The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

Legend of Sleepy Hollow

Arnau Dachs

Blog #3

Option #1

The story ‘The legend of Sleepy Hollow’ by Washington Irving, talks about the story of Ichabod Crane, a school teacher that moves to the town of Sleepy Hollow. He moves there to teach the little kids from the town. According to the author “ He was tall but exceedingly lank, with narrow shoulders, long arms and long legs and feet that might be used as shovels. His head was small, with huge ears large green glassy eyes and long snipe nose.” (Irving 21). Ichabod is a ladies man and he falls in love with Katrina, who is a pretty girl that has a lot of money. In the blog I will do a comparison between the story and the movie.

Since I read the book first I could say that the character that impressed me the most was Bones. In the book you cannot see all the details like in the movie so while I was reading I was thinking that Bones would be the “Headless Horseman”. Also in the movie shows how in the beginning Bones was the favorite guy in the town. But with the arrival of Ichabod, Bones considers him a competitor and he transforms into a troublemaker and he tries to take Ichabod down.

I really like reading a book and then have the chance of watching the movie. When I am reading I picture everything my way and I associate the characters to people I know. Then I like watching the movie and see how they really look like. The book describes Ichabod very good. In the book the author says “The schoolmaster is generally a man of some importance in the female circle”. (Irving 23) What surprised me was the way he was considered a ladies man. When I was reading I was considering in my mind a ladies man being a “hot” guy but the movie shows that he is a ladies man by being a gentleman. Also the movie tells the story in a more comedic and happy way. The book was darker and definitely more mysterious.

           

Irving Washington. “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.” American Gothic Tales. Ed. Joyce Carol Oates. New York: Plume, 1996. 19-45. Print.  

Willie the Creature

Tayler Dalli

Option #4

             In The Replacements, Stuart sees a hideous creature crawling near his feet and his first instinct is to kill it. When he arrives home he finds his wife Jenny with one of the same creatures and she insists on keeping it as a pet. Stuart’s opposition to the creature causes his wife to distance herself from him and she eventually makes him choose between living with the creature and leaving. He ultimately chooses to leave because he can’t stand the thought of living with that creature and the fact that his wife clearly chose the creature over him. Though I can’t say I’ve ever encountered a creature similar to the one Lisa Tuttle describes, I have been put in a similar situation where opposition to a pet has led to fighting and the eventual degradation of a friendship.

In some ways, I can sympathize with Stuart, but obviously I would never kill an animal. My sophomore year in college, my roommate brought home a dog after Christmas break. The dog was honestly the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen. I couldn’t bear to look at it and what made it worse was the fact that the dog’s hair covered his eyes but you knew he was just staring at you menacingly. His name was Willie. He had the meanest personality that I’d ever seen in a dog of his kind. To add to this, he was absolutely annoying. Now, I love animals but I could not sympathize with this creature. The dog followed her everywhere. In the mornings he would scratch at my door and bark throughout the night. During the day, he would rip up the carpet, pillows, and he sometimes managed to pull the curtains down in the living room. There was nothing I could do to convince her to find a new home for the dog; she was already attached.

My roommate never gave me an ultimatum like Stuart’s wife did; “I’m sorry…I really am, but this is nonnegotiable…if you can’t accept that you’d better leave” (Oates 472). But, we were definitely facing the same issue Jenny and Stuart faced, “Either I win and I keep him or you win and I give him up…Where’s the compromise” (Oates 466). It was clear I didn’t want him in our apartment but she didn’t care. We began to fight about the dog and soon after that, we fought about virtually everything. I know the dog was the cause of my frustration but since it wasn’t going to leave I had to “win” somehow.  I broke the lease and let the apartment complex know she was housing a dog without having paid the pet deposit. She was out $500 and didn’t have a roommate, but she didn’t care because she had Willie. Though what happened to Stuart is different than what happened to me, the result was the same: we both moved out and never talked to the person possessing the creature again.

Tuttle, Lisa. “Replacements.” American Gothic Tales. Ed. Joyce Carol Oates. New York: The Penguin Group. 460-474. Print.

