Author: rovallee

Books, Movies

How Can Someone Become a Monster

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In this post, I decided to try to find and understand how someone can turn into a human monster. There are two aspects I want to explore with you, hoping you will enjoy it!

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The first aspect that could influence this transformation is loneliness. I think that when someone is forced to stay on his own without seeing nor earing others, he or she might develop violent or thoughts that are disconnected from reality. For example, in the movie I Am Legend, the main character is left alone in New York City, due to the apocalypse that happened. Since he did not ear nor see other people for a long time, he became really fearful and tormented by the evil creatures that were outside his house at night. He was constantly thinking about how he could kill or fight them, which finally lead him to a form of madness. The proof is that when someone finally arrived with him in New York, he rejected her immediately, even if he wished company for so long.

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Another aspect would be duality in personality. I think that when someone tries to hide a side of his or her personality to other people, it will surely come out eventually, maybe creating some negative events. What I want to express with this statement is that people who have two sides of their personality might, eventually, get tired of playing around with the perception of others and mix both parts together, sometimes creating a human monster. A good example of this duality would be Dr. Jekyll in Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. In this story,, the main character Dr. Jekyll turns into Mr. Hyde at night, who has an evil and monstrous personality, the complete opposite of his day-time personality. With time, his personalities come to mix altogether, changing whenever they want. This causes evil behavior, linking him to a human monster.

I suggest you do not stay alone for too long and hide a certain part of your personality because you might turn into a human monster! 😉

Rosalie

Books

A Disconnection From Reality

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Recently, I have read several short stories written by Edgar Allan Poe. One of them really marked me with the exploitation of the theme of madness, and it is called The Fall of the House of Usher. Whether you have already read it or not, I think you will understand the extent of this particular theme.

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The most important aspect of the theme, in my opinion, is the disconnection from reality. In fact, the man, Roderick Usher, thinks everything in his environment is constantly looking at him. He thinks the rocks and the windows are always looking and checking out each and every one of his actions. His fear of ending the family line leads him to disconnect with the reality, leading him to extreme madness.

Another form of disconnection is when the narrator of the story himself is reading a story to Roderick. While the narrator reads the story, hiding his own fear and madness, Roderick keeps staring at the door, fearing the return of his wife Madeline, talking to himself. If this is not proof of disconnection with reality and madness, I do not know what it is!

I hope my little introduction to the story helps you understand how important this theme is in most of Poe’s story, especially in The Fall of the House of Usher.

Rosalie 😊

Tales and Legends

Let’s Scare Children

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I hope you understood the irony in this statement! Of course, I am talking about the fact that what was supposed to be cute fairy tales are, in fact, scaring children. One example of this is Rapunzel from the Grimm brothers. The brothers are renowned for their gothic and gloomy fairy tales.

First, I will summarize you a little bit the essence of the brothers’ story. It is the story of a couple who are going to have a child. To make sure the mother does not die, the husband needs to pick up fruits that are on the other side of a wall, where an enchantress lives. In order for them to have access to the fruits, the woman will take their child as soon as the mom gives birth. When she takes the child away, she brings her in a tower where no one will be able to see her, ever. One day, the enchantress realizes that Rapunzel, the child, is helping a young man entering the tower to spend time with her. As soon as she realizes it, she cuts the hair of the child and plays a trick on the young man. When the man climbs on the hair the woman had let down, she pushes him down in the rose bushes, where he gets his eyes pierced. In the end, we read that the young man finds Rapunzel back with their two children and live happily ever after. A quite long and rough journey to be able to live happily ever after!

Some gothic motifs can be analyzed in this short tale. There is the monster, of course, that is represented by the enchantress. She is considered as a human monster because she takes the child away from her parents to only do bad to her, in addition, to almost killing the young man.

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Another motif would be gloom, especially towards the end of the story. When the young man gets his eyes pierced, it is quite gloomy and disgusting for the target audience that is supposed to be children.

I suggest you read the brothers’ tale and after compare with the newest version by Disney, you will realize how it was changed and how it is more directed towards the young target audience.

Rosalie 😊

Books

The Human Raven

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In Edgar Allan Poe repertory, there are a lot of pure masterpieces. One of the most popular ones is called The Raven. In brief, it is the story of an old man who fears not to see his beloved one again. One day, when he hears knocking at his door, he automatically thinks it is his wife, but there is simply nothing at the door. The next time, he hears a noise on his window and expects that there is nothing like the previous time. When he comes to the window, a raven immediately enters his house.  At that point, the man only considers it as a thing.

However, a little later in the story, the man now begins to consider it as a stupid bird. This judgment is created by the fact that every time the man asks a question to the raven, it only responds by “nevermore”. This special bird follows him throughout his journey facing his biggest fear of loneliness.

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More towards the end of Poe’s story, the man comes to view the raven more as a prophet and a leader instead of as a stupid bird. The man comes to see the bird as a symbol of knowledge, which influences some of his decisions.

Finally, at the end of the man’s journey, he realizes or believes that the raven he had lived with since the beginning, was the embodiment of the devil himself. The man believes that the bad things that happened in his life were entirely due to the presence of the raven, leading to this quite surprising conclusion.

I surely recommend you read Poe’s short story, The Raven, because there are so many subtilities and details, which makes the story even better. Afterward, I invite to share your impressions on the evolution of the symbolism of the bird with us!

Enjoy!

Rosalie   🙂

Movies

From Joyful Animation to Pure Tension

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When we think about The Jungle Book, we usually think about the animation movie that we all watched when we were younger. This first movie was released in 1967 and was based on a previous novel written by Rudyard Kipling. Last year, in 2018, a new version of this movie was released, called Mowgli.

Briefly, it is the story of a child, Kaa, that was raised in the jungle surrounded by wild animals. We follow him through his journey in adulthood and see him overcome different challenges that living in the jungle can imply. In the new version of the movie, there are different gothic motifs involved, but the most important one throughout the movie is darkness. Darkness is exploited through the use of dark backgrounds and lightings. The majority of the 2018 film is set in dark spaces of the jungle, where there is not much light, nor much life. The use of dark places obviously adds suspense and tension in the movie. Since the individuals who watch the movie do not know what surrounds Mowgli, they feel stressed and it certainly creates tension. The public is hence kept in ignorance and blindness, such that the anticipation of something bad happening builds up, which also is a gothic motif called tension.

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There were certainly not that many gothic elements in the first version of the Jungle Book, but I guess we could argue that the new version represents the new generation of kids watching it as well as the older one that used to watch it as a kid in 1967. Did you ever watched the older version of the Jungle Book or you’ve only watched the new one?

Cheers,

Rosalie

Movies

Pride, Arrogance, and Anger

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In Tom Harris’ novel The Silence of the Lambs, as well as in the movie adaptation, hubris is one of the most important motifs. The term hubris is a Greek word referring to the importance of pride, arrogance, and anger in one’s personality.

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First, in this work, hubris is considered as a monster and as well as an ancestral curse. Since it blinds the mind of people who have hubris in their blood, it complicates and impairs the well-being of the society.

For instance, Jame Gumb is a great example to demonstrate how hubris leads to blindness. When Clarice enters in his house at the end of the story to catch him, he thinks that the only way to have control over her is to turn off the lights. Since he has night-vision goggles, he thinks that he would certainly be able to escape from Clarice without any consequences. Obviously, as ironic as it sounds, Jame is totally blinded by his hubris. Indeed, Clarice still has control over him and over the situation; that is, she is the only one who sees clearly.

This example accurately shows how hubris can affect someone’s view of a situation compared to what it really is.

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Another example of a character that has to face his hubris is Hannibal, the main character. Throughout the entire novel and movie, Hannibal is trying to overcome his own hubris, as well as his desire to transcend the classification of scientists. All of this to say that hubris is clearly a gothic motif in Harris’ writings and that it is mostly defined by blurring certain characters’ vision, making them act without a proper consideration of the consequences beforehand.

Rosalie

Movies

For Brave Children Only

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According to the director of the movie Coraline, this movie is destined to be seen by brave children only. What does that really mean? Don’t you think being brave is a little subjective? How can you make sure your child is brave enough to watch this movie, even is it is categorized as general?

I think this statement is completely inappropriate. If the director really wanted it to be watched by brave children, could he have categorized it to a specific age group? Right now, but especially when the movie first came out in 2009, children from all age groups were watching it and were afraid by it. I guess it is completely normal given that the main character, Coraline, lives with “false” parents that have buttons sewn over their eye. Which children would not be afraid of the fact that her parents have been replaced with scary doubles?

