For as long as humans have communicated, they’ve written and listened to horror stories. Whether it’s the old Mexican folktale of “La Llorona,” or even Stephen King’s “IT,” of the cosmos of any genre of tales, horrifying stories have been one of the most successful of all time. Why? The characters within these works often transform into better people by the end of the story, grasping the need for change in all those who watch it. Characters often face horror throughout their development in a narrative. These experiences often change the mentality of these characters, transforming them into “new” people. In works such as “The Cask of Amontillado,” by Edgar Allan Poe, “The Birds,” by Alfred Hitchcock, and “Why we crave horror movies,” by Stephen …show more content…
King, many examples are given to show the transformation of characters and give explanation as to why they must go through such trials and tribulations to meet their ultimate goal. “The Cask of Amontillado,” by Edgar Allan Poe, is a transformational piece in which one man (Montresor) tricks another (Fortunato) into walking deep into the Catacombs under the guise of finding a cask of Amontillado, a rare kind of liquor. Subsequently, Montresor buries Fortunato alive, an act that he believes will restore his family’s lost honor. When Fortunato realizes that he is truly trapped, with no way of escape, his intoxicated, egotistical facade disappeared. Montresor realizes this as he is burying Fortunato, when he says, “...I discovered that the intoxication of Fortunato had in a great measure worn off. The earliest indication I had of this was a low moaning cry...It was not the cry of a drunken man…” (Poe, G-16) It is after this occurrence that Fortunato attempts to liberate himself from his chains, becoming angry. Montresor states, “...I heard the furious vibration of the chain. The noise lasted for several minutes…” Once both are truly aware that Fortunato is not going to escape, he attempts to talk his way out. He tries to make Montresor understand by pleading, “...But is it not getting late? Will they not be awaiting us at the palazzo, the Lady Fortunato and the rest? Let us be gone.” Thereafter, Montresor simply laughs and leaves him to perish. Fortunato goes through a transformation in this narrative. This is made prominent when he changes from being a conceited drunk to attempting to be reasonable and pleading for his life. Much like “The Cask of Amontillado,” there are many examples of transformation throughout Alfred Hitchcock’s film, “The Birds.” One of these examples is within Lydia Brenner, the mother of Mitch Brenner, who is the film’s main love interest.
She transforms from having a facade of being a formal, decorous woman, to showing her true colors and revealing her empathy and determination to keep her family safe. When the audience first meets Lydia, she has been keeping Mitch from marrying for her own selfish reasons of not wanting to be alone. Because of this, Mitch has become a surrogate husband for Lydia, and father to his younger sister, Cathy. The entry of Melanie Daniels rocks the utopian life that Lydia has so carefully built, changing the family’s way of thinking, especially Lydia. At first, her cold attitude towards Melanie is very apparent, as shown when she tells her that she “Doesn’t even know if she likes her or not.” (Hitchcock, dir.) This occurs when Melanie brings Lydia tea after she sees her neighbor’s eyes pecked out by birds, and is laying down in bed to recuperate her emotions. Although she has just seen the horror of her friend lying dead in his house, her biggest fear is losing Mitch to Melanie, ergo becoming alone. It is only after Melanie is attacked by birds, rendering her delusional, that Lydia is able to let go of this fear and embrace Mitch finding happiness on his own. Lydia Brenner goes through a transformation in this narrative because of the barbarity attacking her
hometown.
“Why We Crave Horror Movies,” an essay by the legendary Stephen King, explains two challenging concepts to understand: why people like gory horror movies and how people are able to control their darkest desires. “I think that we’re all mentally ill; those of us outside the asylums only hide it a little better – and maybe not all that much better, after all.” King opens the essay by addressing the hard truth- we are all insane. People have dull lives, and often it’s the little bit of crazy within in us tha...
Unlike Psycho and Notorious where the mothers are directly causing violence towards other women, Lydia seems much more passive. We learn from Annie that she does not fit the Freudian model, rather she might just be afraid of losing her son. The fact that Hitchcock decides to even have a character bring up the Oedipus complex though is notable. Lydia acts hostile towards any woman that she believes her son might leave her for. For her, it seems that Mitch is both her child and almost a husband figure. Mitch returns home every weekend and refers to his mother as “darling” and “dear”. In something of a foil, we learn that Melanie’s mother is very much the opposite of Lydia, instead of overbearing that she got up and left. Everything down to the hair and dress of Lydia and Melanie shows the conflict that Mitch must choose one or the other, between motherly love and romantic love. This conflict leads to a battle of jealousy between the three main women in the film, but primarily Lydia and
In 1926, Hitchcock directed The Lodger; which is considered his first real film; he reflects his technical abilities in addition to his capacity to manage narration and symbolism. This style transformed in his signature for the subsequent films. The Lodger is the template of Hitchcock´s films because in he established a certain formula as well as certain theme to develop and explore in his next films. According to Spoto one of the iconic elements that Hitchcock incorporate in this film was a revealing and full with important information opening scene, which he would use in all of his films. Also the couple formation, symbols and underlying ideas that would be treated in the films, start with the production of The Lodger. It would be appropriate
I have provided a clear evaluation of his essay in an organized way using the appropriate standards of evaluation. In understanding why humans “Crave Horror Movies” even when some people get nightmares after watching them we find the importance of our emotions and fears. We find those emotions and fears form a body of their own which needs to be maintained properly in order to remain healthy. We see how emotions can be controlled though viewing horror movies. Stephen King’s “Why We Crave Horror Movies” is a well written essay with convincing analogies, comparisons, and urban humor.
