Category: Midterm Essay (Page 1 of 2)

Jewels Castillo

Professor Scanlan

ENG 2001: Intro to Fiction

October 18, 2021

Gothic Short Stories Essay

Have you ever felt like you were in a trance, but when you aroused and realized it was a figment of your imagination. Both characters in Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne  and An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce, had experienced this in their stories. They both have summaries within each other because they both felt something that they experienced was reality, but wasn’t. Why were the characters going through this trance? Both texts symbolizes a change; crossing from one place to another place literally or metaphorically and making a change or going through a journey from life and death.

Young Goodman Brown 

• Character: Young Goodman Brown
• Setting: In the woods. The era of the Salem Witch trials??? Beg?? Middle?? End??
• Woods- Symbolic symbol? Nature?? Are the woods evil? the darkness of the woods, makes people scared, are the woods evil or are those who travel to the woods are evil and do evil things and leave an energy print of evil.
• The man meeting with brown is he the devil, is he an illusion, is the Brown’s subconscious? Brown is seeing what his town and/or people for they are?
• Faith (wife)- Him being in the woods and thinking of his wife’s faith and trying to hang on to god with his faith. The irony that is wife’s name is faith 
• Brown in the woods, the man may be teaching him that the woods shouldn’t be feared but those in the town should. People are not who or what they seem to be. Religion and society are a mask to cover the evil that is being done. 

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce

• Character:Peyton Farquhar 
• Setting: Samle 
• Bridge: symbolizes from crossing from one place to the other 
• Rivers flow: Is the river symbolic of guiding him to his wife?
• During the process of him getting hanged, maybe him having the thoughts of going home and visiting his wife made him comfort and he image that happening.

Summaries

• Their views of reality were altered due to a traumatic events. 
• Stories are told after death
• Both are told her the third point of view by the character Young Brown and Peyton Farquhar.

Works Cited

Bierce, Ambrose. An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge. THE MILLENNIUM FULCRUM EDITION, 1988. 

“An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” (Ambrose Bierce)

“The Yellow Wallpaper” (Charlotte Perkins Gilman)

Similarities

• Both characters fight against the return to normalcy.
• Both characters are convinced by and live in their hallucinations.
• Both stories are uncanny and most events in the stories are caused by both of the character’s hallucinations.
• Both don’t follow the Spirit of Perverseness because in their minds they are not doing anything wrong.
• Both stories make us feel sympathy for the characters as they try to escape the real world with their delusions. 

Differences 

• Only in “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” does the main character (Peyton) experiences a return to normalcy at the end when his dream is abruptly ended with a rope around his neck.
• “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” is in the Third Person while “The Yellow Wallpaper” is in the First Person.
•  “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” has an internal focalization/narration and it causes the readers to think that these events are actually happening but it’s not like his escape from the bridge.
• “The Yellow Wallpaper” has an external focalization where the things outside of the main character’s control are affecting her and this tells the readers the main character starts to believe more in her delusions of breaking free out of the wall as more people try to trap her in the room.

While experiencing life each person will run into a string for situations that enable different reactions and emotions. Some situations will permit happiness, fear, anger, sadness and embarrassment just to name a few, when these emotions surface a person may react rationally or irrationally. 

In the stories we’ve read, the characters teach us about gothic limits, violence, death and return to normalcy. We learn and understand how each character’s situation enables them to have the response they do and may ultimately help show us how to engage or disengage from fearful situations. The stories “The Yellow WallPaper” by Gilman and “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” by Marquez both emphasize the idea and struggles of social issues. 

The Yellow Wallpaper by Gilman: short story published in 1892. The characters in this story the narrator and John. 

• John is a doctor and his patient is his wife whom he is ultimately destroying their relationship with his ignorance and blunt disregard to what confusion she is really in and how she feels by her own words. Not how he thinks she should or needs to feel. 

● John’s wife (the narrator) is struggling internally and cannot even confide in her husband, she turns to writing and hides it from him. The narrator disregards and attempts to avoid the full acknowledgment of her external situations and how that affects her drastically internally. She is a very imaginative woman who dreams of all of these things she wishes to do and could be. -In this story, the narrator has to lose herself in order to understand

herself and learn how her and the women trapped in the wallpaper are similar, both stuck in patterns of living that aren’t the way they want to live. 

• “I’ve got out at last, in spite of you and Jane.” represents her final detachment from reality. 
• Self expression and subordinate women in marriages (themes) 

A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings by Marquez is a short story published in 1955. The characters are the Old Man, Pelayo, and Elisenda. 

• Old man – Human body but unexpected wings, is human like but still surreal. Many villagers aren’t kind to the old man because he is different. 
• -Pelayo is another character who although isn’t a very charismatic or caring person, he allows the old man to stay with him but this was at a price. 
• Elisenda is Pelayos wife. She came up with the idea to charge admission to allow villagers to see the “Angel”. 
• is kindness vs meanness. cruelty vs compassion (themes) 

The couple was going to put the old man to sea on a raft with provisions for days (cruelty) but instead exploited him by showing a little compassion but still benefited from the situation. ● Examines human response to those who are weak, dependent and also unique. ● Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.”

“The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

“The Black Cat” by Edgar Allan Poe

Similarities :

• Both Characters go through some sort of mental illness.
• Both are told in 1st person
• The setting, as they’re both told in a house
• Both feature some sort of Symbolism in their own unique way.