Like this wasn’t enough, she is trapped in an alternate world and can’t escape it. She is experiencing completely unreal but scary things, which not all children from all age groups are able to understand. Children from younger age groups could easily take this information for granted and think that it could happen to them.

I simply don’t really understand how the aspect of bravery is relevant to this situation given that it is presented as a general movie. Personally, when I was younger and I watched it, I was very scared of this movie, so I assume that it happens to several children in the same situation. I don’t know if you agree with me, but if you have children in your entourage, just be aware of it and maybe take some precautions to make sure it doesn’t “traumatize” them.                         

                                                                           Cheers, Rosalie

Books

From Fear to Love

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In this post, I will provide you a little explanation of the evolution of the gothic genre through time with different examples of books that were really popular in this genre.

First of, I will describe how The Castle of Otranto set the standards for the future gothic pieces. This story was written by Horace Walpole in 1764. It was the first story that follow the gothic genre we know today. This story really set the standards for this genre and, even nowadays, some gothic pieces are inspired from it. At first, the gothic genre really focused on the aspect of setting. The setting of a story is really the base because it will decide whether or not the reader will be frightened by the piece or not. In The Castle of Otranto, the setting is, in my opinion, the most important elements of the story. Actually, the fact that it is set in strange places really far from anything else is what makes the reader afraid. On the contrary, if the story was set in the middle of the city in a beautiful house, the tension in the book would certainly be destroyed.

Following the same idea, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, written in 1897, also put emphasis on the setting of the story. In this book, the fact that Count Dracula’s castle is far from the city makes the readers believe even more in the “evilness” of the character. Even in the story, the protagonist, Jonathan Harker, is afraid to go to the Count’s castle because it is set in a far and strange place and no one is really sure of what’s happening there. Once again, the tension found in the book is essentially created by the setting of the story.

On the other hand, more recent gothic pieces put emphasis on completely different motifs to create tension. For instance, Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight, published in 2005, created tension based on the archetype of the damsel in distress and forbidden love. The forbidden love situation is mainly represented in Bella and Edward’s relationship. The fact that he is a vampire and she is a human, makes it technically impossible for them to fall in love, even though this is exactly what happens. Adding to this situation, Bella, one of the main characters, is essentially represented as a damsel in distress. Meyer puts Bella in different situations that sometimes put her in danger, but mainly creates vulnerability. It is in those cases that the archetype of the damsel in distress will create tension for the readers because they will fear what will happen to the girl.

With this glimpse of information, I hope you understand a little better the evolution of the gothic motifs through time and that it makes you realize how the authors create the tension you like so much about gothic novels.

                                                                                      Rosalie                                                       

Movies

Keep Quiet!

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Don’t breathe or he’s gonna catch you! That’s the essential statement of Fede Álvarez’s movie called Don’t Breathe. Essentially, the movie is set in an old blind man’s house because three young adults try to steal the money the rumors say he is living with. Since the old man is blind, his earing is impeccable, which the three friends did not expect. The old man ears each and every single noise they make in the house. During their chase for the money, the young adults try to escape from the dangerous old man, but he actually is able to keep them locked into his house, which allows him to try to catch evildoers. While trying to escape, they realize that the old man is getting nearer to them and that they are more and more in danger. When they see the old man around, they try not to breathe to make sure the blind man doesn’t find them. That is the principal reason why the movie is titled that way, but I’ll let you discover whether or not the young adults were finally able to get out!

The American horror movie focused mainly on the aspect of terror. During then whole movie, the three offenders are really scared of what the old man could do because they didn’t know him, and they weren’t aware of what he could potentially do to them. The apprehension of the actions of the man was the aspect that frightened the most the delinquents. During their adventure in the blind man’s house, they finally discover what was the old man really hiding in his house, once again I’ll let you discover it by yourself, and the young adults reached a state of horror. The fact that they could see the old man as well as the scary things in his house let the delinquents change their feeling from terror to horror. The scenarist really focused on those two important gothic motifs to create suspense and tension in his movie, which makes it that good.

If you love horror movies, I really suggest you watch it. And if you’re more afraid of this kind of movies, I suggest you still watch it, but in daytime maybe! 😉

                                                                                                                                 Rosalie