The Lonesome Place Playlist

Alexandra Truong

Blog #3, Option 2

September 26, 2013

Gothic Literature and Culture

The Lonesome Place Playlist

1. Weeping Willow by Sebastien Schuller 
1. This song is about a mad person contemplating death. This person explains that they keep hearing voices, and feels a presence with them even when there is no one there. I thought that this song was relevant to The Lonesome Place because every time the boys walked past the Lonesome Place, they thought another presence was with them, watching them, and ready to pounce or just out to get them. The emotion between this scene in the short story and the song are parallel in that both of them give off a very haunting and eerie feel. The song also talks about how there is a big tree that looks like its hiding secrets within the leaves. This reminded me of when Steve tells about the trees in the Lonesome Place and how he felt like there was something hiding in them.
2. I’m Shaking by Rooney
1. Although this song is somewhat upbeat and uplifting, it talks about how the person singing is going crazy and how they can’t control their emotions. This reminded me of how the boys felt when Bobby Jeffers died. At one point, the song goes “I wake up in so much spit and sweat, it is not normal.” This is how I imagine the boys to feel not only about the Lonesome Place, but also when they discover that Bobby Jeffers was killed there. I picture Steve feeling this way when he struggles in the debate of whether or not he should tell his parents about the “being” that he believes dwells in the Lonesome Place. 
3. The Adventure by Angels and Airwaves
1. When listening to this song, I think it sounds inspiring. Looking at the lyrics though, I picture each of the boys laying in bed and waking up from the a nightmare of the Lonesome Place and just being thankful that they made it another day without being eaten or killed or captured by the creature that dwells in that space. The lyrics “I felt this thing I can’t replace.” made me think of how Steve felt when he recalls the being in the Lonesome Place.
4. The Walk by Imogen Heap
1. Imogen Heap has a great way of producing a chilling and eerie sound. This would be appropriate for The Lonesome Place soundtrack. “You’re as close as it gets without touching me.” Reminded me of when Steve recalled running manically past the Lonesome Place and being able to feel the creature that he and Johnny created in their minds breathing down his neck. I think that if this song was played during the scene, it would further increase the anxiety and stress of the audience while watching the scene. 
5. Monster by Meg and Dia
1. This song is truly appropriate for this story in that the song sings literally about a monster haunting the singer. The verse “Creatures lie here/Looking through the windows.” was a little bit chilling and I picture it playing when the boys discover that Bobby Jeffers was killed in he Lonesome Place. I feel of all the songs on this playlist, this one was most relevant lyrically without having to think about them between the lines and in sound, gave off the most “haunting” and “spooky” feeling that The Lonesome Place was trying to convey.

Replacements: Experience in Unhealthy Relationships

            Most adults have experienced a draining or unhealthy relationship to some degree, so I am not alone in my thoughts. I have found that you don’t realize what was wrong until you find something that is really ‘right’.

As I begin to read the story Replacements by Lisa Tuttle, I am initially drawn to the negative qualities that exist in Stuart and Jenny’s relationship. In my opinion, it seemed to be deteriorating from the start with Stuart’s jealousy. He explains, “yet he was aware, although he never spoke of it, that something about her success made him uneasy…That was why he picked at her, and second-guessed her decisions when she was behind the wheel and he was in the passenger seat” (Tuttle, 462).  I have experienced a similar situation in a former relationship. In this relationship, I felt as if happiness was a constant struggle and that I was frequently challenged when I was in positions of superiority. For example, any excess of attention or rewards I would receive, this person would become insanely jealous and insecure. Insecure in that they were not the one receiving the accolades as well as in the future of the relationship. In my opinion, Stuart and Jenny’s marriage was already headed down a dark path of no return.

A confident man should not be insecure of his woman’s achievements, but rather radiantly proud. A woman can sense when he is not, and that takes a toll on her emotionally after some time. I believe that Jenny’s capacity for these insecurities and jealousy began to run out and when she found something else to fulfill her time with, she welcomed it with open arms. Similarly in my unpleasant relationship, I reached for any hobby possible to fulfill my unhappiness. Often, this lead to unhealthy habits, which I believe is represented by Jenny’s obsession with this strange animal.

The Holder’s relationship was headed in the wrong direction the moment Stuart began ‘sucking’ the vitality out of his wife’s life and success.  As Martin Luther King Jr. stated, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that.” Jenny clung onto the light of this creature and all the happiness that it brought her to drive out the deteriorating and emotionally straining relationship Stuart maintained. 

Lisa Tuttle’s “Replacement”

John Watson

Blog #3, Option 5

            Lisa Tuttle’s short story, “Replacement,” definitely freaked out a little due to the fact that unknown creatures, that are apparently very ugly, suddenly appears and that they manage to dissolve relationships between men and women so quickly. The short story does contain at least two gothic tropes, which are The Supernatural and The Outsider. The Supernatural in this story is directed at the fact that an unknown creature that looks like someone smashed a cat, a human infant, and a wingless bat together, would appear out of nowhere and without explanation. Another reason why this creature could be considered something supernatural is because a day after Stuart’s wife, Jenny, found one of these hideous creatures; Stuart “walked in on his wife feeding the creature with her blood,” as if the creature was a very ugly vampire (Lisa Tuttle, 471). The reason why I believe that this story contains The Outsider gothic trope is because after Jenny brings one of these freaky unknown creatures to the house and shows it to Stuart, Stuart quickly becomes a stranger in his own house and is pushed aside by his wife for this hideous infant-like thing.

