Poe's Pit and the Pendulum

The short story "The Pit and the Pendulum" is very different from many of Edgar Allan Poe's other works of writing. I rather like this story because it does not end in someone's death or someone grieving over the loss of a loved one."The Pit and the Pendulum" actually has a rather happy ending. I like this short story because in the end the narrator does not die and we do not learn of any of his loved ones dying. Although there is a rather upsetting part of this story. The narrator is being held captive and has been punished to auto-da-fé, or “act of faith”—an execution normally taking the form of a hanging. This makes the reader both mad and upset for the narrator because we do not know for sure that this man has done anything wrong but during the Spanish Inquisition a person could be blamed for anything and punished to death. The strangeness that the narrator feels is also interesting to me. I do not know if the water or bread that he is given to eat has been drugged or if he is claustrophobic, but I think it odd how often the narrator just blacks out or falls asleep. The narrator in this story was also very clever though. He is able to determine that the pit in the middle of the room was very deep by throwing a rock down in and noting that time that the rock took to hit the bottom so he knew that it was not a way out. The narrator is also clever in the way of when he was strapped to the wooden board, with the pendulum scythe object swinging towards his heart, to think of taking the meat and use it to lure the rats to chew through the straps holding him to certain death. On the last "test" there is not really anything that he could do and he really just got lucky that the French had been able to end the Inquisition at the time that they did. "The story, however, holds out hope by demonstrating that true resolve when what someone chooses to do seems most impossible. When threatened by the pendulum, the narrator does not succumb to the swooning of his senses. He recruits his rational capacities and uses the hungry rats for his own benefit"("SparkNotes: Poe’s Shor..").

"At first the ravenous animals were startled and terrified at the change -- at the cessation of movement . They shrank alarmedly back; many sought the well. But this was only for a moment. I had not counted in vain upon their voracity"(Literature.org - The Online Literature Library). This quote from Poe's short story shows characteristics of Romanticism writings to me. "Nature was not only appreciated for its physical beauty by the Romantics, but also for its ability to help the urban man find his true identity"(Kartha, "Romanticism: Characteristics of Romanticism."). I think that nature is very important in this story because the savageness of wild rats saved the narrators life. The narrator does not appreciate the presence of his only companions in the dungeon but comes to realize what they are worth and how valuable the rats are.

Dark Romanticism was harder for me to identify in this short story."They believe that human beings were equally capable of evil and good"(Nair, "Dark Romanticism"). This is the only characteristic of Dark Romanticism that I was able to interpret from the short story. This man had been convicted of a petty crime or maybe he did something gruesome such as murdering someone. This is part of the equally good and evil. We do not really know if this man is good or bad but as a reader, we want to believe that the narrator is the good guy.

Nair, Tulika. "Dark Romanticism." Buzzle Web Portal: Intelligent Life on the Web. Web. 17 Jan. 2012.

Kartha, Deepa. "Romanticism: Characteristics of Romanticism." Buzzle Web Portal: Intelligent Life on the Web. 26 Sept. 2011. Web. 17 Jan. 2012.

"SparkNotes: Poe’s Short Stories: “The Pit and the Pendulum” (1843)." SparkNotes: Today's Most Popular Study Guides. Web. 20 Jan. 2012.

Literature.org - The Online Literature Library. Web. 20 Jan. 2012.

Journal 24 When were you spooked?

One time I was spooked while seeing the movie Disturbia in theaters on Friday the 13th. It is not that the movie was particularly scary but the atmosphere of being Friday the 13th did give it a little more spookiness. The other time I was spooked was the last time I read an Edgar Allan Poe poem. I guess it was not as spookier as it was startling and I strongly believe that there has to have been something wrong with that man to be able to stand writing about sadness and death as much as he did. Another time I was spooked is when I was about ten years old and my brother and I were trying to pick a movie to watch while the parental figures were out of the house for a while. He decided on Dawn of the Dead and informed me that it was not a scary movie. Lets just say that I slept on the floor of my parents' bedroom for a week. But i do not think that it can measure up to the first time my brother made me sit down and watch Saw with him. Actually i think that my brother caused the part of my childhood in which I was afraid. Watching that Saw movie though did not just effect me and I think that it effected him even more, because I had a kid in high school sleeping in my Winnie the Pooh themed bedroom. I guess I have not had any serious scares like someone breaking into our house or someone I know being kidnapped or murdered so I am really lucky that way. I know a lot of people who have been at least robbed and it is a really scary thing to think about. There was that part of my childhood where I also thought that I heard something downstairs and I thought someone was coming to get me so I would sleep with my jr. Swiss Army knife sometimes. This all happened when I was very young and I am glad that this is not still continuing.

