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(2013
midterm assignment) Sample Student Midterm Answers 2013 #3: Web Highlights |
LITR 4232 |
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Brenda Trejo
Allured by darkness
I have always been into the scary movies as
a child but I was never easily frightened, I remember growing up watching:
Halloween (1978), Friday the 13th (1980), Nightmare on Elm Street
(1984), and Hellraiser (1987). These movies just gave me a dose of adrenaline
and that I was so desperately looking for and that was the fun. But now I can
see that a part of me will always have a soft spot for the gothic.
The headless horseman is always been around
us in TV shows, movies, books, cartoons but in the not so scary gothic elements
because it is more for kids but they try to keep it close to Irving’s story.
While I was trying to remember the very first time I heard, in my case saw the
story of the headless horseman I was in the school library, during October and
we were so excited to finally see a scary movie (with our parents’ permission)
but this was not scary till the very end. Now a days we have different and
somewhat similar adaptations to Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow; now
these are some shows that came to mind Charmed, Supernatural, Scooby Doo,
Arthur, Winnie the Pooh, and let’s not forget the Disney cartoon
version of the headless horseman of sleepy hollow; which that is the one I was
first introduced to as a child.
When I read Brittany Fletcher’s “The
Headless Boxer”, I was easily drawn to it because I knew it was going to be
about Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. It brought back so many
enjoyable memories of my childhood. This essay is short and sweet; it has a many
“Aww” factor because it is also of her childhood and an appealing tone, which I
can relate too. Fletcher dissects the text very well in a broader sense that can
be easily understood and also ties the gothic influence to the language that
Irving uses to describe the story, another thing she does is focuses on many key
ideas throughout her essay. The one thing that I have never put my finger the
way Fletcher has pointed it out and explained so eloquently is the
correspondence in the story, “Although the headless horsemen appears and comes
after Ichabod, the fear comes from Ichabod because he thought of evil things
beforehand” (Fletcher). I truly enjoyed reading it.
Velma Laborde also wrote about The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, but
she focused on Katrina, I found myself seeing her in a different light than I
had before. The passage she chooses to examine has a dark influence and the
color code that stands out is black (terrors, night, darkness, Satan, evils,
Devil, being, ghosts, goblins, and witches) this all scream gothic elements. In
the second paragraph, Laborde mentions the “woods as place of refuge and
solitude” but that could be only in the daylight however this scene is happening
at night when everything can go wrong. Like in the movie: Child’s Play
(1988), this toy is supposed to bring joy to child however, it just brings
death. When something or someone so charming and good, become the most
terrifying, is when all hell breaks loose and it catches us off guard and makes
it exceptional; this always draws in many people and it also makes for a good
story. Laborde did a terrific job explaining Katrina as a very interesting woman
and comparing her to America.
While reading Dorothy Noyes “Men Without
Names: Poe’s Byronic Heroes”, made me feel very sad for the narrators and
ultimately for Poe. I believe he was describing his loss when he wrote it. He
completely immerses himself when he divulges everything he was feeling which
made it more profound and illuminating. Noyes did an exceptional essay when
tying both stories together and seeing them through her eyes made it possible
for me to see how a man feels when he loses the love of his life. I know what it
feels to lose someone you love but from a woman’s perspective, it is different.
The men in the stories are miserable, lost, broken-down, and inconsolable this
is something we can see clearly when we read Annabel Lee and Ligeia;
they are the classic Byronic heroes. However the narrator in Annabel Lee
seems to suffer a much more deep loss to the point that he cannot separate
himself from her even after she is dead. Poe used such descriptive words to
paint a picture of the tortured man grieving of his childhood love. The angels
or demons can ever separate them; he even goes to sleep with her in her
sepulchre.
In the end I really learned a lot from the
previous students’ midterms. It was entertaining to read another students point
of view on the assignments that we have been studying and seeing some
similarities and differences in our way of learning the material. Especially
since we have been taught the same things; we all can take something different
and teach each other something that we before had not thought of. I have always
loved the way Poe has a way with words that still take my breath away and bring
a smile to face when reading his work. The gothic will always be something that
attracts me and hopefully it will do the same to you.
