Folklore is an active part of human experience, existence, and expression, involving art communication, process, culture and identity. Legends are recreated with each telling. There are legends and myths that have been around for centuries that have ways of getting into our minds and culture. Then their are those that have been brought to life by way of modern technologies reminding us of nightmares that should have been buried and forgotten. One such legend is known through internet popularity as slender man. He towers at six to seven feet with unusually thin limbs, his “face” is featureless and white; though some say that it can morph into whatever you fear the most. His arms can stretch out to grab his victims and bend in unnatural ways with long, talon-like fingers used to scratch at the windows of children usually aging from 16 and younger.
After examining the Slender man legend and why this story is so memorable to Alexander in my story session he explained why he chose this story going back to when he grew up in a small farm town and often went through walks in the woods at night. Occasionally he would think he would see random images of branches, thinking it was mind-playing tricks on him. The idea that you can’t escape from unknown situations that could lead to death can make a very memorable spot in someone’s mind. As Alexander researched more legends connecting to the slender man, connecting the story of the boy and the father, which I have, chose as my contemporary legend. Alexander considers himself type A, explaining to me that you are likely to be more afraid of death confronting him in a way he can’t get away from. “The Slender Man” has all the characteristics of urban legends and functions such as being pa...
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... movies was to bring the monster out in to the light. With The Slender Man, it isn’t what you know about him, but rather what you don’t know that will keep you awake at night.
If Slender Man were ‘real’ then wouldn’t the media and news outlets spread more awareness and warnings about this being? Anything that is seen as paranormal/mythical and cannot be cemented with fact will never be publicized on the mainstream media. Ghosts and UFOs are never headline news, even though I wholeheartedly believe anything is possible, the general public will forever be in mixed minds about the paranormal. I think all legends are physiological to certain degree, one thing is never how it may appear, and the way a legend is told through another perspective either etic or emic it varies, which makes urban legends so great yet so uncertain when contributing to one identity or title.
In Sharon Olds’, My Son the Man, Olds uses the literary device of allusions to illustrate the inevitability of her son growing old by comparing his aging to Houdini, the doubted magician who was able to makes his way out of any restraint. This is evident in lines 1-3 when she writes, “Suddenly his shoulders get a lot wider, the way Houdini would expand his body while people were putting him in chains” (Olds). Since the son is now becoming a man, she compares him to Houdini expanding himself to illustrate the fact that he is growing and able to get out of those chains; in this case, to leave the mother. The allusion strengthens the poem by referencing a man who people doubted which gives the reader a sense of the son’s motives and characteristics.
Many times in a story what the main characters say can reflect their personality and lifestyle. This is shown effectively in the memorial epic by Paul Zindel, The Pigman. Throughout this stunningly truthful story, John and Lorraine consistently say things that show just what type of people they are.
He has endured and overcame many fears and struggles, but during this section, we truly acquire an insight of what the little boy is actually like – his thoughts, his opinions, his personality. Contrary to his surroundings, the little boy is vibrant and almost the only lively thing around. I love him! He is awfully appalled by the “bad guys” and shockingly sympathetic toward dead people. For example, when the father raided a house and found food, the little boy suggested that they should thank them because even though they’re dead or gone, without them, the little boy and father would starve. My heart goes out to him because he is enduring things little boys should never go through, even if this novel is just a fictional
The article Why We Crave Horror Movies by Stephen King distinguishes why we truly do crave horror movies. Stephen King goes into depth on the many reasons on why we, as humans, find horror movies intriguing and how we all have some sort of insanity within us. He does this by using different rhetorical techniques and appealing to the audience through ways such as experience, emotion and logic. Apart from that he also relates a numerous amount of aspects on why we crave horror movies to our lives. Throughout this essay I will be evaluating the authors arguments and points on why society finds horror movies so desirable and captivating.
Christopher is a fifteen-year old boy with Aspergers Autism whose life is full of uncanny surprises. His main focus is on school, and his ability to take the maths A level exams. Unfortunately, that was his focus until he finds Wellington dead on Mrs. Shears’ lawn. Christopher wants to know who killed Wellington and why. He investigates and finds out not only who killed Wellington, but he discovers secrets about his mother and father. In the book “The Curious Incident of the dog in the night-time”, the author, Mark Haddon, shows us how courageous Christopher is throughout his journey. According to Aristotle, a man is courageous when he sets himself free from his fears, pain, and poverty instead of running away from it. According to Aristotle’s theory, Christopher profusely shows courage when he investigates Wellington’s murder and travels to London to find his mom.
Hollywood has played a big part is our lives. Growing up we’ve seen numerous movies, some that scared us others that touch us, and those images stayed with us forever. So what happens when Hollywood takes a classic piece of literature such as Frankenstein and turns into a monster movie. It transforms the story so much that now some 50 years later, people think of Frankenstein as the monster instead of the monster’s creator. It became a classic monster movie and all the high values of the original were forever lost.
