia. Many of Macbeth’s actions during the play can make the reader to believe that Macbeth is crazy. However, by today's medical standards, Macbeth falls into several of the categories under the diagnosis of schizophrenia.This is a severe brain disorder in which people interpret reality abnormally. Schizophrenia may result in some combination of hallucinations, delusions, and extremely disordered thinking and behavior. Even though Macbeth shows various characteristics of other mental disorders, the symptoms he presents of schizophrenia are dominant in comparison.
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It seems as though Joyce Carol Oates clearly understands the effects of trauma since she writes about several harsh and eerie realities in her “tales of mystery and suspense” from her collection entitled Give Me Your Heart that visibly distinguish her from other writers. In this collection, Oates leaves readers' minds in turmoil and suspense as she releases her emotions by turning what we might think is the norm into something far more insane—perhaps far beyond our understanding. Oates has an obsessive and violent need for love that chills the soul as she takes her readers on an unpredictable ride through her haunted thoughts. She punches readers in the gut by using gothic and sardonic language in her stories while subtly adding a twist of her own eerie ambiguity to portray unrealistic scenarios that we, looking at the bigger picture, may indeed be able to relate to.
“…one could not be certain witness to anything: Miriam, so vividly there – and yet, where was she? Where, where?” In the fictional short story Miriam by Truman Capote, Miriam is a queer, mysterious little girl who haunts Mrs. H. T. Miller, a widow who lives alone and isolated in an apartment. Throughout the short story, Miriam remains strange and mysterious, and the story ends inconclusively, with the question “who is Miriam?” unanswered. But through evidence found throughout the text, readers are able to speculate who, or what, Miriam is. From my perspective and the evidence gathered, I believe Miriam is a supernatural being; a mischievous Angel of Death who likes to ‘play’ with her victims for a while before she takes them away to the realm of Death.
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Gerald of Wales’ was most likely never in Ireland, and his writing is not an accurate portrayal of the Irish, but a chance to discuss hybridity and turn his readers against it while also the Irish.
Ward, Susan. "Morag Gunn in Fictional Context: The Career Woman Theme in The Diviners." New Perspectives on Margaret Laurence: Poetic Narrative, Multiculturalism, and Feminism. Ed. Greta M. K. McCormick Coger. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1996. 179-184.
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This refrain enforces his disgust at the type of money hungry people that the Irish have become. In the third and fourth stanza, however, Yeats completely changes the tone of his poetry. He praises the romantics of Irish history, such as Rob...