Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book

When we have strong love for others, we take risks, we go against our beliefs, we put ourselves in danger, and we let our loved ones go. Without love, there would be none of that. In this book, The Dead and the Gone, written by Susan Beth Pfeffer, a comet smashes the moon closer to earth and it creates all sorts of problems. Alex, a teenage boy with two sisters, starts a long journey of survival and risks. This story is so realistic, at times was hard to read. You start to ask yourself these tough questions, like what you would do in a specific situation. Through out the whole story, love is definitely a recurring theme. It shows you how well love can hold a family is distress together.

A horror story should have some elements to grab the attention of audience such as suspense and mystery. However, it is a challenge to achieve this goal especially in a short story, but that did not seem to be an obstacle for Stephen King, who is famous for writing horror fiction stories. Jeffrey W. Hunter, who is editor of Contemporary Literacy Criticism, believes that Stephen King is a marketing phenomenon for the large number of books he has sold. One of his first works was “Strawberry Spring,” which was published along with other short stories in a book titled Night Shift in 1978. In the same manner as other Stephen King’s writings, “Strawberry Spring” is a story loaded of mystery where death is one of the main components. The story begins with a narrator’s memory about what happened eight years ago when he was in college in 1968. The narrator remembers how a serial killer who was called Springheel Jack came into action during strawberry spring which is a natural phenomenon that only happens every eight years. Four young women were murdered in that year. Despite the efforts and investigations of police, the murderer was never caught. After eight years, the strawberry spring has come back and the killer, as well. Without a doubt, first person narrative point of view, setting, and symbolism are crucial elements that make “Strawberry Spring” a fascinating story.

In the novel The Dead, Gabriel Conroy, who is the nephew of Julia and Kate Morkan, is the main character of the story. One night he and his wife attended a party, which was given by his two aunts, and there were many other members in the party. The story revolves around their life and memories.Gabriel Conroy felt a blur between his soul and the dead. Some people died, but they are still alive because they have true love. Some people are alive, but they are still dead because they never love.I like the story for three reasons.

The book Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife, is a non-fiction work by Mary Roach, that explores the unanswered questions about the afterlife. The humorous and scientific exploration includes: whether there is a soul that survives death, reincarnation, near-death experiences and out of body experiences. This is a book about what scientists are doing and have done in their attempt to find evidence that when we die we don’t just turn into bones. Roach attempts to find and the define that soul using a scientific approach in order to determine the possibilities of an afterlife. To achieve this goal, she examines what scientists have discovered in their quest to find evidence for life after death.

The short story the dead is written by James Joyce an Irish writer who lived between 1882-1941,he is best known for his modern writing techniques, with stories such as “The Dead”, this story is well known for its deep analogy of Irish culture, history, and how the story relates to life struggles, the difficulties of time and age and dealing to forget the dead ones we have lost.

In the passage, “The Dead”, James Joyce reveals about the character’s qualities. James Joyce, the author of the excerpt, allows the reader to get to know the character, Gabriel, by using literary devices. For example, the author uses symbolism and imagery, to reveal so much about him, that Gabriel himself does not know about.

Masculinity. When people see this word they tend to associate its meaning with anything that is associated to men. This leads one to wonder what defines a ‘man’. Why are we associating these traits to this ‘man’? What is so special about the ‘man’ that makes us associate these terms with him and thus associate masculinity with them? The United States society that we live in today may seem to be making people pay a steep price for masculinity, but one does wonder was it always like this? Actually no it was not. Today dressing up as a women or ‘acting like a girl’ reduces your masculinity and makes people view you in a negative light. Cross-dressing in general is frowned upon. Men are very in limited in what they can express and how

In the novella The Body, author Stephen King makes an attempt to explain a story about losing innocence, only to be replaced by maturity and the corruption that comes with it. To do so, King revolves a story around a group of four boys who go on a life changing journey to find a dead body they heard about through the grape vine. Little did they know that pursuing this journey would eventually change them for the worse. In its entirety, the crux of the novella was to show how the experience of meeting death hands-on will pivot a person’s life and will either lead them onto a slippery slope or mold them in to a man soon to be. More specifically, King reinforces this theme beautifully by using light imagery during the

