The Feather Pillow Horacio Quiroga

There has been a flood of folklore and popular myth on the subject of supernatural beings capable of sucking the life out of their victims. One can find a mention of these creatures throughout the centuries. From a Succubus in the Bible to the Vampires of today’s Twilight Sagas, the short story “Luella Miller” by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman is no different. This story, unlike many other tails, did not just come out and say that the creature was present for sure; it more or less hinted to it possible existences. Also the hypnotic state that the victims were in brings the reader to believe that something unnatural is at hand. With a closer look through the eyes of our narrator, Lydia Anderson, we can

The story of “The Hand” by Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette describes a newly married couple starting their new lives together. As the husband falls asleep, the wife begins to examine her husband’s hand. It is clear that her husband’s hand evokes emotions in the wife, that seem to have a larger meaning, such as the feelings the wife has regarding her husband and the new life she is beginning. Because the hand evokes fear in the wife, the description suggests the fear she has for the hand applies to the fear she has towards her husband.

The creature began to converse freely with the blind father who addressed him with kindness. However, when his two children returned, the daughter fainted and the son "dashed me to the ground and struck me violently with a stick" forcing the creature to "quit the cottage and escape unperceived to my hovel" (115). These acts of cruelty emphasize how often humanity stereotypes individuals. Just because a creature looks monstrous does not mean his intentions match his appearance. After this heartbreaking event, the monster decides to stop seeking love and instead to seek revenge against his creator and attempt to force Victor to create a companion for him. The creature attempts to explain his cruel ways when he exclaims, "There was none among the myriads of men that existed who would pity or assist me; and should I feel kindness towards my

“It was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder, that life might be long.” (Chopin 17). “"Poof!"… gave a revealing look at the victims of domestic abuse and how they wrestle with overcoming their fear and their doubts after suffering years of abusive treatment.” (Toomer 5) Loureen unlike Mrs. Mallard, witnesses her husband’s death first hand during a marital argument. Loureen goes through denial questioning whether her husband’s death. She is happy her husband is dead but also feels guilty, because she knows how a mourning wife should react, but the joy of his demise is greater,” I should be praying, I should be thinking of the burial, but all that keeps popping into my mind is what will I wear on television when I share my horrible and wonderful story with a studio audience…”, Loureen’s husband, Samuel, was physically abusive, as revealed by Florence, Loureen’s best friend and neighbor. “Did that mother***** hit you again?” (Nottage 1563) This abuse, physical by Samuel and mental by Brently, is what allows Loureen in the drama “Poof!” and Mrs. Mallard in the short story “The Story of an Hour” to have the shared freedom they feel in the release from their respective abusive relationships.

'Stone Mattress' is a collection of short stories by Margaret Atwood that all have a very similar recurring theme. Though the four short stories analyzed are unrelated, they all examine the evils that exist in in modern society. Through this collection of short stories, both realistic fiction and fantasy, Atwood sheds light upon the evils that all people are capable of. Upon reading the short stories, the reader is able to connect with the characters, as the scenarios and characters are are relatable and engaging. The realistic fiction pieces within the novel such as The Dead Hand Loves You, Stone Mattress and The Freeze-Dried Groom narrate characters in situations that could very easily occur to anybody. It is no doubt that the internal dialogues

Physical and mental decay are very prominent themes in gothic literature, especially in these short stories. In the story Prey, the main character Amelia is trying to balance her love life and the approval of her mother. She is traumatized by her attacker and by the end of the story, “She carried the knife into the living room, took off her bathrobe and danced a dance of hunting, of the joy of hunting, of the joy of the impending kill. Then she sat down, cross-legged, in the corner. He Who Kills sat, cross-legged, in the corner, in the darkness, waiting for the prey to come” (Matheson 8). After being attacked by He Who Kills the spirit was transferred into Amelia and made her a killer just like the doll. Amelia’s physical decay is shown throughout the story but the most shocking revelation is that she has gone insane as well. In The Feather Pillow Alicia becomes very sick and not only starts to wither away but “stared constantly at the carpet on either side of her bedhead… among her most recurrent hallucinations was an anthropoid, a quasi-human resting on