Edgar Allen Poe's The Raven

"The Raven" is believed to be Edgar Allan Poe's most famous poem for reasons that are unseen to me. "The Raven" seems to be very similar to many of his other poems. The narrator is mourning over the death of his love, in this case her name was "Lenore". "For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels named Lenore- Nameless here for evermore"("Edgar Allan Poe: The Raven."). This part of the poem tells me that she has died. The death of a woman seems to be a consistent factor in many of his poems. In class we read a poem about Annabelle Lee. The entire poem was about a man sitting on the sea thinking about his Annabelle Lee. The poems are all very sad to read because the reader does not want someone to lose the love of their life but I think that Poe was a very depressing writer. I do not know if anything similar to what he wrote about happened to him in his lifetime but I think that it is very possible that it did. That is the only reason I can think of for someone of great literature capability to devote his time to writing about despair.

The poem "The Raven" shows many characteristics from both the Romanticism period and the Dark Romanticism period. Romanticism characteristics are vast in nature but the one I felt was present many times in this poem was emotion."Unlike the Neoclassical age which focused on rationality and intellect, Romanticism placed human emotions, feelings, instinct and intuition above everything else. While the poets in the former era adhered to the rules and regulations while selecting a subject and writing about it, the Romantic writers trusted their emotions and feelings to create poetry"(Kartha paragraph 4) Emotions play a very big factor in "The Raven". I do not know if there is anything that shows more emotion than a narrator describing the loss of his wife or lover, like it does in this poem by Edgar Allan Poe. "sorrow for the lost Lenore" tells me that the narrator is grieving over the loss of his Lenore and this is an emotional statement.

Dark Romanticism writing focuses on different characteristics than Romanticism writing."Dark Romanticism authors often preferred writing tales of horror and terror"(Nair paragraph 3). This statement fits all of Poe's writing perfectly. As stated in the first paragraph, all of Poe's works that I have read contain someone dying and someone grieving over that person. This poem is no different in that the narrator is grieving the death of his Lenore.

The thing that I did not enjoy about this poem was that he used the same words to end a stanza or phrase just so that it would rhyme and it seems that others agree with me."Literary critics focused attention, instead, on technical concerns of verse, such as parallelism, internal rhyme, and what were termed inconsistencies or absurdities in Poe's imagery, including his reference to angelic creatures whose “foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor”("Edgar Allan Poe The Raven Criticism"). I could write a poem using the same words to rhyme but you don't see me becoming famous do you. I really do not see the big deal over his writings. Poe just seemed like a depressed man who wrote his feelings down.

Nair, Tulika. "Dark Romanticism." Buzzle Web Portal: Intelligent Life on the Web. Web. 17 Jan. 2012.

Kartha, Deepa. "Romanticism: Characteristics of Romanticism." Buzzle Web Portal: Intelligent Life on the Web. 26 Sept. 2011. Web. 17 Jan. 2012.

"Edgar Allan Poe: The Raven." Heise Online | IT-News, C't, IX, Technology Review, Telepolis. 4 Oct. 2007. Web. 17 Jan. 2012.

"Edgar Allan Poe The Raven Criticism." ENotes - Literature Study Guides, Lesson Plans, and More. Web. 17 Jan. 2012.

Techniques for Scary Stories. What makes them scary?

Most scary movies and stories that I have seen or heard involve death. The public finds death and murder a scary situation so it makes sense to incorporate the feelings and fears of the public into the scary production. Why is everyone afraid of Freddy Krueger? Mainly because he kills people in their sleep. No one wants to be murdered and this is a sense played to the storytellers benefit. Stories are also scary because of the thrill and when they make you "hang on by the edge of your seat". When the protagonist or side character is hiding from the "boogie man" in the closet and the door just rips open is when everyone in the theatre screams. This is the thrill portion of a scary movie. The story line of these movies and stories are awful. I think this happens because the writers try too hard to scare people than writing a decent plot. There are many things that make a movie scary. Why is Jason scary? Jason wears a hockey mask and walks around with a machete. The mysteriousness of him is what scares people along with the fear of being hacked up by a six foot five man who cannot be harmed. That is part of the poor plot aspect. You know when Jason is in the same room as a person that they are going to be killed off because you cannot harm Jason. You know what is coming. I am a fan of scary movies though. I know a lot of kids do not like almost peeing their pants every five minutes but I think it is the adrenaline of the situation the characters are put into that draws me in. I like the rush of the people trying to solve the mystery or stop the killer and how they do it. Its like a giant puzzle and I like to learn how they put the pieces together to stop him. Identity also seems to be a huge part of the fear factor. Freddy's face is all cut up and he has knives for fingers, Jason wears a hockey mask and carries a machete, Michael Myers wears a mask, It is a scary clown.