In chapter 1 of Jennifer Toth’s The Mole People, the tone changes from nightmarish at the beginning of the chapter to a feeling of calm by the end. At this point in the chapter (the beginning), all we know is that the narrated had heard about these tunnels before. We know that a corpse had been found in it months earlier. The author states that “...A corpse was found in it, not far beyond the tracks, it’s face half eaten by rats, one eye scratched out and punctured with small teeth. The fleshless cheek swarmed with maggots and flies…. A fat white worm, or perhaps only a maggot, crawled in the empty eye socket, while the other eye stared in unblinking horror.” (Toth 7)This quote vividly illustrates a gory scene. The author’s use of phrases such as “face half eaten,” “fleshless cheek,” and swarmed with …show more content…
The dozens of dirty rats, the masses of maggots, the decaying body, cloaked in the odor of it’s own feces. The sounds also add to the nightmarish sounds as well. The skittering and squeaking of rats, the deafening buzzing of flies, the grotesque squirming of maggots. Everything works together to support the claim. By the end of the chapter, the tone has changed to a feeling of calm. The chapter until now has been violent and dark, every sentence inflicting more and more pain upon the narrated. But in this part of the story, the author states that the narrated heard “...A velvety blackness that rebounds from side to side, and then wraps around him gently as he slides to the floor at the wall, a spot that now feels safe and his own. With his back comforted by the wall, he draws his knees up to his ribs and lingers with his thoughts as he drifts off towards sleep.” (Toth 9). This quote induces images of a big, empty space. The scene that the author paints is serene. Without people or obstacles or dangers, but a space that belongs to the narrated alone. The phrase “safe and his own,” really helps to give off that
One of the most important elements in Richard Wright’s The Man Who Lived Underground is Wright’s careful use of sensory descriptions, imagery, and light to depict Fred Daniels’ experiences both above and below ground. Wright’s uses these depictions of Fred Daniels underground world to create incomplete pictures of the experiences he has and of the people he encounters. These half-images fuel the idea that The Man Who Lived Underground is a dark and twisted allusion to Plato’s Allegory of the Cave.
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.”
“I remained during the rest of the night…fearing each sound as if it were…the demoniacal corpse to which I had so miserably given life” (43).
Whinesburg, Ohio begins with the narration of an old writer that delves into the meaning the word grotesque. To most people, the word grotesque can mean many things. According to Merriam-Webster, the meaning of grotesque is, “very strange or ugly in a way that is not normal or natural.” While this is true, this is not what the old writer gives as his definition of grotesque in the Book of Grotesque. The definition of what a grotesque is that the old writer gives will shape the rest of the stories in Winesburg, Ohio. This definition is completely unique to the old writer and embodies each and every character in the book. The old writer believed that, “It was the truth that made the people grotesques. …It was his notion that the moment one of the people took one of the truths to himself, called it his truth, and tried to live his life by it, he became a grotesque and the truth he embraced becomes a falsehood.” This idea of what it means to become a grotesque is layered throughout the different stories. The narrator’s theory of a grotesque remains the same throughout the story. The most prominent grotesques can be seen in the stories, Hands, The Strength of God, and Paper Pills. These stories show what makes the characters a grotesque and no one person is a grotesque in the same way.
The public and the police, whom also see them as deviants, label them. They don’t live like we do in clean houses that have electricity and running water. They live a different standard that makes most uncomfortable. Toth explains how New York also has a high rate of substance abusers and mentally ill in the underground population (41). This proves that there is a broader problem here that reflects on how the structure of the U.S society. Based off of conflict theory, the reason the “mole people” are like this is because we secluded them from our society, with alienating them. They end up turning to drug use for an escape or some of them became this way because they were addicts and mentally ill and we didn’t supply the help needed to fix them. Our society is set for the individual and what we can do to improve ourselves that we often forget to help the less fortunate. In a capitalist system, the definition of alienation is defined as being unconnected to one’s work, product, fellow workers, and human nature. Reading the numerous accounts of people Toth has interviewed, we learn about the homeless that ended up there due to a poor upbringing or some who used to be somebody that sadly ended up homeless and seeking refuge in these tunnels. Some choose this life others are destined here because of the fault in the U.S
“You’ve just crossed over into The Twilight Zone” says Rod Serling before every episode of The Twilight Zone. A show that leaves it’s viewers in a macabre state. Instead of drawing a conclusion like most shows, the show usually ends mysteriously. It utilizes similar elements as other short half-hour shows, but goes about it in a different way. This outlandish style is seen in literature, more specifically short stories, as well. Even though other short stories employ the same literary devices, “The Beast In The Cave” by H.P. Lovecraft is uniquely mysterious because of the story’s suspenseful plot, compelling diction, and, most important, overshadowing theme.
Both authors make a point of showing the narrow-mindedness of humans by nature. In “Allegory of the Cave”, the prisoners believed that the shadows they were seeing were reality, with nothing more to it. The comfort of the said perceived, and therefore the fear of the unrecognized outside world would end in the prisoner being forced to climb the steep ascent of the cave and step outside int...
