“We do not fear the unknown. We fear what we project to the unknown,” quotes Teal Swan. As humans we fear the insecurity of our wellbeing which leads our imagination to envision the unknown as something fearful and threating. Human insecurity is no exception in the Gothic literature of Edgar Allan Poe’s, The Fall of the House of Usher, where the narrator witnesses the dissolution of his friend, his friend’s sister and of the siblings’ home.
November 5th 2007, I was 6 at the time, and had been taken to a party that was playing raspy and strident music. Hours passed as I swiftly fell into a deep and comforting sleep. Faintly I heard talking and felt a warm, gentle hand shift my head to what felt like a jacket rolled up into a pillow. Suddenly, …show more content…
From my 6 year old perspective I perceived those golden eyes as the eyes of a vicious dog after hearing my uncle’s dog growl from the backyard. All of these elements heightened my senses leaving the paranoia and imagination of a child to overcome reason. Edgar Allan Poe’s, The Fall of the House of Usher, rekindled my past fear of isolation, and darkness. The phrase “The bewildering influence of gloomy furniture…which, tortured into motion by the breath of a rising tempest…,” includes vivid and vibrant descriptions of actions that are occurring which seem unrealistic, unreasonable, yet are still occurring. Sound, was a major factor in my experience with fear and similar to the way the narrator of the story heard mysterious and low sounds. “I paused abruptly…I did actually hear…a low and apparently distant but harsh…unusual screaming or grating sound,” at this point in time the narrator is listening to the friend’s sister, Madeline, who had been buried alive and escaping her tomb. Julio Cortázar’s, House Taken Over, the story of two siblings who are driven out of their homes by an extraterrestrial presence, further exemplifies the point that our interpretation of the unknown leads to the fear of it. The narrator quotes, “You can live without thinking.” The narrator in one way or the other states this to remind one’s self that thinking without logic is
November 5th 2007, I was 6 at the time, and had been taken to a party that was playing raspy and strident music. Hours passed as I swiftly fell into a deep and comforting sleep. Faintly I heard talking and felt a warm, gentle hand shift my head to what felt like a jacket rolled up into a pillow. Suddenly, …show more content…
From my 6 year old perspective I perceived those golden eyes as the eyes of a vicious dog after hearing my uncle’s dog growl from the backyard. All of these elements heightened my senses leaving the paranoia and imagination of a child to overcome reason. Edgar Allan Poe’s, The Fall of the House of Usher, rekindled my past fear of isolation, and darkness. The phrase “The bewildering influence of gloomy furniture…which, tortured into motion by the breath of a rising tempest…,” includes vivid and vibrant descriptions of actions that are occurring which seem unrealistic, unreasonable, yet are still occurring. Sound, was a major factor in my experience with fear and similar to the way the narrator of the story heard mysterious and low sounds. “I paused abruptly…I did actually hear…a low and apparently distant but harsh…unusual screaming or grating sound,” at this point in time the narrator is listening to the friend’s sister, Madeline, who had been buried alive and escaping her tomb. Julio Cortázar’s, House Taken Over, the story of two siblings who are driven out of their homes by an extraterrestrial presence, further exemplifies the point that our interpretation of the unknown leads to the fear of it. The narrator quotes, “You can live without thinking.” The narrator in one way or the other states this to remind one’s self that thinking without logic is