Pathos And Logos Of The Urban Legend Head On A Stick

Superstitions are a mysterious part of any culture, and those mysteries greatly influence mysterious writers. Edgar Allen Poe, one of the most famous mysterious authors, use the many mysterious encounters he faced as an asset for his short stories. A major influence was his time in Charleston, South Carolina, where he learned of the many superstitions and rituals of both the blacks and the whites of the area. His interests in horrific rituals like premature burials and zombication (which mainly involves voodoo, familiar to the Lowcountry Gullah culture) helped him to write horrific short stories, like “The Fall of the House of Usher.” Poe’s gory and eerie setting of the house itself and the off-putting characteristics of the Usher siblings expressed Poe’s knowledge of paranoia and interest of the “living dead,” which comes in the weird rituals of the Gullah culture.

Many legends of hauntings in Mankato, Minnesota have been told time after time. Though many people tell these stories, it is unknown to whether or not they are true. In this research paper, I will discuss several different legends that have been told throughout time in Mankato. The legends I will further examine are: the legend of Sibley Park, the Memorial Library on campus, the Carnegie Art Center, and the Witch’s Grave. Being that I am from Mankato, Minnesota, I thought it would be very interesting to research more about these legends and the experiences had in these places. Though I, myself, have not experienced anything completely unusual in these places, many people in the town have another experience. Memorates, or accounts of first hand

These specific facts make the story more authentic and leave no space for doubts or ambiguities on the reader’s part. All the events taking place within the chamber, though terrifying, are coherent and in correspondence to the place in which the narrator is placed.

To begin with, imagination overcomes reasoning in the characters of the short story “The Fall of the House of Usher”. While in the middle of the storm the narrator seems to be hearing strange noises that have nothing to do with the storm. For example, “An irrepressible tremor gradually pervaded my frame; and at length, there sat upon my very heart an incubus of utterly causeless alarm. Shaking this off with a gasp and a struggle, I uplifted myself upon the pillows” (paragraph 31, pg 25). This shows readers that the narrator of the story is hearing noises, and it could be said that Usher’s condition is rubbing off on him. The narrator is unable to sleep at this point in the story because of Usher’s incurable fears that have now taken influence on the narrator because he believes he is hearing things. This demonstrates how imagination overcomes reason in the short

Many Elizabethan bedsides were haunted from “the terrors of the night”. Back then their ghosts were nothing like the pasty blobs we call ghosts now. Theirs were quite gruesome. Ghostly visitations were claimed to have been very unpleasant. Not only this, but they claimed it cast them into a state of spiritual confusion.

Myths are stories telling a part of the world view of a society or give an explanation of a practice, belief, or natural phenomenon. It is a popular viewpoint, embodying the ideals and institutions of a society or segment of society. Although myths are regarded as fictional representations, they often reveal underlying ideals. Myths often tell us more about our social and cultural values than they do about any particular circumstance. While myths seem to explain events, often times they instruct us on integrating an event an individual’s belief system and worldviews. The phrase crime myths does not stray too far from these definitions. These types of myths are usually created in nonscientific forums through the telling of sensational stories. These crime fictions often take on new meanings as they are told and retold, eventually evolving into truth for many people (Kappeler and Potter, 2005). The commonly held belief of the United States’ leniency within the criminal justice system is a crime myth, unfounded, and false.

Bill Ellis’s, “Death by Folklore: Ostension, Contemporary Legend, and Murder,” speaks to how cultural and societal fear can not only form and inform legend, but can inspire real world, physical consequences. These consequences are material acts known as Ostension. Ostension is the liminal ground where the narrative of legend meets personal experience. Ostension, and particularly legend-tripping, is, by necessity, grown out of the cultural source hypothesis, as both require knowledge of a legend before the experience can occur. The first stage of the legend-trip, according to Michael Kinsella in the chapter,“The Performance of Legend-Tripping,” is the telling or retelling of the narrative(s) of the site or ritual participants are about to embark

The article “Ghost Stories: There Was Something About My New House” by Hannah Betts, follows the author’s own paranormal encounter in her old home. Hannah and her family moved into a spacious Victorian manor that was always rumored to be haunted. Being skeptics, the Betts family decided to move into the house anyway. During their time in the manor, several smaller encounters, such as hearing footsteps and voices; which ultimately led to a ghost breaking a mirror, etching 666 into the shards of glass, and writing “I’m going to (explicit) kill you all” in blood. In her article, Betts uses pathos to appeal to the reader’s emotions by her use of tone and mood, the parts of speech, and foreshadowing.

The house had an unusual smell to it that Bryan couldn’t quite his finger on it. Miguel had never minded any of the people in the village had always believed the story ever since they were a young child, but there showed no evidence of this so called “Witch”. old lady on the corner of Babylan St. because he always knew it was just a folktale,so they wouldn’t go into a stranger 's house.

At the time the book was written it was the late 19th century, Victorian era; and at the time Victorians were fascinated by ghosts - a perfect reason to write a psychological ghost story.

After the murder, the narrator hears a knock at the door. He proceeds to open the door to find that it is three policemen, who were there because of a disturbance call. The police tells the narrator for why they are there, which a neighbor heard a scream in the night. When the narrator hears this, he tells the police that it was his scream. Once the narrator welcomes the police to search the home, the narrator goes as far as leading police into the room where he had committed a murder and hid the body. The narrator cleverly comes up with an idea to hide the murder, “The old man, I mentioned, was absent in the country. I took my visitors all over the house. I bade them search-search well. I led them, at length, to his chamber” (Poe, 887). The narrator shows the police that there was nothing abnormal in the house, he proceeds to talk to them while feeling at ease.

Nowadays, the development of technology affects the way we search for the information. For instance, stories that have been told only within families or small groups of people can now be exposed to the internet, where these stories are shared amongst hundreds of people. Urban legend, by definition, is a humorous or horrific story that people usually believe, even when there is no proof of where it started from, or of the trustworthiness of that story. Urban legends have appealed to many ranges of audiences since this genre tends to attract many individuals. For instance, college students have taken an interest towards these legends, whether they like the strange stories or the actual messages behind it. Urban legends have taught college students the themes, which are based on the reflection of their conflicts or problems that they have dealt with. The two common themes of urban legends that represent the problem that college students are dealing with are the conflicts between college students and their professors and the paranormal and horror events that occur in their life.

A rumor can be classified as a special case of informal social communications that include myth, legend, and current humor. Rumors have three basic characteristics to them. The first is mode transmission which is usually done through word of mouth. The second characteristic is that they provide information, ranging from a particular person, an event, or condition. Lastly, the third characteristic is that a rumor satisfies mythology, folklore, and humor. Rumors have the

I asked a dumb questions. My mother doesn't know the answer, I suspect We are the only one in a room Her cold stares makes my heart tremble in fear, scream strangling in my throat, and my limbs shook with fear.

The very setting of the fireside at which Griffin's guests swap stories establishes an atmosphere with which many of us are familiar. We can all relate to sitting around a fire exchanging ghost stories. By employing this particular narrative frame James encourages the reader to abandon their scepticism and give themselves over to a belief in the ghosts. The reader shares in the eagerness of the guests to be frightened; to be delighted by horror. Upon seeing Douglas' distress at the thought of the tale he must tell, and its "dreadful - dreadfulness", one of the female guests actually cries, "Oh how delicious!"5