The allure of fear can be different depending on certain circumstances. Unexpected fear is showed in both “Sleep Paralysis: A Waking Nightmare”, by Lexi Tucker and “The Feather Pillow” written by Horacio Quiroga. Some people experience fear without realising or wanting too, whereas some thrill seekers go looking for an adrenaline rush. What I mean by saying the allure of fear can be different depending on circumstances is… some people enjoy the unknown. Not knowing what’s coming next is a thrill. But in these stories the unexpected is not a thrill, “it is a feeling of panic, entrapment,and desperation so horrifying that [some] have difficulty describing its magnitude (Tucker para. 3). Sleep Paralysis. A state in which “your brain sends a signal …show more content…
Having to lose a loved one is something we all will have to experience someday. For Jordan in “The Feather Pillow” his loss was a little more unsettling. Like with sleep paralysis the end result is unexpected. These unexpected occurrences in both stories happened where they would feel at ease. Which makes it a sick kind of fear. Alicia was ill and her safe haven was her bed. Where she was cared for everyday. As the days past she gradually got sicker until she was pronounced dead. Her death was believed to be natural but like sleep paralysis something unexpected happened while sleeping. Alicia was asleep like many sleep paralysis victims but she couldn’t get away from her nightmare. Because “in the bottom of [her] pillowcase, among the feathers, slowly moving its hairy legs, was a monstrous animal... [that] was so swollen one could scarcely make out its mouth. Night after night, since Alicia had taken to her bed, this [animal] had… applied its mouth to... [her] temples, sucking her blood (Quiroga para. 29). This was an unexpected cause of death, making the whole situation
I remember falling asleep, but I don’t remember being in a bed. I had fallen asleep in the hall due to my emotional state. My body didn’t need the sleep. My mind did. I’m actually happy I did. It got my mind off all my problems and sorrows for a good while. I sit up, pushing the unfamiliar blankets off my body. I’m in a strange hard bed in a foreign room. Everything around me feels new and alien. This isn’t my dull little prison. This room is slightly decorated with light brown walls and a dresser covered with random things.
Fear can be a pleasurable experience such as riding a roller coaster, watching a horror movie or climbing treacherous mountains. Roller coasters use fear for pleasure by using the senses of falling and traveling at uncontrollable speeds to produce a rush of adrenaline. People use horror movies to stimulate fear which in turn creates pleasure due to the fact that the fear is in the confines of safety, typically only producing goose bumps or a slightly increased heart rate. Mountain climbing differs from
Fear introduces people to various feelings, one being adrenaline. With adrenaline, people feel a rush of different emotions, these being excitement or anxiety and mainly used for life-threatening situations. This means that people have different responses to fear. Some feel nervous and try to separate themselves from it, while others embrace it. The other feeling that fear introduces is nerves, which makes your thoughts blurry and is an overall distraction to people.
In Horacio Quiroga’s short story, “The Feather Pillow,” he writes about a young woman and bride, Alicia, who gets ill suddenly and unexplainable, and quickly progresses towards her death. Alicia’s death is caused by a monstrous creature that lives in her pillow. The monstrous creature feeds itself with Alicia’s blood day by day, and finally takes Alicia’s life away. The story begins with a recently married couple, Alicia and Jordan, who live together now in a nearly empty house. Alicia has an unconditional love towards her husband, but her husband doesn’t express his feelings and emotions to her. Suddenly, Alicia’s health gets weaker, and she gets ill. Alicia’s illness progresses day by day. Alicia begins to hallucinate, and neither the doctors
In the excerpt from “Why we Crave Horror Movies” by Stephen King, he discusses what makes us “crave” horror movies. King begins with a statement that suggests that when people submit themselves to a horror film, they are “daring a nightmare” or, in other words, they see it as a challenge. He claims that three of the reasons people do this are, one, to that they are not afraid. Secondly, to feel normal. Lastly, because it is fun.
What makes people seek for experiences that make them feel scared? Fear is the expectation or the anticipation of possible harm, so why do people like it? There is a hormone called dopamine, that is released during scary and thrilling activities, according to David Zald, some individuals may get more of a kick of this hormone than others. Lots of people enjoy scary experiences, because of the feeling that they have after these situations. As reported by ABC News, in “Spooky Business American Economy”, people spend about 7 million dollars in Halloween, looking for costumes, decoration objects, and also in haunted houses. People enjoy scary movies, roller coasters, and haunted houses. Similarly, people enjoy thrilling literature, as Edgar Allan Poe and Louise Erdrich poems, “The Raven” and “The windigo” respectively. Both of these authors write and explore death and the ambiguity of what will happen after death, by using concrete examples of imagery and symbols, structured paragraphs, and a certain type of diction.