Untouched and unhindered, he continued on a path, not yet discovered, towards the unknowing Prince Prospero. Although he had a slow pace, he made an unexplainable distance in a small amount of time. Some masqueraded man from the retreating group grew enraged and curious of this mysterious man. He ran up to the figure and placed a hand on his mask with the intent to tear it off of the ghostly man. The moment he laid his hand upon the mask, he screamed in agony and pain. Then, unable to pull his hand or the mask free, his fate was sealed. His scream withered away along with his final breath, as he turned old and crumpled onto the lustrous floor in a pile of black ash. Silence and absolute stillness filled the room before a wine glass, half full of a red drink, descended from the whitley g...
Overall, in Stephen King’s essay, “Why We Crave Horror Movies”, his suggestion that we view horror movies to “reestablish our feelings of essential normality” (562) and there is a “potential lyncher in almost all of us” (562) has brought forth many aspects that I have never really thought about. Why do we have so much excitement when it comes to horror films? Everyone has their own opinion, which will never end with one definite answer. Stephen King thinks there’s and evil in all of us, but I don’t think so. The evil only comes out if you make it, we do not need horror films for psychic
To begin with, some people would say they enjoy a horror movie that gets them scared out of their wits. They go see these movies once a month on average, for fun, each time choosing a newer sequel like “Final Destination” or “The evil Dead”. King says “When we pay our four or five bucks and seat ourselves at tenth-row center in a theater showing a horror movie we are daring the nightmare” (405). As a writer of best-sel...
‘Dracula’ is a novel that probes deeply into people’s superstitions, fears and beliefs of the supernatural. The creature Dracula is an evil being with no concern for others, he kills for his own ends and cannot be stopped, and this is what makes ‘Dracula’ truly frightening.
Horror films are designed to frighten the audience and engage them in their worst fears, while captivating and entertaining at the same time. Horror films often center on the darker side of life, on what is forbidden and strange. These films play with society’s fears, its nightmare’s and vulnerability, the terror of the unknown, the fear of death, the loss of identity, and the fear of sexuality. Horror films are generally set in spooky old mansions, fog-ridden areas, or dark locales with unknown human, supernatural or grotesque creatures lurking about. These creatures can range from vampires, madmen, devils, unfriendly ghosts, monsters, mad scientists, demons, zombies, evil spirits, satanic villains, the possessed, werewolves and freaks to the unseen and even the mere presence of evil.
According to Stephen A. Diamond, a psychiatrist, the castration anxiety could lead to “anxiety, vulnerability, and fear of women in man” (Diamond, 36). Compared with girls, little boys tend to have more anxiety since their natural competition with their fathers abashed themselves. While terrified unconsciously that their father would deprive their masculinity, they sank into self abnegation. Such anxiety and vulnerability could evoke their unconscious fear and distrusts towards women for Freud believed that their fear of castration by their father would make him less powerful as a man. In both The Juniper Tree and Hansel and Gretel, cannibalism was practiced by women who camouflaged to be benign in order to earn their trust. The stepmother in The Juniper Tree dissembled her hatred and “the devil got her to speak sweetly” (Grimm,191) to the little boy. The witch in Hansel and Gretel “had only pretended to be so friendly” in order to “lure them inside” (Grimm, 188). Both descriptions of women depicted the little boys’ distrusts and the unconscious threat to their well-being. Thus, showing anxieties and fear that were suppressed by children’s budding egos, cannibalism represented little boys’ ambivalent feeling towards
People are addicted to the synthetic feeling of being terrified. Modern day horror films are very different from the first horror films which date back to the late nineteenth century, but the goal of shocking the audience is still the same. Over the course of its existence, the horror industry has had to innovate new ways to keep its viewers on the edge of their seats. Horror films are frightening films created solely to ignite anxiety and panic within the viewers. Dread and alarm summon deep fears by captivating the audience with a shocking, terrifying, and unpredictable finale that leaves the viewer stunned.
Since the release of George Melies’s The Haunted Castle in 1896, over 90,000 horror films have been made. However, none have been more frightening and influential than that of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining and Steven Spielberg’s Jaws. Each a product of horror’s 1970’s and 80’s golden era, the films have a reputation of engulfing viewers in fear, without the use of masked killers, vampires, or other clichés. Instead, Kubrick and Spielberg take a different approach and scare audiences on a psychological level. The Shining and Jaws evoke fear through the use of three different film aspects: the use of a “danger” color, daunting soundtracks, and suspenseful cinematography.
Generally when people think of monsters all they think about are some scaly, or hairy, or just big some big scary monster. But actually spending some time with said monsters start to discover a bigger meaning of these monsters. You see a monsters isn't just made off the top of someones head it is actually thought about like what features it will include. For example the makers of horror film monsters have to think about things like what audience are they making this monster for or what kind of features will the monster have to have to scare this audience.