We Have Always Lived In The Black Suit And It's A Good Life Analysis

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Fear, provoked by a perceived threat, induces emotional and behavioral responses. Often, such responses are performed with the motive to protect oneself and eliminate the fear-causing stimulus. Fear is a powerful motive for conflict and leads to divisions and conflict between the intimidating “alien” and the common human; the aliens in Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Jerome Bixby’s “It’s a Good Life,” and Stephen King’s “The Man in the Black Suit” initiate fear and conflict in the humans by way of the manipulation of elements of nature which stimulates the fright of losing their natural world. The Blackwood family in We Have Always Lived in the Castle is feared among the rest of the town because of Constance’s apparent …show more content…

Because of Anthony’s supernatural mind control, people avoid coming near him and alter their way of thinking in fear of Anthony penetrating and poisoning their minds and bodies; the townspeople “tried to jumble up their thoughts to keep them skipping back and forth, so Anthony couldn't read their minds.” What scared the people the most about Anthony was his ability to change the course of human nature. When his Aunt Amy did not allow him to turn a cat into a cat-rug, Anthony got angry “with his mind. And that had been the end of Amy Fremont's bright eyes, and the end of Amy Fremont as everyone had known her.” The exploitation of Aunt Amy’s mind is a clear manipulation of the nature of the uncorrupted human mind by an alien. When Aunt Amy loses a basic component of human nature, the townspeople are left in fear for the safety of their own human nature. Besides the human mind Anthony also manipulates the balance of nature in the cornfield; “he liked the thoughts of the little creatures in [the cornfield], and … he could get enough out of them to know what the little creatures liked and wanted, and he spent a lot of time making the grove more like what they wanted it to be.” Anthony used the cornfield as a showcase of his talents and the villagers, seeing what he was capable of, were dealt a greater fear of him. Anthony further utilized nature for his supernatural …show more content…

In this short story, Stephan King crafts the evil of the devil around his distortion of the presencehttps://www.grammarly.com/?q=writing&utm_source=placement&utm_medium=cpc&utm_content=72890D.png&utm_term=paperrater of nature. Gary provides a descriptive appearance of the devil: “He was on fire inside, and his eyes were like the little isinglass portholes you sometimes see in stove doors.” As an element of nature, fire acts here as a source of horror for Gary; the devil takes a normal component of human life and manipulates it to use it for power over Gary. Furthermore, on the appearance of the devil, Gary specifically feels trepidation from the scent of sulfur that the devil emits. In correspondence with the Old Testament, sulfur is an identifying agent of the devil; therefore, Gary is able to recognize the man in the black suit as the devil. In this instance, sulfur, a naturally occurring element, is used in a negative connotation. The devil uses his scent to his advantage and stimulates apprehension in Gary. Both the appearance of fire in the devil’s eyes and his stench of sulfur utilize natural elements to provoke fear in Gary. It is the powerful ability of the devil to take the pure elements of nature, and corrupt them to stimulate fright for loss of the wholesome natural

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