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An analysis of horror
An analysis of horror
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Julia Kristeva’s concept of the abject as notes in her essay Powers of Horror focuses on that which ‘does not respect borders, positions, rules. The in-between, the ambiguous, the composite’, with a distinct focus on that the abject refers to the human reaction to a threatened breakdown in meaning caused by the loss of the distinction between subject and object or between self and other . William Burroughs’ Naked Lunch and Angela Carter’s collection of re-worked fairy tales in The Bloody Chamber, both exude the notion of the abject forcing the reader to question their own reaction . These texts focus on the abject notion of sex, that which is non-consensual, violent and invites a sense of moral judgement. There is a distinct portrayal of the liminal state between self and other and life and death in the two texts specifically in the destruction of identity through the excretion and exchange of bodily fluids, that which forces a reader to feel embarrassment or disgust for the characters. The concept of addiction features largely as an aspect of the abject, disregarding the borders of identity in gambling with people’s lives and the disrespect for positions in society in the drug culture of Naked Lunch. The notion of the abject is created in these two texts through carefully constructed imagery and language that forces the reader to assess their own moral compass and react accordingly with a suggestion from the author through narration as to how they should react.
In a decade where sex was so regularly silenced, Burroughs’ novel Naked Lunch could only be seen as a pornographic and invasive portrayal of an act that the people of the 1950’s believed should remain behind closed doors. Burroughs’ graphic descriptions of sexual acts...
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...xplore the readers morality inviting them to judge the author the characters and even themselves based on their own reactions the vivid imagery and disgusting reality introduced by the language of Carter and Burroughs. The different readership on the initial readership of these two texts arguable makes The Bloody Chamber more abject as she represents what is believed to be a contemporary attitude, where as Burroughs’ was a representative of the beat culture that served to portray the underclass and the disgust surrounding this civilization and the way that it was received by a conservative society. Despite the years separating the two texts both authors concur on the notion of the abject illustrating that which disgusts and violates the reader as well as the characters in texts, inviting each individual reader to decide if it is abject through their own reactions.
At the beginning of the 1900s, there was a “sexual revolution” in New York City. During this time, sexual acts and desires were not hidden, but instead they were openl...
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.”
... Through “A&P”, John Updike has told of a coming revolution, where the establishments of authority will have to defend each and every rule and regulation that they have put in place. He tells of a revolution where this young generation will break sex from its palace of sanctity. Every single idea that was present in American society that led to the sex driven, often naïve, free spiritedness of the sixties to present day are present in John Updike’s “A&P”.
When I was young I would always watch “scary movies” with my sister. For this reason, Every night I would have nightmares after each movie. By all means, I’d end up on the other side of the bed or on the floor. Given that, Stephen King claims his short story “ Why We Crave Horror” is to crave horror by facing our fears and, re-establish our feelings normalcy by getting used to the horror towards something that is called the human condition provided that, he is right about his claims. By all means, His three claims are “To show we can,that we are not afraid, that we can ride this roller coaster”. “ We also go to re-establish our feelings of essential normality”. “ If we share a brotherhood of man, then we also share an insanity of man”.
Tynan, Kenneth. “Chatterley: When Sex Was Put on Trial.” 6 Nov. 1960. 5 Dec. 2009.
Downs, Donald A. The New Politics of Pornography. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989. Print.
Kimberly Tsau, for example, follows De Quincey's lead in her analysis of T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land, suggesting that among the violence, apathy, and disjointedness of the poem is a call to face and learn from suffering. Her essay, "Hanging in a Jar," examines how Eliot collects a variety of "cultural memories," cutting and pasting them together to form a collection that is both terrifying and edifying.
Rubin, Gayle. “Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality.” in Pleasure and Danger: Exploring Female Sexuality. ed. Vance, Carole. Pandora: London, 1992.
A man starting from nothing with only the urge to write becoming so much more. The King of Horror is a member of many guilds, writer of some of the best horror novels, and has even made a couple movies. Although, with a current net worth of 400 million dollars, Stephen King was not always the King of Horror.
Stephen King was born on September 21, 1947 in Portland, Maine (Biography Today). During the course of a thought-provoking childhood, King gained an interest in chilling stories that were far too grown-up for such a young boy (Biography Today). His concentration on demoralizing stories became his own clandestine escape from his particular fears brought on by a life-changing event for his family (Kehoe). The life-changing event that was brought on at such a youthful age has developed the king of horror, who is now a renowned author.
...ing: Questions of Appropriation and Subversion." Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of "Sex." 121-156.New York: Routledge, 1993.
Irony plays an inexplicable and majestic part in the conclusion of The Awakening. One can say with confidence that in a story a protagonist, or heroin in this case, is expected to fulfill a happily ever after ending not only from a repetitious guarantee but from the incisive determination by such character, whom through hardships, earned it. Edna Pontellier...
Jeanette Winterson’s Gut Symmetries seamlessly weaves together science and art to explore the boundaries of the body, relationships and life and in doing so reveals how inseparable love and consumption are. Using intimate first person narratives that confront the reader personally, Winterson takes us deep into the minds of Alice, Stella and Jove who find themselves caught in a love triangle that culminates in perhaps the most intimate act: cannibalism. The lives of Alice, a young physicist, Jove, a Princeton professor, and his wife Stella, an emotionally charged poet, collide when Alice meets Jove at sea. As Alice falls in love with both Jove and Stella it becomes painfully clear that in order to love one must consume their beloved forcing them to confront their own knowledge, fate and identity. Set against the infinite background of a quantum universe, both literally and metaphorically each of the narrators consumes those they love as well as themselves. Although the consumption of the bodies of the beloved may seem like a mutual expression of passion, through the intimate musings of Stella and Alice, Winterson’s prose reveals how the lines between our hearts and food are blurred and the female body in particular, becomes a cannibal feast for the men they love.
This depends on the location - is it a business mans office or an old
Horror literature has been around since as long as man has been on earth. While usually in the form of ghost stories, many have often told stories orally, or on paper, to play on the horrors and darkest fears that we as humans face. While large populations of people do not like the horror genre, some get a satisfaction or enjoyment at looking at some of their worst fears being played out in front of them via a book or movie. As the stories have advanced through history and been examined and read through many different lenses both by history and literature experts, one aspects remains to be examined, and that is the changing role on of women in the story. While many of the early stories early stories portray them as simple, one-dimensional characters, weak and unable to help themselves, they evolve into more complex and eventually pushing through the damsel in distress mantra into the complex villain or hero.