Comprehensive language, strong details, and descriptive language are all very apparent in Contents Of A Dead Man’s Pockets, written by Jack Finney, This short story revolves around a man named Tom Benecke who is a simple and hardworking man, but his hardworking tendencies cause him to dance with the devil and nearly lose his own life. Without quality details, images, and language, any novel will be dull and lifeless because the reader would not be able to connect to the story, thus making it less enjoyable and harder to understand.

Ghostly representations of “the other” imagine a social evil that has not been put to rest. These images reoccur in the Western canon, marking the persistence of slavery long after its abolition. Haunting, ghosts and skeletons in Benito Cereno act as a vehicle through which the suppressed return to the stage with a message. The ghosts carry with them all that the imperialists wanted to control, including emotions, and more precisely, the emotions of the oppressed. I argue that ghosts and skeletons comprise an area of tension in which the appearance of the “other” reveals that the dominant party’s control is incomplete. Yet, the presence is merely ghostly due to the constant policing and lack of respect for the Other. These ghosts also break through the boundaries of the dominant culture’s paradigms and identities (Harpham 17), signaling potential political crisis. This text signals the fear of the retaliation of the Other through ghostly representations by projecting on to the other, their own identities of brutality and irrationality. “Benito Cereno” by Herman Melville overturns the racist images of the colonized by relocating evil in the order of slavery. Hauntings carry the perspectives and powers of the slaves by preserving the dead amidst the living and the past amidst the present, they muddle up the concept of time and therefore defy the Western dream of complete control.

The Graveyard Book written by Neil Gaiman is a fictional book published in 2008. The setting in the beginning of the story is in a house in the middle of the night, but it very quickly transitions to a graveyard. Towards the end, the setting is all throughout the town, in which the house and graveyard are located. This book is written in the third person point of view. Having a third person point of view helps the author tell the story the way he wants to by not showing an emotional connection with the protagonist but still making the reader develop positive emotions toward the protagonist.

When children think of darkness they think of lack of light which causes them to become scared. As we grow older, we begin to not only realize the lack of light, but the objects inside the dark which can be more frightening. We start understanding how darkness makes us feel. Darkness makes one think of unusual scenarios that are not real, but seems so real at that moment. Once we start believing in those scenarios, they start to overcome us and we no longer stay ourselves. There are multiple definitions of darkness and they all go with these two authentic stories, Heart of Darkness and The Dead. In the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, darkness is defined as: partial or total absence of light, wickedness or evil, unhappiness, secrecy and lack of spiritual or intellectual enlighten. Comparing, Heart of Darkness written by Joseph Conrad and The Dead written by James Joyce, each author brings out darkness and the living dead into the main character and shows how much it changes them for the worse and/or for the better.

Neil Gaiman’s Snow, Glass, Apples takes all prior knowledge about what a fairy tale generally consists of and ignores it. Breaking down all barriers of what is considered the typical fairy tale format, Gaiman does not shy away from delving into the taboos of society.

“Home Burial” is a look into a troubled married couples’ relationship and the emotional stress the death of their child has inflicted upon them. Being isolated on a farm in rural Massachusetts, the wife, Amy, has no one

The Caribbean is known for its ghost stories, myths and haunted landscapes. Dawn of the Dread, by Geoffrey Philp, was set in rural Jamaica. Being set in the high hills of mount Airy, the author highlights the hilly and mountainous features of the Caribbean terrain. This story revealed both past and present aspects of the Caribbean culture. It revealed notions of ghost stories, corruption, religious practices, homosexuality and police brutality. It embodies love, Rastafarian beliefs and violence. It revolves around the life of Darren Lee, his girlfriend Grace and Georgie. Regardless of his contrasting beliefs, Darren was responsible for saving the town from zombies.