Another way in how human nature is best defined as fear, is shown in the story, “The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe. For example, Poe speaks about how individuals can feel fear after losing someone special. In this case, fear can make us not believe in the goodwill of other individuals. We can infer that fear is often involved with people who suffer depression most of the time. At one point, his use of internal rhyme makes the readers question why the the narrator feels a sense of fear when the curtains start to flutter. The author says, “ And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain thrilled me and filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before” (Poe 10). From the words, “thrilled me” we can infer that the speaker is frightened
Humans typically want to avoid the subject of death so when they read horror or other scenarios about people dying they face their fears of death. In “Strawberry Spring”, by Stephen King, there was a college student who had “her throat cut from ear to ear”(1). While reading this humans our facing their fears on the subject of death. Having fears is part of the Human Condition and is completely normal. Even though these fears are normal, most people still try to face them and horror is a way to do that.
Have you ever wondered why you enjoy being scared? In Allegra Ringo’s interview, “Why do some brains enjoy fear?”, with Dr. Kerr, a scare specialist, he states that many enjoy being scared because the brain triggers “a flood” of adrenaline, dopamine, and endorphins. To enjoy the feeling of being terrified, our brains have to process that we are in a safe space. Scary movies, stories, roller coasters, and haunted houses all create a breathtaking response to fear. These experiences we have with fear are said to create self-confidence, relieve stress, and even bring us together. Americans spend over 7.5 billion dollars on Halloween activities and costumes. Dr. Kerr states in the interview, that people love Halloween so much because it constructs a strong emotional response and build stronger memories. Dr. Kerr also says that when we are happy, or afraid we release hormones that help those moments “stick” in our brain. We all love a good scare! “The Raven”, by Edgar Allen Poe, and “Beware: do not read this poem”, by Ishmael Reed both analyze the allure of fear through symbolism and descriptive imagery, which is a part of gothic literature. Both Poe and Reed signifies their themes differently but both themes allude to the fascination of fear.
You sit reclined in the cockroach infested darkness on a bed that is not yours, but you find that actually, it is far comfier than the one that you try to sleep on back home. In your own bed, the rusty springs that dig deep into your ribs serve as a welcome reminder of cold reality as your mind swims in the black waters of blissful agony. Here women scream, children scream but best of all the men scream in a high-pitched symphony of beautifully poised terror.
The family and police and doctors , didn’t know what caused the death. “ No cause of death or autopsy
The allure of fear is interesting for some people for several reasons. These people have another perspective of how they react when they see something scary or read it. They don’t react the same way as other people that don’t like scary things. Other people like to be scared. Some people motivate others by saying to them they are not so scary and everything that is happening there is not real, since they use fiction elements, like characters, details and scenarios. These scary elements have real details but also have scenarios that are not real, this means it is magical realism. This thought of liking scary things is a physiological problem. Scientist make an article showing proof that there is a big pole of people that like scary scenarios.
To begin, as in Quiroga’s frightening story The Feather Pillow an exploration of the love and care between husband and wife is displayed. When talking about her husband, Alicia is concerned. Where she should would feel love and appreciation she feels “[...] chilled by her husband’s rough character” (Quiroga 1). Lacking to show love towards Alicia, Jordan is directly impacting her mood, which in term keeps her in a bad physical state. Letting her feel this way and continuing to act “cold” shows how much care he truly has. In order to go further, Alicia describes her loveless situation and her lack of comfort in her own home the narrator continues to mention “It is not strange that she grew thin. She had a light attack of influenza that dragged
While reading this passage, the reader may begin to create terror-like feelings. In the field of literature, horror acts as a strong tool to evoke the feeling of fear whereas terror acts as a powerful tool to evoke the human psychological irrational fears and anxieties.
The Feather Pillow by Horacio Quiroga is a gothic short story originally written in Spanish and translated to English. Newly weds Alicia and Jordan are very much in love, however, they both have different ways of showing this love. Alicia longs for more affection and romance from her partner but does not voice her concerns to him. Alicia lives in their new home alone, waiting for Jordan to return every day. One day she falls ill with influenza for days. Her illness becomes more severe until she is reduced to constant bed rest prescribed by Jordan’s doctor. Jordan waits anxiously for Alicia’s recovery but she instead experiences episodes of hallucinations and mysterious sightings of blood on her pillow. Alicia becomes weaker, loses consciousness, and dies. A discovery is found inside her pillow of a monstrous parasite that had been draining Alicia of her blood while she remained in bed.