Category: Gothic Coffeehouse (Page 3 of 4)

This summer I didn’t do anything surprising or too exciting due to COVID-19. For the summer I usually travel with my mom or stay in NYC and go on roadtrips, picnics and many adventures with my family and friends. However, something that I did this summer that made me feel good was spending extra time with my family. 

Out of the three stories my favorites were “The Lottery” and “The Black Cat” but if I had to choose one I’ll say “The Black Cat”. “The Lottery” which I’ve read before therefore, it was not as surprising/exiting because I already knew what was going to happen. However, “The Black Cat” took me by surprise because I was not expecting the events of the story.

I liked the story “The Black Cat” the most because I didn’t expect the main character who loved his wife and animals was going to end up murdering his favorite animal (the cat) and his wife. He ended up being an alcoholic and murderer with extremely bad temper. This story was dark and dramatic  which made it even more exciting. I really enjoy reading this story.

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This summer was a little bit uneventful due to Covid going around. However, there was one good thing that came out of this: I got to spend time with family. Around June, I got to spend time in the park for my brother’s birthday. It was June 13^th and he turned 13 years old. My uncle, aunt and cousin came over and we spent time in the park. We had a little pizza party/picnic in the park, and we had a lot of fun. Not only that, but I spent some time getting back into shape by doing some workouts at home which was a lot of fun. I ended up stopping for a little bit since things got a little bit busy, but I plan to go back into it soon. I want to try and get back into shape not just because I want to make myself feel good but because I want to improve my overall health as a person. Other than those two things there was not anything else that has been eventful during this entire summer as far as I am concerned. I just wish I could have done a little bit more this summer.

I am not exactly sure if I have a favorite of the stories that we have read so far. I wasn’t exactly a fan of most of the stories at the time I wasn’t really opening my mind up to the idea of gothic literature so I kept myself very limited in terms of my thoughts for each of the stories. Now that I had a chance to think it over, I enjoyed the Black Cat because it seems super simple but at the same time it has a lot of deeper meaning to it. I enjoyed most of the symbolism that the story had to offer and I enjoyed the hidden messages behind it.

There was nothing that I did this summer was fun, because of the pandemic that has been going on. I’ve been staying home mostly to be safe during the pandemic and I only go out with my parents to only go grocery shopping. So there’s nothing fun that I did outside, other than staying home and have my eyes glue to the screen of my computer the whole 5 months of pandemic. The only thing that make me feel good and happy this summer was my friends, I’ve been going through tough times during the summer and I’ve been having personal life issues that I’m too scared to say and go through alone and my friends are the one who cheered me up and make me feel more confident about myself and comfort me.

From the three stories I have read so far, my favorite would have to be “The Lottery”. The reason why I choose ” The Lottery”, was because it took an unexpected turn and it was shocking and interesting at the same time. When I read the story, I was thinking ” this isn’t gothic at all”, to me; I thought it was a normal story until, I read up to the ending, I realized everything took a turn and I was taken by surprised. I like how the narrator add a little surprise to the ending and how narrator manipulated the story by adding a beautiful sunny day in the beginning of the story and having the readers or audiences thinking that it’s just a normal story until they read to the end. I think it’s very creative and in the story, it also hinted that some characters think the lottery isn’t a good idea, and that they wanted to quit the lottery, there’s a little hint in the story that allows the reader to guess what’s going to happen, which I find it interesting. In the story ” The Lottery”, they didn’t explain, the consequences of some people; who refuse to do the lottery tradition or the reason why they must do the tradition in the first place or they could just leave it alone. It makes me question about the story over and over again, about the real reason why they did it, or what would happen if they didn’t do the tradition, and it was very interesting to me as well.

I wouldn’t really say I did anything fun thing this summer because of Covid -19 messing up all my plans in the beginning. But I made the most of it with the time and space I had left. I hung around with my friends, either we were playing ball or making new unforgettable memories together. I was also working so was outside a lot. Other days I will just drive around the city going on my little adventure exploring parts of New York that I’ve never been before.

