I hope everyone has had a stellar week, I know it won't be complete until our weekly nerd meeting tomorrow. Anyway, I have no idea who is doing the discussions for our stories tomorrow, but I wanted to point out this strange little fact that caught my attention while reading...
the use of 'Thing' with a big ol capital T. I noticed it first in "For The Blood is The Life" when it describes the "Thing" on the grave. But then, it happens again in section III of "The Moonlit Road" and then of course we have a story called "The Thing on the Doorstep."
So here's my theory on why this keeps coming up:
someone had a post earlier on why we see so many evil/demented women in fantasy. I commented that I think it has something to do with fantasy being male-dominated (which I'm not sure if this is 100% true, it's an educated guess... especially considering that we are right now in the early 1900s in our reading) I said that it is because we fear the UNKNOWN, and women are like a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle with no two pieces that fit together for a man. So, I would assume that the writers using "Thing" would think that this would be more horrifying, because the narrator has no other way, or wants to, describe what they are experiencing.
So what do ya'll think about the use of "Thing"? Does it make it more horrific that it is unknown or do we just have some writers with poor imaginations?
4 comments:
I'm betting it's closer to poor imaginations. All of these stories were written in the early 20th century, so I'm thinking the authors were more cautious in the way they worded things back then. Didn't want to put off the more reserved audiences.
I agree that one of the scariest aspects of horror is the unknown. The reader is able to use their imagination and make the "Thing" into something they fear. If the writer were to describe the "Thing" in full detail some might find it horrific, while others find it silly. I don't, however, know if this is done intentionally or if it is as Katy has said. Things were somewhat tamer back then and didn't push the envelope, but I also find it hard to believe that a writer can write something that has been found frightening for decades by mistake.
I think so many stories mention a "Thing" not because of poor imaginations and not because the narrator doesn't know how to describe it--I think the horror of the "Thing" lies in that, the less description is given about it, the more room the reader has to imagine how horrible it is. Maybe the author thinks one thing is the most horrifying Thing, but the reader sees something different as the most horrifying. By using "Thing," the author leaves it up to the reader to imagine the horror--the reader will project her own fears upon the Thing and make it the most horrible for HER, while ANOTHER reader will put HIS different fears on it and it will STILL be the most horrible thing for HIM. ...Does that make sense? I'm really trying to say something similar to what Shauna said--I don't think it comes out of a past "tameness" of literature but rather a pretty clear understanding of how to evoke the most horrifying Thing.
To expand on what Katy said (and to prove I know little about horror literature): There was a time when we were not all so desensitized by the internet and TV, but because we are, the fear of the "Unknown" in itself has become a lost art. That is why we ended up with a million different slasher movies and extreme visual depictions like SAW (only the first one was good). But there is light at the end of the tunnel with films like Paranormal Activity (the third one is coming out this year) and the like. But maybe that light in the tunnel really just heralds our swiftly approaching doom... Oooooh... Spooky...
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