How to Write a Horror Story (with Sample Stories)Have plot twists everywhere! And then make that plot twist false, obliging the reader to want to know the real truth. Or, you could reveal the guilty one at the beginning, so that reader is like . Or, you can even foreshadow it little by little and when it's obvious, change it to something that will cancel out the hints to the . Horror Short Stories. Johnson has always been fascinated by spiders. When Alice and John buy an antique teapot they get more than they bargained for.. Early readers were appreciative of the sheer horror of the tale, and, indeed, it still stands as a wonderful example of the genre. But it was not until the rediscovery of the story in the early 1. This story contains many typical gothic trappings, but beneath the conventional fa. It is difficult to discuss the meaning in this story without first examining the author. As Gary Scharnhorst points out, this treatment originated with Dr. Weir Mitchell, who personally prescribed this . She was in fact driven to near madness and later claimed to have written . Weir Mitchell with a . Although the autobiographical aspects of . First is John, the narrator. He could be viewed as the patriarchy itself, as Beverly Hume says, with his dismissal of all but the tangible and his constant condescension to his wife, but some critics have viewed this character as near- caricature (4. Many of the passages concerning the husband can be interpreted as containing sarcasm, a great many contain irony, and several border on parody (Johnson 5. It is true that the husband. He is instead the natural complement to the narrator. Greg Johnson notes that John exhibits a near- obsession with . And he is also transformed at the end of the tale. Central to the story is the wallpaper itself. It is within the wallpaper that the narrator finds her hidden self and her eventual damnation/freedom. Her obsession with the paper begins subtly and then consumes both the narrator and the story. Once settled in the long- empty . The room is papered in horrible yellow wallpaper, the design of which . The design begins to fascinate the narrator and she begins to see more than just the outer design. Further, according to Bak, this new prison, as described by Michael Foucault in Discipline and Punish (1. This all- seeing prison symbolism is echoed according to Bak in the narrator. Bak goes on to suggest that the nursery room, with its barred windows and rings in the wall, was designed for the restraint of mental patients, but other critics assert that these were in fact common safety precautions used in Victorian nurseries and that such interpretations are extreme. The wallpaper gradually consumes the narrator. She first notices a different colored sub- pattern of a figure beneath the . Gary Scharnhorst says that this woman- figure becomes essentially the narrator. As the story progresses, the narrator identifies more and more with the figure in the wallpaper, until (in one of the most controversial statements in the entire text) she refers to herself in the third person. In this statement the narrator says, . See Examples and Observations below. Also see: Metonymy; Figure of Speech; Metaphor; Name That -nym: A Brief Introduction to Words and Names; Name That -nym: A. Other Types of Movies: There obviously are many other groupings that might be constructed. The Cosmic Horror Story trope as used in popular culture. Imagine a universe where even the tiniest spot of hope for the future is blindness in itself, the THE TELL-TALE HEART by Edgar Allan Poe 1843. Setting And Description In Horror Fiction Setting is an important element of any novel--it may serve to enhance the mood of the story, or simply to establish the time. Probably the most common interpretation of this line assumes Jane to be the previously unmentioned name of the narrator. This seems by far the simplest and most reasonable explanation, but this brief statement has produced some wild theories ranging in scope from a misprint of the name . There are indeed parallels between the madwoman in Jane Eyre and the madness exhibited by the narrator in . With that in mind, we will assume for convenience sake that the name Jane does in fact refer to the narrator herself. Another feature of the prison/nursery in which the narrator observes her wallpaper is the heavy bedstead, which is nailed to the floor. The interpretations of this feature are variations on a theme, ranging from an image of the narrator. These statements ring true regarding Victorian sexuality; it was as immobile as the unmoving bedstead. A Victorian wife belonged to her husband and her body was his to do with whatever he pleased. Victorian women were counseled that conjugal relations were a woman. In this context, the image of the nailed- down bed becomes perhaps the most understandable symbol in the entire story. What of the narrator herself and her madness? An interesting way to view her actions is, in the words of Greg Johnson, as . Johnson goes on to suggest that the narrator. The narrator is presented as an artist (at least in a small way) and a writer and it is through her writing, Johnson says, that her suppressed rage becomes apparent (5. There is further justification in believing her madness to be temporary. After the narrator becomes free/becomes the creeping woman in the paper, she says, . Since the narrator had seen the pattern as bars with the creeping figure behind them, perhaps this statement may allude to an eventual return to a societal norm of behavior. Almost all writings on the story have a alluded to this connection; some discuss it at length. Perhaps the comparison is inevitable, as Bertha Mason is probably the most well- known example of a gothic madwoman. When viewed as a polarized or split identity, the link between Jane Eyre/Bertha Mason and Narrator Jane/Wallpaper figure is quite clear. The first in both pairs is the conventional self, the . Greg Johnson says it is the anger, the boiling rage, of these alter egos that results in eventual triumph over their patriarchal influences (5. There is another similarity between Bertha Mason and the narrator of our tale: they both . This may be an identification with animal behavior or a way to explain that both characters have lost touch with civilization or the patriarchy. However, as king and Morris add, it may simply be an expression of the narrator. The question of the narrator. Is she truly an unreliable narrator, sinking steadily into irretrievable madness? Or is she exhibiting the only sane response to an insane world order? Does she find doom in her madness? Or triumph and freedom at last? The story cannot be viewed in purely supernatural terms, with a real phantom behind the wallpaper; thus the narrator. However, as both Johnson and King and Morris point out, it is this response which grants her freedom in the end. It is her rebellion which is her redemption, and even if her conventional self is completely obliterated, her . As we read the story, the narrator . So when the narrator destroys the paper and pulls it down in the end, it might be symbolic of the destruction of her other self. In fact, it is significant that the entire story revolves around wallpaper, which would be considered by many to be merely feminine frivolity. Greg Johnson recounts a story in . In the story, the pregnant woman had requested that the wallpaper be changed in her room. When denied the change by her husband, the woman secretly arranged the re- papering herself, her . The Victorian wife had so little control over her own life that it was through these . It seems significant, therefore, that the narrator. Modern women, by reading such texts, can gain a new perspective on our present situation. We can also learn to avoid past pitfalls. By reading of and understanding the madness in . Works Cited. Bak, John S. Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. New York: Harper Collins, 1. King, Jeannette and Pam Morris. Lynette Carpenter and Wendy K. Knoxville: U of Tennessee P, 1.
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