Blog set 12 Lessons Learned

In the story, “The Premature Burial” by Edgar Allan Poe, shows insight into what the narrator is infatuated with due to his near death experiences and his medical condition, catalepsy. Speaking of these premature burials and trying to understand what was the feeling these unfortunate souls endured because they were presumed dead is horrifying.  These incidents must have been a serious issue in the medical field in the 1800’s. The narrator became so fixated into being prepared if he was ever buried alive in his family tomb that he went to the extremes to make sure he would be able to open the vault doors from the inside. Imagine having to live in constant fear of being buried alive is no way of living at all especially for the narrator and his medical condition. He makes sure that his loved ones know of his condition and all that they must do.  One of the quotes from the story that stayed with me was “There are moments when, even to the sober eye of Reason, the world of our sad Humanity may assume the semblance of a hell”. What do you all think the narrator was speaking of in this quote? 

The author of “The Monkey’s Paw” W.W. Jacobs, did a good job in keeping me intrigued about what would happen next every time I turned the pages of the story. This would be a typical feature in a horror film, a magical monkey paw that came make all your wishes come true, but with consequences of course. The family should have listened to the Sergeant about his warnings and they would have not been in the predicament that they were in towards the end. It is how the saying goes for curious people, “curiosity kills”, and indeed in the story, it did kill someone and it was tragic. It seems that towards the end I am assuming the father wished his son dead again since the mother opens the door and no one was there, or did I assume wrong?

Blog set 11 Madness and Lost Love

When I read “The Furnished room” by O. Henry, it showed how one of this week’s theme was set into this ordinary yet supernatural story about lost love. How ironic it must have been to die in the same room of your lost love in which you have been looking for. Was it fate that brought him to that room or was it a place he was supposed to be with his undoing brought upon him? This story shows the true meaning of what it meant for coincidences and fate to be combined together.  The truth being told towards the end gave it a completely different view on this story.

As always, Edgar Allan Poe leaves us in a trance of mixed emotions in his stories. In his story Berenice, it is full with darkness and madness. The narrator becomes obsessed with wanting to take Berenice teeth out and that is exactly what he did. There is no love in this story, as we would see before in other stories or poems of Poe’s. Marrying your cousin to us may seem like biting from the forbidden fruit but back in the old day’s people would do so to keep their family bloodlines pure, in this case, he just marries his cousin for she is the only one in the home. There is envy in the story with Egaeus towards Berenice, she is beautiful and is fascinated to be able to look at someone so pure and filled with beauty, is that why he marries her?

The Boarded Window by Ambrose Bierce was an interesting story. The way the author made the narrator start the story one way and then dive into the story in a completely different way was a good touch. It made it seem, as the old man was heartless and did not care that his wife died, but he did not know how to feel or let his emotions set in. Towards the end when he was scared for his life and did not know what was in his home, it showed that what he feared the most was burying his wife and she still being alive. I felt sorry for the old man and was not scared but wanted to know more of why he was the way he was and the true meaning behind that boarded window.

Blog set 10 Hauntings

As I read “The Fall of the House of Usher” by Edgar Allan Poe, I saw characteristics that make this literature a horror story. The eerie beginning and the narrator sounding very frightful is to show that there is something going on in “the house of Usher”. The house being a manifest of a supernatural place in which this family is bound to it with fear is one of the main parts in the story that gives it that paranoid, terrifying element to it. The narrator sees how his childhood friend has changed drastically from a face you could not ever forget to someone who looks dead yet still alive is a part in which shows that his friend is dying and the cause is fear. Now on to other things that happened in the story such as the sister being buried alive in a sense and comes back to life, who is to say she was never dead, it probably was her illness that they had mistaking her death for. Overall this story reminded me a little of the film “Rose Red” by Stephen King and maybe it is because of the feel of the house and what happens to the house in the end. As always Edgar never misses the beat to anything he writes, it shows is perfection in what he truly loved to do and that shows in all his work no matter how dark or gloomy they are.

As I read “Afterwards” by Edith Wharton, the similarities in which both these stories have is uncanny. The house is one of the biggest parts we see in both these stories exceptions are that in the first story, the family are bound by the house and the second one , a couple who want a ghost in their home. I am intrigued by this story and how surreal it is  about a couple who find a whom in which they think is what they have wanted and so far until the saying goes be careful for what you wish for or more or less want is exactly what you shall receive regardless in the way it comes. Which is the ghost they wanted in their home has actually been with them the whole time but sadly they did not find this out until it was too late. The mystery of her husband death was not figured out until long afterwards as everyone kept saying about the ghost and that was a terrifying yet intriguing way of ending the story.