Why do people love horror movies? Is it the feeling of your nerves on edge, or is it the thought that there Might be something else out there? People just seem to enjoy the horror and suspenseful movies that are produced in this day and age. But its not only the movies that have caught people's attention, but the horror story. Now they are preserved in books and are all over the internet. And yet, movies seem to be the best at displaying horror and catching the observer's attention. However, there is still one story that all successful horror writings and producers come back too, one that was written by Edgar Allan Poe. The Cask in Amontillado has three things that help it to be a successful horror story, these are: (1) he has a twisted main character, (2) the reader starts to put together the pieces in the story, (3) The main character kills another character.
When writing a story that is meant to scare the reader, authors use a variety of different literary elements to intensify fear. This is apparent in the stories “The Fall of the House of Usher,” “beware: do not read this poem,” and “House Taken Over”. It is shown through transformation in the character, setting, and sometimes even the story or poem itself, adding to the scariness that the reader feels when reading it. While there are some examples of transformation not being scary or not playing a role in stories meant to scare us, transformation plays a crucial role in making the reader of these stories scared.
In Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window, L.B. Jeffries, played by Jimmy Stewart, becomes completely obsessed with spending all of his waking hours watching his neighbors from his wheelchair. He even uses a camera to better his view and thus enhances his role as both a spectator and a voyeur. This contributes to the creation of a movie being played right outside Jeffries’ window. In this “movie within the movie” his neighbors’ lives become the subject for the plot. Each window represents a different film screen, each which is focused upon only when Jeffries directs his attention to it. He witnesses both the anxieties associated with the beginning of a marriage and the heartache of relationships ending. The plots that are played out before his eyes become more important than his own personal life. In fact, Jeffries renounces the idea of marriage due to the scenes he witnesses from within his apartment. This is displayed by his initial rejection of the beautiful Lisa Freemont, played by Grace Kelly. She is unable to divert Jeffries’ attention from the window even with the most forward flirtations. It is not until she puts herself on the other side and into the “movie” that he becomes interested in her. Lisa finally becomes the subject of the gaze and only then does Jeffries show any sexual attraction towards her. When Lisa breaks into Thorwald’s apartment, Jeffries does not see the same Lisa he saw when she stood by him and sat in his lap. He now looks upon a “guilty intruder exposed by a dangerous man threatening her with punishment” (Mulvey 207). He is aroused by this new spontaneous side of her. From this scene we see that Lisa Freemont cannot become a part of the movie until she becomes a character in the “movie within the movie.” This creates a new perception of Lisa for Jeffries and clears away many of his marriage anxieties, providing closure to their dispute and foreshadowing a relationship and eventually a marriage between the two.
In Rear Window, Alfred Hitchcock took a plot-driven short story and transformed it into a character-driven movie. Although differences must exist between text and film, because of the limitations and advantages of the different media, Hitchcock has done more than translate a word-based story into a visual movie. Aside from adding enough details to fill a two-hour movie, Hitchcock has done much to change the perspective of the story, as well as the main character. The novel’s Hal Jeffries, a seemingly hard-boiled and not overly intellectual man contrasts sharply with the photojournalist J.B. Jeffries of the movie. The addition of supporting characters, such as Lisa, diminishes somewhat the loneliness of the short story character. The character in the short story has more in common with Humphrey Bogart’s Sam Spade than with Jimmy Stewart’s Jeff. That Hitchcock took a story written in a style similar to Dashiell Hammett or Raymond Chandler, and chose not to make a film noir detective story speaks much to Hitchcock’s purpose here. Rather than creating a conventional detective story, Hitchcock creates an everyman, whose injury prevents him from action. The impotence the character feels heightens the tension of the film, as well by forcing the viewers to identify with his frustration. The movie disguises the many of the darker moments with humor, a device commonly used to lessen the shock of less acceptable aspects of a story. While the story was merely the narrative of one man, the film portrays different concepts of, and stages of love, in the images of the people across the way. The story is a guiltily related narrative of one man’s voyeurism, repeatedly rationalized by him. B...