The chapter begins with the reader being introduced to a kid that hears footsteps in a room, we find out the kid lives with his mother in an apartment, and how this kid thinks. Later in the chapter the kid gets lost in the woods and then gets home to where their is a note where it said the kid was running away, but the kid denies writing it. The author can make the readers feel uneasy when personification is used since when nonliving things start having human characteristics can make someone feel uneasy deepening when it is used. A scenario where this is used is when the kid thinks , “...my mind with imaginary monsters and inescapable scenarios which would consume my thoughts when I was awoken by the footsteps” (Auerbach). We have learned a little bit about the kid before this sentence so these “footsteps” the kid keeps hearing has a mysterious feel to it. Though it 's how this kids mind ”consumes” his own thoughts shows the
The "Allegory of the cave "is broken down into four levels. The cave itself representing the tunnel we as humans have dug for ourselves away from the world of learning and knowledge to a world of safe answers where nothing is ever questioned . The cave represents the human's subconscious struggle to be safe and hide from the unknown. Beginning with Level one . The shadow watchers(the mystified )Illusion the figures and shadows reflection on the cave wall.This level is best described as such because the prisoners are not seeing what is real .They are seeing a copy or illusion of what is the real.They are seeing what they want to see.Level two The shadow casters .I believe the shadow casters area people who realize that the world is not as it
“The Martian Chronicles” by Ray Bradbury, is a collection of short stories that narrates the human colonization of Mars. It all starts in 1999, when the First Expedition lands in Mars, however, it turns out to be a huge disaster since the two passengers were murdered by an angry Martian. The Second Expedition arrives on Mars and they are put the crew into an insane asylum, because the Martians think the Earth men are projecting hallucinations onto them, they are eventually killed too. As expected, the Third Expeditions also fails: 16 men were tricked by Martians, who made them hallucinate their dead loved ones, and the entire crew was ultimately slaughtered. When the Forth Expedition lands in Mars, they find out that most Martians died from the chicken pox, and thus the human colonization begins. During the time following, Mars is quickly being populated by humans coming in rockets who are changing the Martian cities and destroying their culture. In addition, some of the surviving Martians have brief encounters with Earthians. Meanwhile, Earth is going through a crisis, which ultimately leads to an atomic war, causing humans residing in Mars to come back to Earth to their families. Several years later, a family escapes Earth and goes to Mars,
As the journey to the destination begun the atmosphere is horrid as they passed cheap motels half deserted streets and sawdust motels it all set a very bleak tone of lifelessness, to support this claim, “like a patient etherized upon a table.” (Eliot 368) although they also encountered a yellow fog most likely caused by industrialism it took a form of animal imagery finding comfort in its surroundings to support this claim, “The yellow fog that rubs t back upon the window-panes, the yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes, Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening.” (Eliot
“It was a large, beautiful room, rich and picturesque in the soft, dim light which the maid had turned low. She went and stood at an open window and looked out upon the deep tangle of the garden below. All the mystery and witchery of the night seemed to have gathered there amid the perfumes and the dusky and tortuous outlines of flowers and foliage. She was seeking herself and finding herself in just such sweet half-darkness which met her moods. But the voices were not soothing that came to her from the darkness and the sky above and the stars. They jeered and sounded mourning notes without promise, devoid even of hope. She turned back into the room and began to walk to and fro, down its whole length, without stopping, without resting. She carried in her hands a thin handkerchief, which she tore into ribbons, rolled into a ball, and flung from her. Once she stopped, and taking off her wedding ring, flung it upon the carpet. When she saw it lying there she stamped her heel upon it, striving to crush it. But her small boot heel did not make an indenture, not a mark upon the glittering circlet.
The fungus that accompanies it is also large and overgrown, as it feasts on flesh, “His hand had come in contact with them as he pulled and yanked at a rusty-toothed wheel, and they (white toadstools) felt curiously warm and bloated, like the flesh of a man afflicted with dropsy” (3). It gives the final sign as to what lies down beneath the basement before the main characters die. It implies that death has occured here before, and it will happen again. It applies some foreshadowing elements to the theme, that the ultimate consequence for untamed exploration and curiosity is death. The incomplete skeleton also exemplifies death. The skull itself is just bone and is accompanied by spare parts of a skeleton. “A skull, green with mould, laughed up at them. Further on, hall could see am ulna, one pelvic wing, part of a ribcage” (11). If the body decomposed normally, then it wouldn’t be askew and in pieces. This form of death means that the rats had torn the person to bits and the rats that had been in the basement had completed their task of impeding the advancement of discovery as the bones are skewed around by the extended movement of the rats. The fact that the body and the fungi are both down in level underground levels means that death is occurring and whichever man attempts to come down the stairs will meet it. This serves as a final warning before the punishment is
...h narrators see more horror than they could imagine was possible. Each day is quite likely to be their last and they are under no illusions what sort of horrific death could be lurking over the top of the next attack.
The powerful diction used within the passage express the true internal struggle that the narrator is facing. The reader is able to pick up on the physical and emotional pain that the narrator is going through as a result of this struggle because of the author’s use of vivid adjectives. Words such as “nerve-jangling,” “violently,” “digging,” and “ringing” convey the intensity of the narrators emotional state. In context these adjectives may convince the reader that the this passage is about the narrator going insane. He is having major reactions to minor details such as ringing sounds and itchy skin. He is hearing nerve-jangling sounds, violently scratching himself, and digging his nails into his skin, causing himself to bleed. Many of the descriptions in the passage a...