If I had to pick one of the stories we have read so far, it’s going to be “The Black Cat” by Edgar Allan Poe. Being that I have read that story many times and I still get surprised by the plot twist in it. The narrator was a mad man who told the story in the perspective of a normal person and an innocent soul. The story was very Gothic, including the symbols, the narrator’s actions and his anger that he couldn’t control. There was a lot of lessons that I learned in that story. And the story and actions of cruelty by the narrator was very detailed. First we get the sight of this calm man who loves his animals and wife and treat them with respect and then it takes a turn where we get introduced to the narrator’s dark side where he kills his cat because he started to get drunk every night  and his behavior around the house made everyone and everything start to distance themselves from him. His guilt was what caused him to do the unthinkable and he just wakes up and drinks again because he can’t bare the thought of what he did. His devious actions brought about his downfall when he ended killing his wife accidentally trying to hurt his new found and the Cops showing up at his door. I enjoyed the story and I hope to read more detailed Gothic stories like this this semester.

This summer I couldn’t do much because of the pandemic. However, I did spend a lot of time with my family. I did a lot of home activities such as movie night, paint night, and even bought a pool.  But one thing I did that made me feel good was camping. Camping was out of my comfort zone since I don’t particularly like bugs or insects, but overall, I had fun and the view was beautiful. There was a river where fishes would swim, numerous trees, and an aesthetic sky that filled with stars at night. It felt good to get out of the house and have different scenery. Even though there were huge mosquitoes and a mama bear around the campsite, I would go again.  

Out of the three stories I read, I liked “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson. The reason why I picked this story to be my favorite is that it took me off guard when the winner of the lottery was being a human sacrifice. To me what I found spooky in the story was how okay everyone was with committing this violent act yearly. The way the story started off was with a sense of normality to then end in tragedy. While reading this story I felt like the narrator was giving us a lot of information that she wasn’t saying, but was clear for the reader to get on their own. I noticed how gender played a role, such as men working and picking from the box while women cook and clean. There is a type of conflict that is man vs society, so in the end, when Tessie is the one that wins the lottery, everyone in the town picks up rocks and begins to attack her. There is also symbolism present in this story such as the black box. The black box is used every year by the people which can represent tradition. Another reason why I like this story is mainly because of the lesson of the story which is to not do anything blindly because it can end badly, or you could commit a horrible act unknowingly.  

During this summer a lot has occurred. Staying home for a break was one of them. I wasn’t able to do as much like how we used to before in past summers but I definitely enjoyed taking a break from classes and focus on personal growth and spend time with my family. There wasn’t much thing out there to do that is very exciting due to the pandemic which I personally don’t mind because I would not like to get infected and be the one contaminating someone else.

So, we have read three stories in class so far, and the one that grabbed my attention and I enjoyed the most was “The Black Cat” by Edgar Allan Poe. I enjoyed reading this story, it took various turns and there were unexpected moments that occurred out of nowhere. The narrator used words that changed the reader’s perspective on different occasions when it comes to describing the character’s violent actions, introducing cruel events suddenly like it is something very normal on a daily basis. For example, the time when the character suddenly killed his wife while peacefully walking on the stairs because he was being bothered by the cat and could not control his anger when his wife tried to calm him down.

Overall, the story was a very interesting and dark story that is based on murder and anger. The narrator of this story chose words that capture the reader’s attention and excitement while keeping his narration as “normal” as possible when it comes to talking about the cruelties that occurred throughout the story. To conclude, I found this story very interesting and enjoyable if you like dark scenes, mystery, and sudden cruel moments. It was very detailed in different aspects and it outputted the right mood when it comes to reading it.

During this summer I didn’t really do much since the COVID-19 pandemic was still around and there were heightened fears of still contracting it, but I was able to focus on my personal growth as a person and find my inner self since I’ve always been occupied with some form activity, whether it be working at my two jobs or doing schoolwork. While this was happening, I was also able to do some babysitting occasionally here and there for my aunt since she is an essential worker for New York-Presbyterian Hospital and needed me to watch my cousin while she would go to work.

When it comes to the three stories we have read so far, I honestly would have to say that The Black Cat is my favorite story. When it comes to the progression of the story, the beginning starts reasonable and shows the life of a simple man, but once the story starts to progress, you start to see small signs of eeriness and an example of this would be when the narrator explained that he would abuse/mistreat all of his animals except for the black cat that he had a special connection to. Another thing worth pointing out would be the underlying haunting tone that was happening to the narrator, slowly but surely the presence/spirit of the black cat had a lasting impact on the mental stability of the narrator.