Viewing Blog set 2

As I watched Lord of the Rings the fellowship of the ring, it was fascinating and a captivating film. To think that this was a book one of many, the director made this film come to life. I did not read the books but heard very good things from it, however, I cannot compare if the adaption to this book was a very good one from a readers point of view. Which comes to one of my questions to you my fellow classmates, have anyone of you read the books and seen the movies? Was it a good adaptation? In the film what captivating me the most was the scenes and the elves, they were beautiful creatures. The places they journeyed to were eye openers, the places were amazing, I would want to visit them especially Lothlorien which reminded me of Avatar how the people lived in the big tree. In the beginning, we learn about the 19 rings plus one of the most powerful rings of them all. The rings were split up as this, three rings to the elves, seven rings to the dark lords, and nine rings to man. The last ring was fought over because everyone wanted the power to all the domains and they could not resist the temptation of having the ring. There were many beings in the movie such as the hobbits, wizards, elves, dwarves, and man. There were also crossbreeds of these beings such as Orcs, which were a mix between dwarves and elves with the powers of each of the two. This movie can be seen to have many fantasy elements. Between magic and beings you would only hear about in folklores and the scenes in which your imagination can unfold into anything you can imagine. I will continue to watch the rest of the movies and see how this whole series truly unfolds. Below I added pictures from the film I liked the most.

Blog set 9 Edgar Allan Poe

     In the Raven by Edgar Allan Poe, is about a man who is up late at night, depressed, mourning over his lost love “Lenore” and then he gets a visit from a raven, and that is when things start to become dark. This poem is one of Edgar’s famous poem, it is known by many when you mention his name. One of my favorite lines in this poem is, “dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before.” That line is used by many in songs or on shows, but what fascinates me about it is how bad of a dream is it? There are so many different symbols in this poem from the raven, which usually means death or a bad omen and he also uses roman mythology such as with the god of the underworld, “Plutonian” also known as, Pluto. The line that speaks of Plutonian is “tell me what thy lordly name is on the Nights Plutonian shore!” what do you all think of this poem? Did anyone else notice the symbols I referred to? On the other hand, did you find symbols of your own within this poem?

        In Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe, is another great but very sad and maybe somewhat crazy poem, let us just say that is the theme here. I feel like in the beginning I was about to read a fairy tale because of how he starts it off, “it was many and many a tear ago,” it sounds to be as if it could have been as they all, “start once upon a time in a far, far away land...”. Throughout the story he is professing his love for Annabel Lee, even though he mentions they are both children, is it puppy love or a crush? In both stories, the other theme I see is he speaks of heaven and hell for it is to describe his pain but also maybe is blaming the angels, which he refers to in both stories. This poem was more simpler to decipher than “The Raven” was but overall they are two poems that if you are interested in poetry as I am especially dark ones as these two are I suggest you look more into them.

Blog set 8 Gender and Sexuality

This short story "Day Million," by Frederik Pohl is a straight to the point kind of story. It seems that we have some kind of strange cyborgs or robots in the story playing Don and Dora is not a girl genetically speaking. I find that the author played with many different things in this story such as not keeping to the normal love stories as we all would read about. Taking this so called love story into a whole other dimension, the future. In this future sexuality and gender does not mean anything because it can be modified anyway that they want it to be. The way that these characters lives are it seems that sex is a big factor in this story but not in the way we think. Their jobs as I might assume is that Dora is an exotic dancer, maybe at a futuristic strip club and Don job seems as if he is either a prostitute or a sex slave or some sort. These are things that would horrify some people in our world but this is something that is normal in this future. What do you guys think about this future they live in? Are there any humans left? Is there more to the story than what I found?

“When it Changed” by Joanna Russ just blew my mind when I figured out that the earth men that came to Whileaway were the only men there in “thirty generations.” This story was very interesting to find that genetics could be used to achieve a new colony of just women to keep on surviving. The way that they act some of the women is what you would see in a man. They our married the main characters, wives, and these earth men want to give them something they think is missing in their world but they are happily content. There is a big component in the story about sexual equality, so I to assume that this world they lived in was for only woman to finally live and love who they wanted to and not be judged for it. I enjoyed this story. What was a part in this story that interested you?

Blog set 7 Philip K. Dick

    

In “We Can Remember You Wholesale” by Philip K. Dick and the adaptation movie of the story “Total Recall” Directed by Paul Verhoeven, have similarities but as always movies that are adapted from stories usually do not stick with all the details. As I read the story it had a different aspect it to it compared to the movie, but it had a unique ending as well. The beginning of the story and the movie were kept similar as for the main character’s name was kept the same but his wife’s role in the story was way more different than in the movie. It seemed no matter how much they tried to erase his memory and implant something else, and that something else already existed in his mind. The story is short and of course in the movie they had to add a lot more to give it a good viewing appeal it related somewhat to the story but did not continue on the same path the story did. On that note adaptation has a positive and negative impact to the story they are adapted from.  I think that the casting decision for Douglas Quail as played by Arnold Schwarzenegger in the movie adaptation was a good casting even though they made Arnold play Douglas a lot more tougher than in the story but it still worked. For example in the story he is a clerk and in the movie he is a construction worker. It seems that in most cases movie adaptations take a different look at the story to show a better picture or sometimes a worse one, in this case it was a good visual to the story. Some questions that I think would have changed the outcome in both movie and story is if the wife acted the same in both such as how she did in the movie sort of to not give away anything or maybe the whole dream about going to mars or being on mars. Either way they both turned out interesting in both cases and I think the adaptation had more action than the story does but of course did you see who was playing the main actor.