Shell Shocked While under constant bombardment from Nazi planes, going hungry or without as U-boats prevent food from getting into people's’ bellies, separating families, loved ones dying in the war, the mental strain on the human mind was much more than it should ever have to bear. The “Demon Lover” by Elizabeth Bowen is a short story revolving around a woman and her disastrous trip to gather her mementos from her home in London. Set in 1941 London, life at the time was hell. The events that unfold through the brief story leave many critics battling over if the story is an authentic ghost story or “a masterful dramatization of acute psychological delusion”. This woman experiences mental strain due to her environment, leading the masterful dramatization of acute psychological delusion to become evident throughout the author’s depiction of the woman’s insanity. This strain can be seen through the characterization of the setting, the woman herself, and frantic suspense of the story. The darkness that clouds Mrs. Dover’s mind is seen through her environment upon returning to …show more content…
Dover, brought upon by her failing mind. Her mind is almost like when a person dying of hypothermia begins to feel warmth just before they freezed to death. She just continues to make decisions that signal the approach of her demise. The suspense is not only felt by the reader, but is seen through the thoughts of Mrs. Dover, “She heard nothing-- but while she was hearing nothing the passé air was disturbed by a draught that travelled up to her face… a door or window was being opened by someone who chose this moment to leave the house” (Bowen 163). The suspense weighed too heavy on her mind, causing the little patience she had left to fade away as she bolted from the house. Leaving all mementos behind, running from the decrepit surroundings, toward a short cab she thought she could escape her own
Accused witches were forced to admit to various practices believed to be witchcraft. Details from the French Court of Rieux and the insanity that ensued are jaw dropping by today’s standards. Suzanne Gaudry’s judgement confession was no different, being forced and tortured into confessions including having given herself to the devil, renouncement of God, lent and Baptism. Moreover, Gaudry was also forced to confess that she had cohabited with the devil as well received the devil’s mark on her shoulder and being at dances. Of note however, the judgement confession seems to acknowledge Gaudry having technically only confessed to having had killed by poison, Philip Coine’s horse. Nevertheless, Gaudry’s confession was made
Darkness is a recurring image in literature that evokes a universal unknown, yet is often entrenched in many meanings. A master poet, Emily Dickinson employs darkness as a metaphor many times throughout her poetry. In “We grow accustomed to the dark” (#428) she talks of the “newness” that awaits when we “fit our Vision to the Dark.” As enigmatic and shrouded in mystery as the dark she explores, Dickinson's poetry seems our only door to understanding the recluse. As she wrote to her friend T.W. Higginson on April 15, 1862, “the Mind is so near itself – it cannot see, distinctly”(Letters 253). In this musing, she acquiesces to a notion that man remains locked in an internal struggle with himself. This inner
The essay, “No Sympathy for the Devil”, written by Heather Havrilesky, is about the concept of antiheroes, and how much of an impact they have made on modern media and the characters hollywood choose to create. For many years, most of the TV and movies made had a cookie cutter, almost perfect hero(s). But as of late, the entertainment industry has come to the realization that people with pros and vices, are much easier for the audience to relate to. Heather’s goal is to dive further into these antihero characters, and unravel what exactly makes them so relatable. In the process of explaining to us all of these different, complex characters, Havrilesky seems to get lost in her topic from time to time. However, the evidence she uses to back all of her claims is both plentiful, and very strong. The overall tone of the essay is not excessively opinionated, yet she does not sound
The Demon’s Parchment, by Jeri Westerson, follows private investigator Crispin Guest and his apprentice Jack as they investigate a series of mysterious murders in 1350s England. The historical setting of the book references the Medieval Period of Europe, a dark age filled with superstition, disease, and political overturn. Westerson’s setting incorporates elements of religion and politics, offering a view of Medieval England from Guest’s perspective; the narrative also does a thorough job accurately describing the breadth and depth of the Christian-Jewish hostility of the era, as well as portraying the enormous role of the English Church in everyday life.
Cynthia Rowland was an outwardly vivacious and successful television news reporter, who inwardly had slipped into the depths of bulimia. An addiction to binging and purging and heavy doses of laxatives finally landed her in treatment. The Monster Within tells the story of her descent into sickness, her struggle to learn why she was engaging in slow suicide, and the courage and grace it took to get well.
As the women walk through the house, they begin to get a feel for what Mrs. Wright’s life is like. They notice things like the limited kitchen space, the broken stove, and the broken jars of fruit and begin to realize the day-to-day struggles that Mrs. Wright endured. The entire house has a solemn, depressing atmosphere. Mrs. Hale regretfully comments that, for this reason and the fact that Mr. Wright is a difficult man to be around, she never came to visit her old friend, Mrs. Wright.