Throughout the latter half of the second millennium, horror fiction, or horror fantasy, began to emerge as an overwhelmingly popular literary tool utilized by various authors across the globe. In the late 18th, 19th and 20th century specifically, gothic horror and horror literature manifested themselves as one of the most desired literary genres, representing some of the most well-known authors and works of the time. The works of Edgar Allen Poe and others were extremely popular among 19th century readers as they brought horror literature to the mainstream and exposed the world to a unique and re-defined form of entertainment. It is safe to say that the “scary story” era blossomed in the 19th and perhaps early 20th century as children, teens, and adults alike searched for a reliable source of entertainment prior to the technological revolution. While one could easily argue that the introduction of television, motion pictures, and the internet has significantly diminished the demand for horror literature if not literature as a whole, a few authors continue to remind us that the genre is anything but dead and horror fiction still retains its status as a staple in American society. Stephen King once again re-invented the genre to accommodate for a rapidly changing, fast-paced lifestyle of the American people. He also inputted not only horror into his novels, but morals as well. What King and other authors have proven, is that the only thing readers love more than a scary story, is a scary story with a lesson. Readers tend to naturally gravitate more towards novels which entertain and inform simultaneously as opposed to ones that solely exhibit one of the two attr...
Sir Alfred Hitchcock is recognised as one of the most pioneering and renowned directors in the history of cinema (Hockensmith A, 2012). His cinematic style that favours the use of suspense over surprise has become iconic and influential in modern film. Hitchcock’s early days as an assistant director at the UFA Babelsberg Studios in Berlin (German Expressionism, 2007), had a lasting impact on some of his later works produced in Hollywood. During Hitchcock’s time in Germany he became fascinated with German Expressionism. The film style, prevalent in the 1920s, arose from Germany’s post World War I experiences and largely reflects the dismal reality of life during the era and often invokes distorted and abstract images, as opposed to naturalism
“Shadow of a Doubt” was one of those movies I would flip right past if it happened to be on television. If I knew that it was a Hitchcock film, perhaps I’d pause for a few seconds to see if it looked scary. If it didn’t captivate me within those few seconds, I’d cruise right by until I found MTV. But, being somewhat forced to watch “Shadow of a Doubt” in class, I had no choice other than to buckle down and pay attention. I was pleasantly surprised. I expected some twists and turns, since it is an Alfred Hitchcock film. I didn’t expect the suspense or the romance. It was surprisingly entertaining in both plot and dialogue. I could tell by the many different film elements that this was a trademark Hitchcock film. “Shadow of a Doubt” is an Alfred Hitchcock work of art, because of its originality, openness to interpretation, and different approach to suspense.
We all have cravings, be it for snacks or sweets, there is always something we desire. We crave horror in the same way. In Stephen King’s essay, “Why We Crave Horror Movies,” he argues that people need to watch horror films in order to release the negative emotions within us. King believes that people feel enjoyment while watching others be terrorized or killed in horror movies. King’s argument has elements that are both agreeable and disagreeable. On one hand he is acceptable when claiming we like the thrill and excitement that comes from watching horror movies; however, his views regarding that the fun comes from seeing others suffer cannot be agreed with because the human condition is not as immoral as he claims it to be.
During the whole of our past mankind has developed art, music and literature as part of our culture. Therefore literature has always been and will always be part of the human culture. As such it developed many genres with many subgenres in which specific authors could, and still can, thrive. One of the oldest genres in literature is the genre of horror literature, more specific weird literature, in which authors like Horace Walpole, Edgar Allan Poe and many others are considered to be influential to its core. Arguably, one of those is H.P. Lovecraft who not only influenced the literary genre of horror, but also parts of modern pop culture with his creations like “Cthulhu” or the “Necronomicon”. This essay is going to be about H.P. Lovecraft
Carroll argues that the experience horror appears to be intrinsically revolting and terrifying; however large numbers of viewers seem to find pleasure in horror films in spite of its repulsive nature. Carroll hypothesizes that horror is capable of compelling our interests through “normally aversive events” (161) due to the role of the narrative, which acts as a “the crucial locus of our interest and pleasure” (179). He explains that “what holds our interest and yields – in the horror genre need not be, first and foremost, the simple manifestation of the object of art-horror, but the way that manifestation or disclosure is situated as a functional element in an overall narrative element” (179). This suggests that rather than being interested in horror fictions due to the monster’s presence, viewers find gratification from the narrative as a whole. Particularly, viewers are driven by their curiosity and “desire to know” (182) more about the monster, finding gratification in “proving, disclosing, discovering, and confirming the existence of something that is impossible” (181). Carroll maintains that this cognitive pleasure does not cease once the monster has been revealed to viewers; rather they continue to desire more information
“We wake up as horrors to help us cope with real ones” as quoted by Stephen King, the ideology of horror lies within a terrifying experience, it is ironic that popular authors writing dark fiction symbolize real-live horror experiences through their stories. Characters illustrated in thriller stories are fictional but it seems conspicuous when authors make a connection between fiction and reality. The audience’s purpose in horror stories is to indirectly empathize with the character’s situation that being the victim or the criminal. As I sulked through the dark driveway, a chilly breeze struck my face and skin; an eerie feeling crept behind and a hand slowly moved toward my shoulder. I shrieked at the top of my lungs and quickly turned around