He In His Madness Prays For Storms Blog#3

“Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.” This is a quote by Edgar Allan Poe that closely bears a resemblance to the warped minds of the two dark creatures I intend to discuss: Mary Katherine Blackwood from We Have Always Lived in a Castle and Daniel Staley, whom I had the displeasure of meeting at my job in the Psychiatric facility. My encounter and research of this young man led me to the articles listed. Both Daniel and Merricat share a fascination with death and darkness and express this in a very passive aggressive way.

As mentioned in the second article, Daniel Staley was committed to the psychiatric facility in 2010 after he “dug up a grave and used a hatchet to cut off the foot of a corpse in a private Jewish cemetery” (Eiserer). He later brought the foot to the police station at 3 AM. This information is absolutely shocking after having met this man. He was reserved, however, never in a million years would I expect such twisted thoughts to be running through his head. And the fact that he actually acted on these thoughts immediately reminds me of Merricat. She has many dark and wicked thoughts of those around her. For example Merricat states, “I always thought about rot when I came toward the row of stores; I thought about burning black painful rot that ate away from inside, hurting dreadfully. I wished it on the village” (We Have Always Lived In The Castle, 9). However, she doesn’t appear to act on these thoughts until we learn towards the end of the novel that she killed her family.

While comparing Merricat to Daniel, we are able to see how psychotic these two actually are. In a quote by Daniel’s father, he states that, “[Childhood} is when we found out that he was talking about killing his family. He was around 10 or 11. Even in his writing back then, he says he’s not sure why he hadn’t already killed us” (Lopez). This is immediately linked to Merricat in the way that she murdered her entire family. She says that she wants to “put death in all their food and watch them die” (We Have Always Lived In The Castle, 161) the way she did before. Merricat and Daniel are obsessed with the idea of death, particularly upon their families, and with their timid personalities you are not expectant of this darkness that has encompassed them. I believe that this quote by Tolstoy summarizes these two psychopaths quite well, “He in his madness prays for storms, and dreams that storms will bring him peace.”

Bibliography

Eiserer, Tanya. "Dallas Man Accused of Taking Foot from Corpse

in Pleasant Grove Cemetery." Neighborsgo. New York Times, 30 Apr. 2010. Web. 03 Sept. 2013. <http://www.dallasnews.com/news/community-news/dallas/headlines/20100430-Dallas-man-accused-of-taking-foot-6216.ece>

Lopez, Rebecca. "Father: It's 'a Matter of Time' before Mentally Ill

Son Kills." WFAA8. N.p., 21 Mar. 2013. Web. 03 Sept. 2013. <http://www.wfaa.com/news/texas-news/Man-who-stole-foot-of-corpse-wont-be-released-for-now-199443991.html>