Trisha Langley
11/13/13
Blog #5
Option #5 “Madness in Desire”
The short story that scared me the most throughout
this entire semester of reading short stories would be “The Anatomy of Desire”
by John L’Heureux. Although short and sweet this story gave me chills and an
upset stomach when reading it for the first time. I was so captivated by the
story and the detail that it was as if I was in the room with the characters
watching it in real life. I suppose that’s probably why I reacted so poorly initially
but I truly was disturbed.
The trope that was used by the author in this story
was madness. The main character Hanley was consumed by this idea of “being
loved and possessed by someone.” But this obsession is quickly turned evil when
he brutally performs the same act to the nurse that was done to him, being
skinned alive. My first thought was that Hanley was just lonely so I
sympathized with him considering his situation. But then it occurred to me that
he isn’t lonely, he is simply a deranged and mad man. My overall thoughts about
the story line were that this is something that could very well happen. I
believe that’s why I found it so terrifying because it was relevant to real
life happenings and we as readers could relate to things we have heard and seen
in the news about people were considered “mad” or “crazy” and the heinous crimes
they have committed. Similarly Hanley
committed the same crime by forcing the nurse to love him and then he literally
was “possessed” by her once he put her skin over his skinless body. The ending
of this story disgusted me especially when I picture him placing another human
beings skin over his own body.
After
reading this for a second time and having our class discussion over the story I
made the connection with the real life “crazy man” we all know in America as
Jeffery Dahmer. He was accused and convicted of killing 17 men and boys over a
span of 13 years. But that’s not the worse thing about it. His form of killing
these people typically involved dismemberment and cannibalism or preservation
of the human remains that followed the murder. We all know the name Jeffery
Dahmer and automatically relate it to the idea of madness.
Overall
I give this short story a rating of 5 because to me it was short so it was very
quick and to the point, which I like. The author also did a great job of
presenting the story with enough background information so that way the reader
could easily follow. And lastly I think the author perfectly portrayed the
trope of madness with the main character Hanley in which he showed how a normal
human being can so easily be transformed into an evil minded monster.
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