Comparing 'Dream Collector And House Taken Over'

Explanatory Essay
My english teacher once told us that when she was seven years old she begged her father to take her through a creepy maze in her hometown. She thought she was ready, But she was not ready to go through the maze.When she walked around the corner of the maze she found a giant scary mean werewolf jumping out of a cage. She just about peed her pants and cried. The employees felt bad so they stopped being scary and they escorted her and her dad out of the maze. It was supposed to be a fun experience for her but it quickly turned a bad night for her. This can be seen in the following three stories like Oates “Where Is Here “, Arthur Tress’ “Dream Collector” and Julio Cortazar’s “House Taken Over” uses transformation to slowly change into something nice to scary.

Joyce Carol Oates “Where Is Here’s” transformation scares readers because ordinary or normal life goes from being ordinary to strange.

This is effective because it makes the readers question how they look at other people and their own safety. One example is when “For years they had lived without incident in their house in a quiet residential neighborhood”. This shows that the neighborhood and there house are fairly normal and nothing really scary or strange happens in the neighborhood. In contrast, “The father pushed past her without comment and the lights flicker” (76). This gives the readers an eerie feeling as to the mark that the visitor gave them and how the mother and father seemed perfectly fine before the visitor. Therefore, the transformation was effective because as the story progressed it goes from normal regular day life to something strange and

irregular.
Julio Cortazar’s “House Taken Over” uses transformation to scare the reader by creating uncertainty throughout the story. It is effective because it does create fear because in the story the characters here things on the other side of their house and they began to fear and question what exactly is happening. It is effective because mostly everybody fears the unknown and are scared of not knowing what will happen or what could. For instance “In that case”,she said,picking up her needles again,”We’ll have to live on this side” (40). The character Irene when told about the strange noises immediately gives up without a fight. This proves that the characters are afraid of what is on the other side of there house.
Arthur Tress’s “The Dream Collector” uses transformation to create fear and uncertainty to the viewers. It is effective because in the photographs you don’t know what is going to happen to that person or what did happen. People begin to fear what they do not know or what they do not understand.
Transformation causes fear because ordinary things can change drastically and create fear within the person. In Joyce Carol Oates’ story transformation creates fear when ordinary life switches to something strange or different. Julio Cortazar’s “House Taken Over” uses transformation by creating uncertainty in the characters which leads to fear. Arturo Tress’s “The Dream Collector” uses uncertainty to create fear to his photographs.