Ghost Stories

What comes to mind when thinking about the phrase “ghost” stories? For many interested in items of pop culture, the visual interpretations of ghost stories that capture the horror and psychological thrilling motives like the movies Poltergeist, The Ring, or Paranormal Activity often find mention. These movies gain viewers because they lend a reference that demonstrates both their ability to become infamously loved and also make people terrified. Many of these same people also love these “ghost” stories because of their explanations of what happens to someone’s spirit after they die. The various interpretations offer a vast expanse of discussion on ghosts in media. The haunting of these spirits within movies may work well to scare people, but what about ghost stories in print?

Ruth Y. Jenkins writes, “Authors have long woven supernatural elements into their fiction for a variety of reasons: to heighten suspense, enhance setting, or complicate plot,” (61) and it is clear that she is on the right track. Much like those who discuss visual media, the ideas about printed fictional works presented by critics like Jenkins shares a similar perspective. These literary critics often turn toward the famed works of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet or Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw as works revered for their use of the ghost within literature.

The works of Shakespeare and James both offer commentary and investigation into how the ghost finds representation in literature. Each work is also tremendously important because they handle the ghost character of the traditional literary realm in ways that are familiar to readers and critics alike through uses similar to Jenkins’s reference. Shakespeare’s ghost clearly provides the spark n...

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...ons, the Hungry Ghosts are searching for gratification for old unfulfilled needs whose time has passed” (28). Although the hungry ghost was originally a religious concept for many, it has seeped itself into literature by authors of both Buddhist and non-Buddhist lifestyles. It has also become relevant in the works of Asian American authors who balanced between their Asian cultural roots and their American westernized lifestyles. Suddenly the world had Maxine Hong Kingston making the use of the hungry ghost simple in her memoir, The Woman Warrior, and Amy Tan finding a complexity within a few of her novels.

Works Cited

Jenkins, Ruth Y. “Authorizing Female Voice and Experience: Ghosts and Spirits in Kingston’s

The Woman Warrior and Allende’s The House of the Spirits.” MELUS Intertextualities

19.3 (Autumn, 1994): 61-73. JSTOR. Web. 13 October 2009.