The story was suspenseful to me because I did not know whether or not this creature was real, until Stuart saw the bloody thing sucking Jenny’s blood almost like a baby being breastfed by its mother. I did not know how the story would end and I wanted to find what the heck this parasitic thing was that the women in the story seemed to be overly obsessed with this creature to the point where the creature becomes their sole purpose in living. I also wondered whether or not Stuart was going to kill the creature in the house or if Jenny would become so annoyed with Stuart that she would kill Stuart. I give this story a four out of five because even though the first few pages are a bit slow in terms of the plot, the story as a whole is very disturbing yet interesting and suspenseful to the point where you have to read the entire story to the end to find out more about this thing that appears from out of nowhere. I would recommend this story to a friend for the reasons stated above as well as for the story raising questions on motherhood and the power of women. Jenny mentions that the weird creature was like Psammead, the ugly and mischievous fairy from “The Five Children and It,” which is a children’s book (Lisa Tuttle, 464). I found this interesting because it almost sounds like Jenny considers this ugly creature as a human baby and then proceeds, rather quickly in fact, to smother it with a strange sense of motherly love. That and the fact the thing follows Jenny everywhere like a little kid starving for attention.

Tuttle, Lisa. “Replacements.” American Gothic Tales. Ed. Joyce Carol Oates. New York: The Penguin Group. 460-474. Print.

BBC, “Five Children and It,” photograph, Wikipedia, accessed September 26, 2013.

Jordan Miller
Option #5

Edgar Allen Poe’s short story, “The Black Cat” is grotesque and horrifying.  Although the story frightened me, I could not help but want to keep reading.  Poe’s ability to capture his audience proves he fulfills the motif “sense of mystery and dread.”  This is especially true when the unnamed narrator in the story walks “into the cellar” with his wife (Poe, 85).  I had an uneasy feeling the narrator would kill his wife, but the question of whether or not he would caught my attention.  This example of captivation, as well as others in the story, is why it is suspenseful.  

Another motif this story contains is the “unreliable narrator.”  I was surprised when the narrator explained, “my tenderness of heart was even so conspicuous as to make me the jest of my companions. I was especially fond of pets…and never was so happy as when feeding and caressing them” (Poe, 78).  Although he truly believes his self-perception, there is incongruence between the descriptions he provides and how he actually behaves.  This is evidenced by the murders of his beloved cat, Pluto, and his wife, causing him to be an unreliable narrator. 

In addition to the “sense of mystery and dread” and the “unreliable narrator,” the story also fulfills that of “darkness as intrinsic to humanity.”  The narrator provides a rationale for his horrendous acts by posing the question: “Who has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a vile or silly action, for no other reason than because he knows he should not?” (Poe, 80).  He explains this as natural “longing of the soul to vex itself…to do wrong for the wrong’s sake only”  (Poe, 80).  This serves as a moral lesson that all humans, no matter who you are or what you do, are all on the same level.  Although the narrator makes an interesting point by identifying this form of human’s inherent darkness, I do not agree that murder is an acceptable way “to violate that which is Law”  (Poe, 80).

In “The Black Cat,” Poe successfully portrays these three gothic tropes, as well as others.  Due to this, I understand why this is an important piece of literature.  His ability to capture a reader, while maintaining suspense and a imbedding a moral lesson is why I would definitely recommend this story to a friend.

Poe, Edgar A. “The Black Cat.” American Gothic Tales. Joyce Carol Oates. New York: Plume, 1996. 78-86. Print.

The Funeral

Blog 3

Option #4

After reading the short story, “The Reencounter”, by Isaac Bashevis Singer, it reminded me of my experience of my dad’s funeral. My family is the first to have someone pass away here in the United States. Therefore, when my dad passed and was sent with the funeral home, my family members who came from Vietnam didn’t understand that it took a few days to prepare the body for viewing. Max Greitzer understood what was meant when the girl said, “‘Let me ask if she’s ready.’…The dead are elaborately fixed up before they are shown to their families and those who attend the funeral” (Singer 237). Seeing my dad made up this way was a bit uncomfortable. They made him look “different”.  As Max Greitzer questioned, “How do they produce a smile?” (Singer 237), is what my sisters and I thought of too. My dad passed away with a smile on his face, and it was nice to see a smile on his face while he lay in his coffin.

 My dad had a peaceful passing and was loved my many people. Liza had a wreath on top of her coffin (Singer 240). My dad had a spray of white roses on his coffin and 22 giant flower arrangement stands and 8 small flower bouquets of flowers surrounding him in the funeral home. There were so many flowers that we had to put half of them outside of the room in the lobby area of the place.  I never realized the amount of people that were a part of my dad’s life until seeing all those flowers. My dad would have loved seeing all those flowers. He would be picking out his favorite ones and taking pictures of them all with the family who gave it to him. He had a good life and a wonderful funeral.

  Singer, Isaac Bashevis. “The Reencounter.” American Gothic Tales. Ed. Joyce Carol Oates. New York: The Penguin Group. 163-174. Print.