During a time never directly stated, a young girl suffers from Porphyria and goes through a journey of self-discovery and acceptance in the short story, “Lusus Naturae” by Margaret Atwood. The reader never learns the narrator's name, and she is only known as Lusus Naturae, or “freak of nature” (Atwood p.263). Diagnosed by a foreign doctor, the young girl seems to be forever cursed and becomes a burden to her family and shame to her village. The narrator guides the reader along her life and adventures after the falsifying of her death, and the peregrination of being alone and acceptance of her fate. Throughout it, Atwood uses different elements of figurative language-including symbolism and irony- and the first-person narrative. A theme of how self-discovery can be an independent, and lifelong journey can be inferred because of these.

Her unforeseen actions are due to the rest care tradition, which has progressively worsened her mental state and caused her to overlook her role as a caring wife in desperation to escape the imprisonment of the tradition. As witnessed from the two short stories, conflicts arise amidst families due to the events of old traditions, establishing a divide between family members that is difficult to overcome once constructed.

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As a result of Victor's neglect and rejection of the creature, society also denies the creature acceptance which creates a life of loneliness for it. The creature, after being rejected by Victor, is left helpless, wanders into a forest, and experiences what hunger and pain are for the first time in life. The creature longs for acceptance, especially from Victor, but is denied. For example, the creature first learns of its rejection from society when it enters the house of an old man that is cooking; it as at the sight of the creature that the man "shrieked loudly" (90) and runs out of his hut. From that moment the creature realizes it is deformed and unlike anyone else. While the creature is roaming through the woods one day it comes upon a cottage. The creature notes the inhabitants of the cottage, the DeLacey family, as being beautiful in comparison to its

Within Robert Olen Butler’s fiction piece Jealous Husband Returns in Form of Parrot, a commentary on reincarnation and learning from ones sins is seen. The author not only uses the parrot to portray the husband’s former human characteristics and emotions but also to get him to find a way to accept his past mistakes within the confinements of his new bird cage.

The creature goes through a rebirth of sorts when he realizes that the De Laceys, despite their kind and giving nature, could never accept him as a part of their family. He bitterly remarks that “from that moment I declared everlasting war against the species, and, more than all, against him who had formed me, and sent me forth to this insupportable misery…” (Shelley, 95). After this point, with the creature’s hopes and expectations for friendship completely obliterated, the fate of society ceases to concern him. Upon murdering an innocent child, he looks on his corpse with “hellish triumph” (Shelley, 100).

The short story, Jealous Husband Returns in Form of Parrot by Robert Olen Butler, is a story told from the perspective of a man who died and was reincarnated as a parrot. He finds himself at a pet store, where his wife from his previous life decides to take him home with her to be her new pet. Unable to face his jealousy in his human life, he is forced to face his jealousy once again as he watches his wife bring other men into their house. Unable to communicate clearly with his wife because he can only repeat what is said to him, he has to challenge himself to find a different way to deal with his jealously. In this critical analysis of Jealous Husband Returns in Form of Parrot, I will be mainly examining the husband’s jealousy and how jealousy

This tragic marriage and feelings of guilt and grief have been haunting her since the time which can be seen in a recurring motif of a polka tune Varsouviana which „[has been] caught in [her] head“ (Williams 113) and which she associates with the night her husband committed suicide. It is obvious that she has never come to terms with her past. Whenever someone mentions her dead husband, she does not feel well: „The boy - the boy died. Iʼm - going to be sick!“ (Williams 31) She realizes that she is responsible for his death and does not know how to deal with it which results in her love affairs, withdrawal from reality and the final mental breakdown.

       As the tale begins we immediately can sympathize with the repressive plight of the protagonist.  Her romantic imagination is obvious as she describes the "hereditary estate" (Gilman, Wallpaper 170) or the "haunted house" (170) as she would like it to be.  She tells us of her husband, John, who "scoffs" (170) at her romantic sentiments and is "practical to the extreme" (170).  However, in a time