Differences:

• “The Black Cat” shows consequences as the main character is in his cell facing for his crimes while the Narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” is fighting for freedom.
• The Narrator for the “Black Cat” is seen as more violent and gruesome
• Different uses of Spirit of Perversness
• Both have different views of madness

The stories I chose is “The Lottery” and “Young Goodman Brown”

Similarities

• Both Third Person Narration
• Both use Symbolic names
• Both stories are influenced by society
• Both have similar settings in a small town
• Both feature Hypocrisy
• Both kept the readers guessing

Differences

• One The Lottery Theme is dangers of following tradition
• In Young Goodman Brown one of the themes is The Loss of Innocence
• The Lottery provides a sense of mysteriousness of morality leading the readers to a shocking ending
• Young Goodman Brown provides a direct line of thing of morality by letting the readers know of Young Goodman Brown thoughts.

For my two stories, I choose “ The Black Cat” by Poe and “ The Yellow Wallpaper” by Gilman.

Similarities:

• Both Characters experience a form of the spirit of perverseness 

For this essay, I choose the stories “The Black Cat” by Poe and “The Yellow Wallpaper by Gilman in both of these stories over time the spirit of perverseness can be seen almost corrupting their actions leading them to do things they know aren’t right. In the Black Cat, the Man starts off being violent towards animals, for example, his cat Pluto at first it’s just a slight annoyance that builds into hate over time and during this time the man manages to first take an eye from the cat then, unfortunately, kill the cat then the spirit of perverseness continues to take over the man’s being and commits murder killing his wife, although very gruesome the spirit of perverseness consumes him leading him to continue doing violent and inhumane things just for the sake of doing it even though he knows it’s beyond wrong. As for “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the spirit of perverseness is a little more subtle one can even say the character shows it more mentally than physically unlike the man in the “The Black Cat”.

The two stories that stood out to me the most and that I will be writing about it are The Black Cat by Edgar Allan Poe and Young Goodman Brown by Nathanial Hawthorne. 

The two characters I will be comparing are the Narrator and Goodman Brown. 

Similarities 

* both characters ultimately descent into madness 

* Both go through a phycological battle against themselves 

* Both contain bad omens and curses (gothic element) 

* A return to normalcy at the end (central gothic irony) 

* Both go through some similar gothic emotions like shock, suspense and fear 

Differences 

* Black Cat narrator speaks in first person while Goodman Brown is narrated in third person 

* Different gothic actions. In The Black Cat it’s way more extreme and even pushing the limit with violence and gore 

* Different time periods/settings 

* Both fall into madness differently. One through his own perverseness (spirit of perverseness) and Goodman Brown through what he sees around him/ throughout his experience in the forest. 

* More terror in Goodman Brown meanwhile there’s more horror in The Black Cat 

I choose “A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and “A Hunger Artist” by Franz Kafka

Similarities:

• Both third person narration
• Both characters end up in a cage and are shown off to people who pay to see
• Both share the gothic emotion of cruelty- people become cruel to the hunger artist as they stop paying him any attention or wouldn’t believe his gift; people were cruel to the angel by locking him in a cage and letting people pay to see him
• Both share the gothic emotion of passion- the hunger artist was passionate about his work; the angel was passionate about being able to fly again
• Both have a return to normalcy- when the angel flies away and when the hunger artist dies
• Both stories have villians- the people who don’t believe the hunger artist; the people that locked the angel in a cage

Differences:

• “A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings” has a happy ending because the old man gets to fly away and return to where he came from
• “A Hunger Artist” ends sadly because the hunger artist dies and is just replaced with a panther
• “A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings” is fantstic because it is uncertain if this can be real or not
• “A Hunger Artist” is uncanny because it is very close to reality

Stories: “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and “A Hunger Artist” by Franz Kafka.

Similarities between the both:

• Both ended up in a cage and were treated terribly by the public. In Old Man with Enormous Wings, the neighborhood were tossing him things to eat through the openings in the wire as if he weren’t supernatural creature but a circus animal. In “A Hunger Artist” he was treated like as if he was a joke and a show, people bought season tickets just to see him.
• Their both third person narration
• Both have gothic emotion – cruelty and fear
• Both stories ending was a return to normalcy – gothic central irony
• There was a lot of gothic actions taking place in the stories – chaotic and being violent
• Both focuses on external focalization

Differences between the both:

• Old man with enormous wings is the fantastic
• Hunger artist is uncanny
• Hunger artist is an allegory and focuses on realism – only focused on fasting
• Old man with enormous wings managed to escape and fly away when his feathers and wings started growing
• Hunger artist died in the end because of fasting
• Old man with enormous wings focuses on magical realism

The stories and characters I have chosen to write about are Emily in “A Rose for Emily” by Faulkner and the narrator in “The Yellow WallPaper” by Gilman. These stories both fit in the gothic theme because there’s suspense and both main characters are mysterious mad womens. The way that these women behave throughout their story is not normal and definitely out of the norm. 

Similarities between Emily and the narrator (TYW) : 

• Both of the main characters are women 
• They experiencing loss of control 
• Strong female characters 
• They are both going through the motion of feeling trapped/ they also lose touch with reality because of the things that are taunting them. 
• The settings are in houses 
• Dealing with death 
• There a was surprise shock at the end 
• There’s oppression in both stories 

Differences between both characters :

• Emily is very controlling and she’s mostly hiding throughout the story 
• The narrator for the yellow wallpaper is being controlled 
• The narrator is a mother 
• For Emily it was the dead body she was hiding and for the narrator is the stain in the wallpaper.  
• A rose for emily was written in third person
• The yellow wallpaper is in first person