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.