Hitchcock’s 1946 Notorious takes place in the morally ambiguous world of post-World War II where the questioning of alliances and moralities have reached a breaking point. Alicia, the daughter of an incarcerated Nazi supporter, finds herself in the midst of a purgatory world stuck in between love and hate, in other words one of ambivalence. When she is asked to travel to South America to become close to one of her father’s German contacts so that the American Government may gain valuable information about their upcoming plans she readily accepts in an effort to escape her destructive tendencies. This state of ambivalence as discussed in Philips “Against Self-Criticism” entails conflicting feelings of hatred and love for the same individual lead to a world of uncertainty or irrationality, the death drive, where the lines of morality only continue to be blurred as illustrated by Alicia, Sebastian her father’s contact whom she has wed in order to gain information, his mother, and Devlin the American Agent whom she has fallen in love with. In other words, intoxication amidst ambivalence leads to the death drive which is the driving force of the storyline aimed to showcase the extremes of this desire of self-destruction reinforced by destroying the ones who they show ambivalence towards. This drive shown in Laplanche and Pontalis’ “The Language of Psych-Analysis” is the desire for self-destruction
In Richard Russo’s story “The Whores Child” there are many different narratives being told to the reader. Russo telling all these different stories at once makes the reader feel overwhelmed and can make it very difficult to understand what is happening within the story. There are a total of two stories we are told throughout Russo’s story and each one is riddled with lies, both to the person hearing the stories but also the person writing the story is lying to themselves. This story is built upon the lies of all the characters in the story and both the narrator and Ursula obsessively hide behind their lies: this sentiment is even explicitly stated on the second page when the narrator says “This is a storytelling class, Sister. We’re all liars
n 1918, the world seems on the verge of apocalypse. Americans roam the streets in gauze masks to ward off the deadly Spanish influenza, and the government ships young men to the front lines, creating an atmosphere of fear and confusion. Sixteen year old Mary Shelley Black watches as desperate mourners flock to seances and spirit photographers for comfort, but Mary Shelley has never believed in ghosts. During her bleakest moment, however, she's forced to rethink her entire way of looking at life and death, for her first love; a boy who died in battle, returns. But what does he want from
In the novel In a Glass Darkly, author Le Fanu expresses perspectives on the supernatural world through the memoirs of Dr. Hesselius, a physician who studies metaphysical illnesses. The first three short stories, titled “Green Tea,” “The Familiar,” and “Mr. Justice Harbottle,” involve separate patients that Hesselius writes on. Through these stories, the novel expounds themes concerning the supernatural’s effect on the real world, the guilty consciences of the haunted victims, and the ambiguity of the spirits and demons supposedly seen.
As the time passes she can clearly see the woman in the paper. The woman in the paper is quiet and peaceful during the day, but at night she is imprisoned by the bars in the paper. This is reflection helps the narrator identify her own bars--her husband John. He is away during the day and at home in the same bed with her at night. She also identifies with the woman in the paper by sharing their similar routine. "At night in any kind of light, in twilight, candlelight, lamplight, and worst of all by moonlight, it becomes bars! The outside pattern I mean, and the woman behind it is as plain as can be"..."by daylight she is subdued, quiet. I fancy its the pattern that keeps her so still. It is so puzzling. It keeps me quiet by the hour".
Seth Schaller Chris Lipovsky Mrs. Costanzo English 11,Period 7 18 September, 2014 Story of an Hour Mrs. Mallard changes from a sick and unhappy young woman to a happy and independent widow as the result of realizing her freedom after her husband’s death. Death normally is not associated with happiness but with the overwhelming situation of being a woman in the 1800’s, it was almost a blessing to go from containment to freedom. Unfortunately, this feeling of freedom was only a feeling and nothing more.
Kirsteva, J. 1982. Powers of Horror: An essay on abjection. New York: Columbia University Press.
Her career as an actress has blinded her; she has become completely wrapped up in the superficial glamour in a city of make-believe. On the contrary, seeing and reading about the danger makes it all the more real in Anna’s eyes. Her first sight of LA was of the homeless and a man desperately needing to go to the hospital only to find out the hospital dumped him on the streets. She is exposed to the ugly before she sees the pretty. Alone one night in Delia’s apartment: “I didn’t want to admit that I was more spooked by the night, that the wind could sound as sinister as a hand rattling a doorknob… party” (139). Anna has become engrossed in the Manson killings. Reading about the danger only heightens her paranoia for threats that could lie around her. Like watching a scary movie, her senses are on edge. The slightest sound, such as wind, becomes the scariest of sounds, especially alone. While visiting Manson’s victim, Sharon Tate’s grave, Anna becomes awe-struck. Her readings and research only become tangible while standing in front of Tate’s grave. The media turned Charles Manson into a glorified icon. Having to see the actual gave of both Sharon Tate and her baby, she describes as “who both was and wasn’t” (153), the moment becomes not only sad, but Anna grasps it as an event that actually happened. It no longer stood as a fairy tale or a story that she heard. It was
“There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully. What was it? She did not know; it was too subtle and elusive to name. But she felt it, creeping out of the sky, reaching toward her through the sounds, the scents, the color that filled the air” (7). Mrs. Mallard started to feel a minimal amount of freedom from her husband. “ When she abandoned herself a little whispered word escaped her slightly parted lips. She said it over and over under her breath: “free, free, free! The vacant stare and the look of terror that had followed it went from her eyes. They stared keen and bright. Her pulse beat fast, and the coursing blood warmed and relaxed every inch of her body” (7). Mrs. Mallard’s emotions are described through imagery. Imagery helps us to get a feeling of what is happening in the story through wordplay, and