Representation Of Fear In Literature

Decent Essays
Needles going into your veins , spiders biting you injecting a poison into your blood ,blood and gore scattered across the room, snakes sliding around your body waiting to strike so they can inject it's fangs into you and bugs crawling up your ear. Are you scared yet? Ever since we have been born we have been surrounded by these fears. Fears we often portray in literature by the definition of "monsters". For many having groteque blood scattered terrifies us, maybe even terrifies us enough to create monsters in literature so we can find a way to portray it and defeat it. For example the story "Beowulf" has the monster Grendel and his mother who is

Related Documents

  • Decent Essays

    While writing Veronica Roth explores a theme of fear in the novel Divergent, ising character, plot and setting, they all work together to make the the theme of fear come out. Throughout this book there are many things that happen to Tris (the main character. Things that makes her question what really is fear? Is it courageous to fight someone or stand up and protect them? Is fear something that can just go away or is it something that has to be overcome?…

    • 112 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Fear Dialectical Journal

    • 349 Words
    • 2 Pages

    I was terrified! Completely frozen with fear! What, oh what could this monstrosity be? Oh, what a terrifying monster!…

    • 349 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In lord of the flies, I think the "beast" is just the children's self conscious and that they are scared and confused of the truth that they are lost and alone during a war. And that their plane may have been shot down and they may be being hunted by a military force. It is them finding a way to get control of their situation and still have someone superior to them and be able to give them rules and be able to give them rules and supervision and enforce the rules. Fear is a huge reason that they are making up the beast with because they are scared that they will not have anyone to control one of them if they go off on a rampage. The first ones to start to believe in the "beast" are the little ones because they still have the most imagination and are still scared of things like monsters and demons.…

    • 636 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    A person who would walk over the hole without grabbing the pole until they are almost to the ground is a careless but also, brave person. The person won't have any physical fear which caused to them to walk without being scared and have confidences in themselves. Guy Montag grew up in a society that was shelter from fears and secrets that was burned by fire. He knows that his job was to set books on fire and that's all he knows, which caused him to become careless and fearless about the dangers in the world. He may enjoy the rush from falling although he seems emotionless because of how he grew up in this certain society, the shelter him from…

    • 122 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Fear is a catalyst for both social decline and for social reform. Fear can control people and cause a social decline as exemplified by the townsfolk who lived on Maple street in , “The Monsters are due on Maple street,” they didn’t understand what was causing so much commotion in their neighborhood and when it came down to trying to figure things out the people just began to turn on each other and kill each other for these ‘monsters’ were the people themselves and they feared what they didn’t understand, so they resorted to violence. A way fear can cause a sort of social reform would be in the stoning story where the people control a population outbreak by stoning a person to death. This is an example of a social reform as the population problem…

    • 686 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Fear In The Crucible

    • 1049 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Holy Terror "The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear, is fear of the unknown. "- H.P. Lovecraft . Fear can make a man do anything weather it be suicide or to wage war on another nation. Fear is the most powerful weapon in every society and time and time again people have shown their true colors when faced with fear, for better or for worse.…

    • 1049 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Fear In Beowulf

    • 860 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Monsters have roamed the Earth since the beginning of time. As the Earth evolved, so did monsters and how they presented themselves. The epic poem Beowulf takes readers through a story involving a mighty hero and many different monsters, and the hardships the hero, Beowulf, has to face. It all starts with a great hall being built, called Heorot Hall, and this attracts the demon Grendel who wreaks havoc on King Hrothgar’s people until Beowulf comes and kills Grendel. Soon after, Beowulf has to kill Grendel’s mother, who is on a vendetta, and finally a dragon that is threatening the livelihood of the village’s people.…

    • 860 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Between the months of February 1692 and and May 1693 in Massachusetts there was a up bringing of rumors of witchcraft in the small town of Salem. In “ The Crucible “ by Arthur Miller revenge is shown through characters, fear is shown through plot , and hysteria is shown through theme. Fear is shown through plot by the lie that has gone too far and is ruining people's lives on telling the truth. In one instance John Proctor is taking Mary Warren to court to confess she lied about everything and so the girls. “ I cannot lie no more.…

    • 739 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Fear is something everyone will experience. Examples include a fear of the dark or fear of heights. Many people wonder if fear is an emotion or something different. Some believe that fear is an emotion, but maybe not harmful. Although, many believe fear is a harmful emotion, because it can change the way people act, but others may disagree.…

    • 661 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Fear is a classic human emotion, fear is an emotion that can cause people to do irrational things in order to escape the pain, in The Crucible, fear motivates the creation of lies leading the corruption of the highest form of government, causing outrage in the Puritan society. In The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, Abigail Williams says, Now look you. All of you, we danced. And Tituba conjured Putnam’s dead sisters. And that is all.…

    • 434 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Fear In The Crucible

    • 1001 Words
    • 5 Pages

    The Salem Witch Trials in the 1690’s brought sweeping fear across the state of Massachusetts. The fear that satan could be lurking around every corner plagued many, but there was no greater fear than that of being accused of witchcraft. The crime of witchcraft was so horrendous that it was punishable by death. This constant scare caused many to turn on one another, in the hopes of saving themselves. Arthur Miller 's play, The Crucible highlights this deceitful society, and portrayed how many characters responded to fear.…

    • 1001 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Have you ever been faced with a danger so fierce that your mind became clouded with fear? What are some thoughts you may have if you were in a situation like this? Imagine being trapped in a place with no visible way out, succumbed to intimidating surroundings. In Bram Stoker’s, Dracula, the central idea is fear. Bram Stoker demonstrates this idea by using the literary devices of conflict and point of view.…

    • 852 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The novel To Kill A Mockingbird was written by Harper Lee. It takes place in the small town of Maycomb, Alabama. It is told by a girl named Jean-Louise Finch, or otherwise known as Scout. This book took place around the time of the Great Depression and tells the story of Scout’s point of view of the world around her. It all started with a strange neighbor who lives right in front of her.…

    • 1049 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Why do we as a people fear monsters and similar entities? Throughout history people have created stories centered around monsters who would terrorize communities. These stories would be used to rationalize findings they couldn’t understand. These monsters were used to rationalize dieses, deaths and many other occurrences. These monsters still persist in stories today because over time they would evolve past what they stood for and would become symbols of our primal fears.…

    • 1575 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Fear And Trembling Themes

    • 1302 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Fear and Trembling is a novel that provides the reader with a view into a different culture. A Belgian girl working in corporate Japan, shows the difference between eastern and western cultures. This is important because it illustrates a new taboo culture to western audiences. In the Japanese culture, the regular person sees themselves as a small being who need to start small and the only way to grow is to have experience while in a western culture, a regular person sees themselves as a large, significant part of society and that you need to have individual traits that set you apart from others to grow. Amelie Nothomb uses characterization, irony, and symbolism to illustrate the differences between cultures throughout her novel, Fear and Trembling.…

    • 1302 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays