Hop-Frog: A Story of Reversals

copyright 2008 by Gary L. Pullman

 

As a rule of thumb, a writer introduces his or her story’s protagonist before the antagonist makes an appearance. One reason for doing so is that people respond most strongly to the person they meet first, especially if the individual seems to be a decent sort of a soul, as protagonists, even self-conflicted ones, usually are, just as readers tend to most remember whatever they read first. After all, since the narrative is the story of the main character, it makes sense to introduce the protagonist first, before any other character takes the stage (or the page). Another reason for introducing the main character first is to establish clarity. Introducing the protagonist first makes it clear to the reader, from the outset, whose story is being read or told. 

Occasionally, however, this rule is violated, as is the case in “Hop-Frog,” Edgar Allan Poe’s short story of humiliation and revenge. Poe starts his tale by introducing its antagonist, or villain, a nameless, sadistic king who delights in abusing his fool, Hop-Frog.

An example of the monarch’s cruelty is the jester’s nickname. In an apparent attempt to curry favor with their liege, the king's “seven ministers,” aware of the ruler's delight in unkindness, named the jester “Hop-Frog” to make fun of his peculiar style of locomotion: “In fact, Hop-Frog could only get along by a sort of interjectional gait--something between a leap and a wriggle--a movement that afforded illimitable amusement, and of course consolation, to the king.”

Such a problem would elicit pity and sympathy from a nobler person, but the king is obviously well pleased with the wittiness of his ministers’ naming the fool’s for the effect of his unfortunate disability. The king also enjoys tormenting Hop-Frog directly. The dwarf and a fellow citizen, Tripetta, also a dwarf, were abducted from their homeland and given, as if they were but things, rather than people, “as presents to the king, by one of his ever-victorious generals.”

Aware that Hop-Frog misses the friends whom he was forced to leave behind and aware, furthermore, that the fool is unable to drink wine without suffering from near madness as a result, the king directs his jester to drink to in the honor of his “absent friends.”

When the wine and the thought of his “absent friends” has the effect upon Hop-Frog that the king has anticipated, the king thinks the jester’s grief and miserable state of intoxication amusing: “It happened to be the poor dwarf's birthday, and the command to drink to his 'absent friends' forced the tears to his eyes. Many large, bitter drops fell into the goblet as he took it, humbly, from the hand of the tyrant.”

The king responds with cruel laughter: "'Ah! ha! ha! ha!' roared the latter, as the dwarf reluctantly drained the beaker. 'See what a glass of good wine can do! Why, your eyes are shining already!'"

The king’s malice is also seen in his abusive treatment of Tripetta. When she intercedes with the king on the behalf of Hop-Frog, upon whom the monarch seeks to force still more wine, the king “pushed her violently from him, and threw the contents of the brimming goblet in her face.”

The vulgarity of the king and his sycophantic courtiers, vis-à-vis the grace Hop-Frog and Tripetta, is a second reversal in the story. Not only has Poe introduced the villainous king before he’s introduced the heroic fool, but he has also traded the stereotypical natures of these two characters, making the noble king vulgar and the low fool courteous.

These reversals effect much of the story’s irony. Customarily, a reader would suppose the king, rather than a jester, to be the refined and cultured sophisticate. In fact, the comedy of the fool is often ribald and crude, involving the same sort of humiliating practical jokes, at times, as those that the king performs.

The king’s humiliation of Tripetta is the story’s inciting moment, for it is this act of outrage upon her that inspires Hop-Frog’s plan for revenge, as, ironically, he tells the intended victim: “just after your majesty had struck the girl and thrown the wine in her face--just after your majesty had done this...there came into my mind a capital diversion .” Thus, the king, in a sense, is undone by his own sadistic nature, for it is one of his acts of mindless cruelty that inspires Hop-Frog’s scheme to kill him in a fashion that is at once both spectacular and horrible.

Traditionally, regardless of the king’s character or the morality of his deeds, if he orders the execution of one of his subjects, for any (or no) reason, the subject would be killed, no questions asked. In “Hop-Frog,” however, it is the fool who, in another reversal, becomes the executioner of both the king himself and his toadying courtiers. What’s more, Hop-Frog accomplishes his vengeance of Tripetta’s honor with impunity, thereby further humiliating the monarch and his noble friends, since he escapes punishment for having, in essence, assassinated his own and Tripetta’s tormentors. Each of these reversals heightens the story’s irony.

Hop-Frog’s revenge is extremely violent and horrible. Had Poe not prepared the reader to accept this act as just, albeit appalling, the reader’s sympathy for the crippled dwarf and his beloved Tripetta would likely not withstand the gruesome deaths that he causes the king and his courtiers to suffer. Instead, the immolation of the nobles would have been regarded, in all likelihood, as being too extreme and it would suggest that it is Hop-Frog who is the true monster, rather than his adversary, the king’s own cruelty notwithstanding.

The reader accepts the justice of Hop-Frog’s execution of his tormentors for several reasons. First, the odds are against Hop-Frog. He is a mere court jester. His adversary is a monarch who enjoys absolute power. Readers support an underdog. 

Second, the king is cruel. He is, in other words, a sadist. Many times, he has abused Hop-Frog simply for his own amusement and, perhaps, to show off in front of his courtiers. He is not above insulting even someone as beautiful, kind, and harmless as Tripetta, although he must know that doing so will both hurt her and offend Hop-Frog. He has no regard for their feelings.

Third, Hop-Frog outsmarts the powerful king, and readers favor one who, through the use of nothing more than his or her wits, can outsmart another, especially if the other occupies a position of far greater social status, authority, and power. If one such ordinary person can accomplish such a feat, perhaps others--the reader included--can do likewise. Certainly, many will have harbored fantasies of doing just such a thing.

Fourth, Hop-Frog, like Tripetta, is a dwarf. He is literally smaller than the king, and, figuratively, he is a common person, one of the little guys, so to speak. Hop-Frog is physically weaker, too, than his larger tormentors. Nevertheless, he uses his brain to overcome their brawn, a feat that always gains admiration and respect among those in similar circumstances.

Fifth, Hop-Frog is crippled. His severe handicap, the object of the king’s scorn and ridicule, make him ill-matched to take on the king. Nevertheless, the intrepid dwarf does so--and wins.

Sixth, Hop-Frog is shown to be a sensitive and caring person. He loves Tripetta, and, when she is insulted, he is also hurt, and he vows revenge, even at the risk of his life.

Perhaps the reader would not overlook Hop-Frog’s murder of the king and his courtiers in a such a horrible manner if only one of these conditions or characteristics mitigated against the horror of the deed, but there are at least six extenuating facts, as enumerated herein. Together, they seem to be warrant enough for the reader to ignore the stupendous horror of the dwarf’s immolation of his live victims.

Other horror stories often include a reversal, usually in the form of the surprise, O. Henry-type ending. A good example is “The Monkey’s Paw” by W. W. Jacobs and “The Red Room” by H. G. Wells, both of which have been posted in Chillers and Thrillers. In these stories, the plot suggests a certain type of ending as likely, or even as seemingly inevitable, but then surprises the reader with the substitution of a different ending but one that is, nevertheless, logical and satisfying.

For example, in Wells’ story (which, incidentally, is a clear precursor to Stephen King’s story, “1048”), a skeptic stays overnight in an allegedly haunted room. Despite his doubt as to the reality of the supernatural, he experiences increasingly frightening incidents until, bursting from the room, he strikes the door frame. He turns, confused, and reels into various furniture until he knocks himself unconscious.

The reader is led to assume that the room truly is haunted and, then, Wells offers what, in effect, is a punchline of sorts: the room is haunted by the fear of those who, believing the chamber to be haunted, occupy the place: “Fear that will not have light nor sound, that will not bear with reason, that deafens and darkens and overwhelms.”

The Others, a horror film, also has such a twist: the residents of a haunted house turn out to be the ghosts, just as the apparent ghosts turn out to be the house’s human inhabitants. Such reversals are still marginally effective, if rather overdone, but stories such as “Hop-Frog” are rare in their sophisticated employment of plot reversals, and such stories are correspondingly enriched.

Developing a Sense of Horror

Copyright 2019 by Gary L. Pullman

Yesterday, as I walked through the house, I imagined the defensive and offensive actions that various inanimate objects might take in response to environmental stimuli if the objects were imbued with personalities, intelligence, and will.

Sound crazy? Perhaps, but personification can be an important source of inspiration and a significant way of developing one's sense of horror.

Here are a few of the ideas I conceived:

Ceiling: offense = inaccessibility (it's a cathedral ceiling); defense = allowing parts of itself to fall upon intruders (or perhaps divesting itself of such "accessory items" as ceiling fans or light fixtures); alternatively, a ceiling (or a floor) can look deceptively solid, only to be insubstantial and, therefore, dangerous

Floor: offense = strength and solidarity of tiles; defense = allowing individual or sections of tiles to break and slide, making an intruder's footing precarious

Cabinet: offense: closed exterior (like that of a turtle's shell)--also, drawers can contain some pretty dangerous items; defense = hiding (the articles of a cabinet are "hidden" when the drawers are closed)

Toilet: offense = closed exterior; defense = elimination of threat by "swallowing" action (and, okay, yes, maybe odor). (By the way, toilets have been known to explode!) (You probably don't even want to consider the possibilities that Porta Potties present!)

Stove = offense = strength, weight (it's not easily moved), and durability; defense = destruction by fire (or gas)
 

Refrigerator/freezer: offense = strength, weight, and durability; defense = cold or freezing temperatures. (In the hands of master storyteller Stanley Kubrick, who directed The Shining, a freezer can help to disorient characters and viewers alike, adding to the sense of confusion and anxiety.)

Curtains: offense: able to sustain considerable damage without total destruction; defense = able to incapacitate by wrapping around an intruder and to kill by strangling him or her. (Curtains of various sorts have also been used in other ways in such movies as Psycho and Hide and Seek.)

Mirror: offense: as Lewis Caroll (and others) have taught us in Through the Looking-glass, mirrors can be gateways to other worlds, some of which are strange and terrifying, indeed; wardrobes can also be portals to other worlds, of course, as C. S. Lewis has demonstrated in The Chronicles of Narnia); defense: shattering into sharp-edged, pointed shards

Wallpaper: offense: it looks harmless (but appearances can be deceiving); defense = it can drive a person insane (Charlotte Perkins-Gilman demonstrates how, in "The Yellow Wallpaper")

By imagining the offensive and defensive capabilities of the everyday objects in a house, a writer can exercise his or her creative abilities; at the same, time, he or she might conceive of a few ideas (by adding a bit of exaggeration, for effect) for a haunted house story. The familiar, everyday world is the source of horror, as often or not, in this genre.

Building Fear

Copyright 2018 by Gary L. Pullman

The architecture common to horror stories, whether novels, short stories, or movies, is conducive to the evocation of fear. Although this statement may seem something of a truism, it may be less obvious that it seems. What, precisely, makes a building evoke fear? By using the Aristotelian approach—that is, by analyzing mages of haunted buildings—we can identify the exact mechanisms of this evocation.

Size matters.

Size matters. Large spaces, especially when they appear labyrinthine, disorient us, confuse us, frustrate us. When we're not sure where we are, we don't know what places—what rooms, for example—are safe or in which direction our escape lies. Therefore, our ability to fight or to take flight is hampered. Spacious buildings of uncertain layout are frightening because, well, they could be the death of us.

Probably the best-known example of “size matters” is Stephen King's Overlook Hotel (The Shining [1977]), the mansion in his Rose Red, or the house in the Spierig Brothers' 2018 movie Winchester. (Full disclosure: the house in Winchester and the house in Craig R. Baxley's 2002 television miniseries Rose Red, written by King, were both inspired by the Winchester Mystery Mansion in San Jose, California.)

Books in print, including The Shining; Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House (1959); and Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto (1764), an early Gothic novel that, when it comes to haunted houses, was one of the prototypes that started it all, are first-rate examples of the principle that size matters.

Darkness matters.

Darkness matters. When it's dark, we can't see; we are blinded. We rely most heavily on our ability to see. When we cannot see, we are handicapped; our ability to observe, to conduct visual surveillance, to reconnoiter, is impeded. What we can't see could be dangerous, even deadly. We could be attacked. We could run into a wall or fall down stairs. We could lose our way.

Many horror stories are shot mostly in the dark, including Alejandro Amenábar's 2001 film, The Others; Victor Zarcoff's 2016 movie, 13 Cameras; and Wes Craven's 1991 film, The People Under the Stairs, to name but a few.

Stephen King's novel 'Salem's Lot (1975), Dan Simmons's novel Summer of Night (1991), Bram Stoker's short story, “The Judge's House” (1891), H. G. Wells's short story “The Red Room” (1896) are excellent examples of printed works that take place largely in the dark.

Isolation matters.

Isolation matters. When alone, we are cut off. There are no emergency medical personnel, no firefighters, no police, no military. We do not have access to stores, utilities, or repairers. Our society is sophisticated and complex. None of us knows enough to be entirely self-sufficient. We rely on experts. We're helpless without them. When no one's home but us (and the monster), we're in a whole world full of hurt. Here, King scores again with The Shining. Other stories in which out-of-the-way buildings evoke fear include The Hills Have Eyes (1977), Psycho (1961), Wrong Turn (2003), and The Cabin in the Woods (2012).

For in-print stories of horror in isolated settings, try Stephen King's novel, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon (1999) or his Despeation (1996), James Rollins's novel Subterranean (1999), and Denise Lehane's novel Shutter Island (2003). Sir Winston Churchill's short story “Man Overboard” (1899), H. G. Wells's short story “The Cone” (1895), Edgar Allan Poe's short story “The Masque of the Red Death” (1845), and Charles Dickens's short story “The Signal-man” (1866) are superb examples of the isolated horror story as well.

Neglect matters.

Neglect matters. If someone cannot (or will not) look after his or her own home, he or she probably won't look after us, either, should we need help. Neglectful people are usually careless people. Think about that for a moment: careless people = people who care less; in fact, they may not care at all. People who don't give a damn are not survival assets; quite the contrary, their negligence could get us killed.

Of course, a building, especially a house, in a state of neglect, suggests a negligent resident or owner. Do we really want to trust our lives to such an individual. The answer is simple, and it isn't no; it's hell no! The Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode “Out of Sight, Out of Mind” (1997) is an example of what can happen as the result of neglect, as is the movie Hide and Seek (2005).

Neglect also happens in Stephen King's novels Carrie (1974) and in Bentley Little's novel The Ignored (1997).

Disrepair matters.

Disrepair matters. Disrepair may be caused by neglect, but it goes well beyond the effects of inattention and laziness. It suggests unsoundness verging upon collapse. Symbolically, a building in a state of disrepair suggests madness. A house in such a state implies that its resident or owner may also be unsound, verging upon mental collapse. Certainly, that's the case in Edgar Allan Poe's “The Fall of the House of Usher” (1839) and a host of other haunted house horror stories.

Location matters.

Location matters. We've already mentioned how isolation can evoke feelings of helplessness. A house on a hill can dwarf us. Looking up at something implies that we are smaller (and lesser) than it, that we are inferior to it. That's why judges and legislators sit on high, to impress us with their superior status, to help us remember our place, our subordinate positions in society. Elevation confers status and authority, weheras the lower the station, the less importance and standing one has. The house in Psycho (1961) suggests its de facto owner, Norman Bates's “mother,” rules the roost; Norman, her caretaker, works for her, much of the time in the motel on the grounds below.

Personification matters.

Personification matters. Most of the buildings we've considered are frightening, each in its own way. More frightening than most—perhaps all—others, however, is the house with a personality of its own. A house to which human attributes (in the case of horror, horrible ones) have been assigned are more than just creepy; they can think, feel, and, worst of all, accomplish their will through action. They can injure, maim, or commit premeditated murder. The house in The Amityville Horror (2005), we can tell by the “eyelike windows,” to borrow a phrase from Poe's “The Fall of the House of Usher,” indicate there's a twisted, maniacal madness to the place. It's a house with a personality. It even has curb appeal. To enter, though, is tantamount to suicide.

As the opening paragraph of Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House indicates, her haunted house is also personified:

No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone. 

 

In a later post (maybe the next one), we'll take a look at the interior of buildings built to evoke fear.

How Much Does It Cost to be a Ghostbuster? (A LOT!)

Copyright 2011 by Gary L. Pullman

You’ve probably seen these ghost hunter shows on television. (Supposedly, they’re “reality shows.”) The hosts and hostesses enter houses, abandoned or occupied (if the latter, always with the permission of the residents, many of whom hire the ghost hunters as not only hunters of ghosts but as Ghostbusters as well) to seek out and sometimes evict ghosts and ghostesses. Perhaps, after viewing one of these shows, you’ve decided that busting ghosts and ghostesses might be a fun way--or a relatively fun way--to make a living (notice, I didn’t say “earn” a living). And you could be right: different strokes for different folks, and all that, but you should know this first: If you want to be a first-rate Ghostbuster, you’d better be willing to fork over the Big Buck$--$11,830.42, to be exact!

I know, I know, that sounds a bit on the steep side, especially considering the state of the economy, but there’s no room for compromise: people are depending on you; lives could be at stake. Besides, you do get quite a big bang for the buck:

• EMF/Temperature Gauge ($239.00) (“EMF” stands for “electromagnetic field”; make sure that you know your acronyms if you want to succeed as a Ghostbuster.)
• IR Thermal Imagining Camera ($62.95) (“IR” stands for infrared”; make sure that you know your acronyms if you want to succeed as a Ghostbuster.)
• Thermal Camera with Video ($3,995.95) (and a steal at that!)
• Four-Pack Camera DVR Package ($399.95) (“DVR” stands for “digital video recorder; make sure that you know your acronyms if you want to succeed as a Ghostbuster.)
• Beginner Ghost-Hunting Kit ($149.99)
• Deluxe EMF Meter with On/Off Switch Sound Alert ($65.00) (You might be wondering why you need this device when you already have an EMF/Temperature Gauge, but these devices are not the same; this one doesn’t have a temperature gauge and the one with the temperature gauge doesn’t have a sound alert. Besides, you ever heard of backup? Ghostbusters need to make sure their equipment is redundant.)
• EMF/Temperature Gauge with RED Backlight and Flashlight ($93.00) (Again, it is not the same: this one has a flashlight)
• Learner Ghost-Hunting Kit ($89.99) (This kit is not the same as the Beginner Ghost-Hunting Kit; it’s cheaper--and, yes, you need both--see the comment about equipment redundancy--and the one about not wanting to compromise.)
• Compact Night-Vision Camera ($59.95)
• IR Light for Video and Cameras ($59.95) (Maybe the video recorders and the cameras should come with these lights, but they don’t; get over it!)
• Spirit Box RT-EVP2, EVP-RT-EVP ($289) (“EVP” stands for electronic voice phenomena; make sure that you know your acronyms if you want to succeed as a Ghostbuster. I don‘t know what a Spirit Box is or does,* but the name of the device itself, “Spirit Box,” tells you that you have to have it; besides, it’s a measly $289 bucks!)
• Ghost Meter ($27.95) (How can you be a self-respecting Ghostbuster without a Ghost Meter?)
• Full-Spectrum Digital camera ($299.95) (It sounds expensive, but, hey, it’s “Full-Spectrum.”)
• Spirit Box B-PSB7 ($89.95) (If you don’t buy this one, you’ll regret it if your other model malfunctions.)
• EVP Recorder with USB and LIVE Listening ($79.95) (“USB” stands for “universal serial bus”; make sure that you know your acronyms if you want to succeed as a Ghostbuster.)
• Deluxe EMF Meter with On/Off Switch ($59.90) (Sure, you already have two other of these devices, but this one is the Deluxe model. Geesh!)
• Full-Spectrum HD Camcorder ($299.95) (“HD” stands for “high-definition”; make sure that you know your acronyms if you want to succeed as a Ghostbuster.)
• FLIR i7 Compact IR Thermal Imagery Camera ($1,595.00) (“FLIR” stands for “Forward-Looking Infrared”; make sure that you know your acronyms if you want to succeed as a Ghostbuster.)
• Laser Grid Scope ($28.00)
• Laser Grid GS1 ($89.95)
• Full Spectrum HD Camcorder ($193.00)

*If you want more information about any of this equipment, including its physical appearance--there are plenty of pictures--here’s one source: http//www.ghoststop.com, where, for example (I took pity on you), “Spirit Box” is defined as:

compact tool for attempting communication with paranormal entities. It uses radio frequency sweeps to generate white noise which theories suggest give some entities the energy they need to be heard. When this occurs you will sometimes here voices or sounds coming through the static in an attempt to communicate.

Monstrous Signs

Copyright 2011 by Gary L. Pullman

Haunted houses are easy. Well, the signs that a house may be haunted are easy to spot, anyway. Things seem to move of their own accord. Last night, your car keys were on the dresser; this morning, they’re on the kitchen counter, beside last night’s leftover Chinese takeout meal. You hear strange noises. Slime oozes down the walls. There’s a foul stench--and it’s not coming from the leftover Chinese food. Ghosts are seen--or something that could be ghosts.

The signs of the presence of a monster are not so easy to spot. But there are some, for those who have the eyes to see them. In his short story, “The Damned Thing,” there are signs aplenty of a monster’s presence. Invisible, its presence is known by its effects upon vegetation and, indeed, human beings. During a fishing and hunting expedition with his friend Hugh Morgan, Harker, who witnessed Morgan’s death, says the two men heard “a noise as of some animal thrashing about in the bushes, which we could see were violently agitated.” Morgan aims his shotgun in the direction of the noise, and when Harker asks what has made the commotion, Morgan replies, “That Damned Thing.” Harker then sees a peculiar sight, which he describes, to the coroner’s jury investigating Morgan’s death, in the following manner:

"I was about to speak further, when I observed the wild oats near the place of the disturbance moving in the most inexplicable way. I can hardly describe it. It seemed as if stirred by a streak of wind, which not only bent it, but pressed it down--crushed it so that it did not rise; and this movement was slowly prolonging itself directly toward us.

A few moments later, Morgan is attacked, and, as he looks on in horror, Harker hears

“. . . Morgan crying out as if in mortal agony, and mingling with his cries were such hoarse, savage sounds as one hears from fighting dogs. Inexpressibly terrified, I struggled to my feet and looked in the direction of Morgan's retreat; and may Heaven in mercy spare me from another sight like that! At a distance of less than thirty yards was my friend, down upon one knee, his head thrown back at a frightful angle, hatless, his long hair in disorder and his whole body in violent movement from side to side, backward and forward. His right arm was lifted and seemed to lack the hand--at least, I could see none. The other arm was invisible. At times, as my memory now reports this extraordinary scene, I could discern but a part of his body; it was as if he had been partly blotted out--I cannot otherwise express it--then a shifting of his position would bring it all into view again.

"All this must have occurred within a few seconds, yet in that time Morgan assumed all the postures of a determined wrestler vanquished by superior weight and strength. I saw nothing but him, and him not always distinctly. . . . “

One way to recognize the presence of a monster, then, is by its effects upon its environment. Other stories in which invisible or nearly invisible monsters may be recognized by such signs include the short stories “The Horla” by de Maupassant and “What Was It?” by Fitz-James O’Brien and the motion picture Predator, directed by John McTiernan.

Monsters are sometimes recognizable by their unique signatures, or distinctive marks. For example, vampires are often suspected when it is discovered that the throats of human corpses bear puncture wounds such as those that a large snake--or a bloodsucking fiend--leave as a result of slaking their thirst. There are a number of other ways by which to recognize vampires, according to The Vampire Hunter’s Guide, including:

• Fangs
• Red eyes
• Long nails
• Paleness
• Reluctance to enter house without invitation
• Hairy palms
• Aversion to bright lights
• No appetite
• Never seen during the day hours (not always true with some species)
• Possesses remarkable strength
• Has quiet footsteps
• Possesses knowledge about botany, with a large collection of soil in a house or in a vicinity
• Resides in an abode deemed evil by others
• Strange clothing habits
• Evidences enormous sexual appeal
• People who know him/ her frequently die
• Rarely, if ever, discusses religion
• Really bad breath

It’s hard to miss a demon: the claws, horns, tail, and cloven hooves are sure giveaways. However, a demon that takes up residence inside a person, possessing him or her, may be more difficult to detect, especially when he or she can be confused with the effects of organic or mental illnesses. In fact, until quite recently, the mentally ill were often considered to be people possessed by demons. A movie, The Exorcism of Emily Rose, makes it clear how difficult it can be, even for a priest who has been trained as an exorcist, to make the distinction between madness and demonic possession. This film also makes it clear how tricky the terrain becomes, legally speaking, when one seeks to exorcize demons that may or may not actually exist and the mad (or possessed) person dies in the course of the exorcism. It’s best to leave exorcisms to the exorcists or psychiatrists, but, for those who are too willful or stubborn (or stupid) to do so, these may be signs, according to the website Demonbuster, of the presence of an indwelling demon:

1. Disturbances in the emotions which persist or recur.
2. Disturbances in the mind or thought life.
3. Outbursts or uncontrolled use of the tongue.
4. Rcurring unclean thoughts and acts regarding sex.
5. Addictions to nicotine, alcohol, drugs, medicines, caffeine, food, etc.
6. Many diseases and physical afflictions are due to spirits of infirmity (Luke 13:11).

 Of course, when a writer finds it difficult to determine the signs of a particular monster--perhaps the fiend is one of a kind--the author can just make up an invention that has the amazing capability of detecting monsters, somewhat as Professor Xavier’s Cerebro can detect the presence--and, indeed, the location--of mutants among the human population centers of the world. Indeed, a machine isn’t even necessary id a writer becomes desperate enough. On Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Buffy (often aided by Willow Rosenberg, a witch, or her mentor, Rupert Giles, a practitioner of the mystical arts) often identified or located various monsters and demons through the use of supernatural spells. Buffy also has a sort of “Spider sense,” which enables her to detect the presence of vampires the way homosexuals are sometimes alleged to identify others of their kind by using “gaydar.” In one episode, in which Giles was turned into a demon, she is even able to recognize, by his look of utter exasperation, the man in the monster! Still, it’s kind of cool, one must admit, to develop a mythos concerning demon spoor and how to detect it.

Sex and Horror, Part 7

Copyright 2011 by Gary L. Pullman

Although he employs psychoanalysis himself on rare occasions in his analyses of and commentaries upon horror fiction, Stephen King doesn’t seem to be a fan of Freudian thought. Critics who approach criticism from this point of view, he says, tend to conceive of “the writer’s books” as “Rorschach inkblots that will eventually reveal the author’s anal, oral, or genital fixation” rather than illuminate the literature they allegedly interpret (“Horror Fiction” from Danse Macabre in Secret Windows: Essays and Fiction on the Craft of Writing, 190).

This is not to suggest, however, that horror fiction is devoid of sex; as I have demonstrated in previous posts, the genre is replete with examples of erotic behavior, especially of the perverted and deviant sort. It’s just that the sex is not sex for sex’s sake; it is not gratuitous, nor is it an expression of unconscious impulses. Often, when it occurs, it is presented within a context of social, or even sociological, significance.

According to Anne Rivers Siddons herself, the author of The House Next Door, she was careful to create a menace with which her sophisticated, upwardly mobile, middle-class suburbanite characters (and readers) could identify as relevant to their lives:

A traditional ghoulie would be laughed out of the neighborhood. So what would break and crumble defenses and penetrate suburban armors? It would have to be different in each case. Each person has his own built-in horror button. Let’s have a house that can isolate and push it, and then you’ve really got a case of the suburban willies (quoted in “Horror Fiction,” 98).

“The whole point of the book, of course, is not so much the house and its peculiar, terrible power,” she continues, “but what effect it has on the neighborhood, and on the relationships between neighbors and friends, and between families, when they are forced to confront and believe the unbelievable”:

This has always been the power of the supernatural to me. . . That it blasts and breaks relationships between people and other people and between people and their world, and, in a way, between people and the very essences of themselves. . . . For belief is everything; belief is all. Without belief, there is no terror” (quoted in “Horror Fiction,” 898-99).

King offers an example of Siddons’ implementation of her theory. During a party hosted by the haunted house’s first residents, Walter and Pie Harralson, guests come running to the bedroom in which the hosts have left their coats when they hear Pie screaming. King describes the scene, before offering his commentary concerning it:

Near the end of their housewarming party, Pie begins to scream. The guests rush to see what has happened to her. They find [her husband] Buddy Harralson and [his mentor at their law firm] Lucas Abbott embracing, naked, in the bedroom. . . . Pie’s Daddy has found them first, and he is in the process of expiring of a stroke on the floor while his Punkin Pie screams on. . . and on.. . . and on” (102).

King sees this scene as exemplifying Siddons’ use of the conventions of “the new American gothic to examine. . . . social codes and social pressures” (“Horror Fiction,” 168):

The essence of the horror in this scene. . . lies in the fact that social codes have not merely been breached; they have been exploded in our shocked faces. . . . It is a case of everything going just about as totally wrong as things can go; lives and careers are ruined irrevocably in the passage of seconds (“Horror Fiction,” 102).

King’s insights concerning horror are, as usual, spot-on, as is his further contention that this genre of literature has the dual purposes of exploring “taboo lands” before confirming readers’ “own good feelings about the status quo” (“Horror Fiction, 107).

At times, horror fiction crosses paths with erotic fiction; indeed, sometimes, the two merge, producing hybrid monsters that are half-sex and lust, half fear and revulsion. Even when they remain more or less distinct, however, the two genres have a lot in common--at times, at least. King suggests as much when he differentiates classic Gothic from new American Gothic horror fiction. “Once upon a time,” he observes, “the Bad Place was seen by critics as symbolic of the womb--a primarily sexual symbol which perhaps allowed the gothic to become a safe way of talking about sexual fears,” but, with the advent of “the new American gothic,” which depends more upon the use of a microcosmic setting and a narcissistic protagonist, “the Bad Place” now more often represents “interest in the self and fear of the self” (“Horror Fiction,” 106-107).

Although erotic fiction differs from horror fiction in that the former plays upon readers’ ideas, emotions, fantasies, and experiences concerning lust and sex and the latter relies upon readers’ ideas, emotions, fantasies, and experiences concerning fear and revulsion, they share the same purposes, at times, at least, as the dual purposes identified by King. After exploring social taboos concerning lust and sex, erotic fiction may or may not then confirm its readers’ “own good feelings about the status quo,” for after observing or participating for the first time in a sexual act of a usually deviant or perverted nature, a protagonist can either reject the sexual experience into which he or she has been initiated (a decision which reinforces the status quo concerning what is normal, permissible, right, or appropriate sexually); accept the sexual experience (a decision which rejects the status quo’s censure of such sexual behavior); or remain, for the time being, at least, undecided and confused concerning whether to accept or reject the sexual experience (a decision which suspends acceptance or rejection of the status quo’s censure of such sexual behavior). Unlike horror fiction, erotic fiction can, but need not, confirm readers’ “own good feelings about the status quo” and its censure of unusual sexual behavior.

Examples in which protagonists reject unusual sexual experiences after trying them or having them forced upon them, accepting the status quo’s censure of this behavior, are the Marquis de Sade’s satirical novel Justine, or The Misfortunes of Virtue (1791), and James Dickey’s novel Deliverance (1970) and the movie version of it (1972), directed by John Boorman.

Examples of stories in which protagonists accept unusual sexual experiences after trying them; rejecting the status quo‘s censure of this behavior; include the Marquis de Sade’s novel, Philosophy in the Bedroom (1795), and Ang Lee’s film, Brokeback Mountain (2005).

An example in which the main character seems to remain undecided as to whether to accept or reject unusual sexual experience, neither accepting nor rejecting the status quo’s censure of this behavior is Neil Jordan’s The Crying Game (1992).

Another similarity between horror fiction and erotic fiction is the concern of each of these genres with power. For King, horror is a subdivision of fantastic literature, and fantasy, in turn, is comprised of “tales of magic,” which are, in turn, “stories of power”: “One word nearly defines the other. Power is magic; power is potency. The opposite of potency is impotence” (“Horror Fiction,” 184). Often, the concern with, and for, power takes a sexual form, especially for men: “I think that most men, even today, tend to identify the magic most strongly with sexual potency. A woman may not want to but she can; a man may want to and find that he cannot” (“Horror Fiction,” 186).

Drugs such as Cialis and Viagra, penile implants, and other products of technology may be enlisted as “magical” means by which to empower sexually impotent men and to level the playing field, as it were, between women who “may not want to but. . . can” and men who “may want to and. . . cannot.” In extreme examples of erotic--or pornographic--films, mechanical devices, or sex machines are shown as leveling the playing field, as it were, between women’s innately greater sexual capacity and men’s more limited sexual stamina, replacing flesh-and-blood male organs (and men themselves) with tireless contraptions of steel, rubber, and plastic that operate, fluidly and forever--or, at least, until the gasoline that powers them runs out. Never has even the most virile alien, beast-thing, or monster in horror fiction had such tireless staying power as these mechanical contrivances!

Another way in which horror fiction and erotic fiction parallel one another is that both invite audiences, whether readers or moviegoers, to become voyeurs. Audiences are invited to observe, or even to participate, vicariously, through identifying themselves with the stories’ protagonists, in all manner of sexual behaviors, many of them deviant or perverted.

It is important to understand that the reader or the viewer is invited, not forced, to observe and to participate in these sexual acts, for he or she (more commonly, he) is free to refuse the invitation altogether by not reading or watching the story at all; is free to stop reading or watching at any moment that he no longer wishes to accept the invitation; and is free to read or watch the story all the way through--several times over, if he likes. In any case, the reader or the moviegoer, if he does accept the invitation, does so on his own volition; therefore, he is complicit in the seduction, perversion, deviance, abuse, violation, and any other sexual behavior, even that which is immoral or even criminal, that is described on the page or depicted on the film that he, voluntarily, reads or watches.

For readers, viewers, and critics who accept the Freudian view of fiction, horror fiction is more or less an extravaganza of unconscious sexual drives centered upon anal, oral, and genital fixations, Oedipal conflicts, castration complexes, penis envy, and so forth, whereas readers, moviegoers, and critics who interpret horror fiction from a theological Judeo-Christian worldview understand such literature to assess and address human beings’ relationships to and interrelationships with one another, with nature, and with the Creator of both humanity and the universe.

This distinction between these two approaches to literary analysis and criticism points to yet another parallel between horror fiction and erotic fiction. There is a reason that, in horror fiction, as in erotic fiction, the sex that is described or depicted tends to be deviant and perverted.

King asserts that the fiction of fear--and, it might be added, of lust--is a disbelief in, or a rejection of, God--the same God, it should be remembered, who bade Adam and Eve “to be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth” and not to experiment with their sexual organs and orifices just to have sex for sex’s sake:

All of these [horrible and absurd] things are mentally acceptable if we accept the idea that God abdicated for a long vacation, or has perchance really expired. They are mentally acceptable, but our emotions, our spirits, and most of all our passion for order--these powerful elements of our human makeup--all rebel. If we suggest that there was no reason for the deaths of six million Jews in the camps during World War II, no reason for poets bludgeoned, old women raped, children turned into soap, that it just happened and nobody was really responsible--things just got a little out of control here, ha-ha, so sorry--then the mind begins to totter (“Horror Fiction,” 144-145).

Perhaps King is right, but, as far as lust and sex are concerned, it appears that many men and women are happy to accept horrible and absurd behavior. Almost anything between two consenting adults is considered permissible by many and desirable by some. In erotic fiction, it is rare that an initiate rejects unusual sex in favor of accepting the status quo’s censure of it.

Much more often, it seems, the protagonist is apt to follow the example of Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist of Brokeback Mountain or of Eugénie of The Philosophy in the Bedroom, who accept their perverted sexual experiences, rejecting the status quo’s censure of the deviant sex into which they have been initiated, or the example of the indecisive Jimmy Fergus of The Crying Game, who is reluctant to accept or reject either the deviant sexual experience into which he’s been initiated or the status quo’s censure of it.

Much less often, it appears, a protagonist rejects the perverted sex into which he or she is initiated, in favor of adhering to the status quo’s censure of the deviance, as do the lampooned Justine of Justine, or The Misfortunes of Virtue and the pathetic, ravished adventurers Bobby Trippe and Ed Gentry of Deliverance.

If this is true, and most erotic fiction shows acceptance--or, indeed, approval--of the perversions that are part and parcel of the genre, erotic fiction’s rakes and reprobates are atheists or apostates for whom, in the absence of God, nothing is too sordid or depraved and everything sexual is sexy. Whether, if there is a God, despite their unbelief or faithlessness, they are damned is another question; however, since the monsters in horror fiction are often prompt in slaying those who act in a lewd and lascivious manner, the welfare of the promiscuous sinners of erotic fiction appears none too certain!

Note: "Sex and Horror, Part 8" will present a gallery of images from a number of movies depicting sex and horror and some final thoughts concerning this topic.

The Haunting of a House

Copyright 2011 by Gary L. Pullman

More a fan of the idea of the haunted house, perhaps, than one who aspires to actually visit such places, even in fiction, I have, nevertheless, visited a few and written several-article series, available right here on Chillers and Thrillers, concerning “How to Haunt a House.”  The haunted houses I’ve visited are a dilapidated and apparently (but not, as it turned out, really) abandoned house in a field of tall grass, the Winchester Mystery House in Los Gatos, California (which was partly the inspiration for the haunted house in Stephen King’s Rose Red televisions series), and the Disneyland Haunted Mansion.

As a fan of the idea of the haunted house, I was particularly interested in reading King’s insights and observations concerning the haunted house stories he’s both written (The Shining and, in a way, ‘Salem’s Lot) and read, two of which, the one in Shirley Jackson’s novel The Haunting of Hill House and Anne Rivers Siddons’ The House Next Door, are standouts in the genbre, King argues.  The first, he believes, presents readers “with a history--a sort of supernatural provenance,” and the other “gives” readers “the provenance itself.”

After quoting the opening paragraph of Jackson’s novel, King dissects it to show just “how many things this single paragraph does.”

Jackson’s paragraph reads:

No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.

King’s comments take up a paragraph about as long:

All I really want to do is point out is how many this single paragraph does. It begins by suggesting that Hill House is a living organism; tells us that this live organism does not exist under conditions of absolute reality; that because. . . it does not dream, it is not sane. The paragraph tells us how long its history has been, immediately establishing that historical context that is so important to the haunted-house story, and it concludes by telling us that something walks in the rooms and halls of Hill House. All this in two [sic] sentences (“Horror Fiction,” Secret Windows: Essays and Fiction on the Craft of Writing, 91).

Siddons’ novel, which “could have been subtitled ‘The Making of a Haunted House,’” goes Jackson’s one better, King thinks. No human characters set foot inside Siddons’ haunted house until the novel’s last fifty pages, but its next-door neighbors, Walter and Colquitt Kennedy, are affected by the residence: “We see their lives and their way of thinking change as a result of their proximity to the house,” King observes (92).

At the outset of the novel, the house has yet to be built, but, as soon as the domicile is completed, “Dionysian change,” it is apparent, King says, “is coming to the Apollonian suburb where hitherto there has been a place for everything and everything [has been] in its place” (93). The house is introduced through its impression upon Colquitt:

I drew my breath in at it. It was magnificent. I do not as a rule care for contemporary architecture, [but] . . . this house was different. It commanded you, somehow, yet soothed you. It grew out of the penciled earth like an elemental spirit that had lain, locked and yearning for the light, through endless deeps of time, waiting to be released. . . . I could hardly imagine the hands and machinery that would form it. I thought of something that had started with a seed, put down deep roots, grown in the sun and rains of many years into the upper air. In the sketches, at least, the woods pressed untouched around it like companions. The creek enfolded its mass and seemed to nourish its roots. It looked--inevitable.

The book is divided into three sections, each one telling the story of a different family of the house’s residents, the Harralsons, Buddy and Pie; the Sheehans, Buck and Anita; and the Greenes, Norman and Susan. It would be unfair to share any more of the story’s plot, but it should go without saying, perhaps, that any haunted-house novel that captures the attention and earns the respect of a horror maestro of King’s reputation deserves a read.

What I’m more interested in, at the moment, is the introductions that the writers give their haunted houses. As I argue elsewhere, a grand entrance is important to establish new characters (and protagonists, especially); the same is true for places that, in effect, themselves become like characters--and a specific type of character, at that: the antagonist. Haunted houses are typically evil places, and, as such, they will pit themselves against those who are foolish enough to take up residence beneath their roofs and within their walls. King does a fine job of dissecting Jackson’s opening paragraph, but he doesn’t have much to say about the haunted house in Siddons’ novel. In its own way, the introduction of “the house next door” is  effective in seizing the reader’s attention as it also simultaneously spotlights the new house on the block.

The house, Colquitt implies, is breathtaking, not so much for its architectural style, but for its effect upon the viewer; the house makes Colquitt feel a certain way: “commanded,” yet also “soothed,” as if the house exercises, by its mere presence, a hypnotic or spellbinding effect upon anyone who would look upon it. It is “like an elemental spirit,” but, at the same time, it is also like a plant that, seeded by “hands and machinery”--that is by human design and technology, rather than by nature--establishes “deep roots” and seems one with the “woods” that surround it, even as it is “nourished” by a “creek.” The “elemental spirit” is, perhaps a dryad, and an evil one at that, which takes up residence in the strange vegetative abode. The dryad is the perfect entity to bring to “the Apollonian suburb” as King calls the haunted house’s setting “Dionysian change.”

Another example, justly famous, of a writer’s introduction of his story’s haunted house to his readers is the opening chapter of Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher”:

During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country; and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher. I know not how it was--but, with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit. I say insufferable; for the feeling was unrelieved by any of that half-pleasurable, because poetic, sentiment, with which the mind usually receives even the sternest natural images of the desolate or terrible. I looked upon the scene before me--upon the mere house, and the simple landscape features of the domain--upon the bleak walls--upon the vacant eye-like windows--upon a few rank sedges--and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees--with an utter depression of soul which I can compare to no earthly sensation more properly than to the after-dream of the reveler upon opium--the bitter lapse into everyday life--the hideous dropping off of the veil. There was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart--an unredeemed dreariness of thought which no goading of the imagination could torture into aught of the sublime. What was it--I paused to think--what was it that so unnerved me in the contemplation of the House of Usher? It was a mystery all insoluble ; nor could I grapple with the shadowy fancies that crowded upon me as I pondered. I was forced to fall back upon the unsatisfactory conclusion, that while, beyond doubt, there are combinations of very simple natural objects which have the power of thus affecting us, still the analysis of this power lies among considerations beyond our depth. It was possible, I reflected, that a mere different arrangement of the particulars of the scene, of the details of the picture, would be sufficient to modify, or perhaps to annihilate its capacity for sorrowful impression; and, acting upon this idea, I reined my horse to the precipitous brink of a black and lurid tarn that lay in unruffled luster by the dwelling, and gazed down--but with a shudder even more thrilling than before--upon the remodeled and inverted images of the gray sedge, and the ghastly tree-stems, and the vacant and eye-like windows.

So many critics have dissected and analyzed this paragraph that it need not be done again. Suffice it to say that Poe’s description of the place embodies it, for Poe, in writing of the dwelling’s “vacant eye-like windows,” and, indeed, what Walter Evans sees as the “‘bleak’ cheeks, huge eyes. . . ‘rank’ and slightly bushy mustache, and perhaps even ‘white trunks of decayed’ teeth” of the story’s protagonist, Roderick Usher himself (“‘The Fall of the House of Usher’ and Poe’s Theory of the Tale,” reprinted in Short Story Criticism). The house not only looks like its owner, who will fall mentally, into madness, as the house has already begin to fall into physical ruin, but, like Siddons’ haunted house, it has an almost palpable effect upon those who encounter it: “with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit,” the narrator admits, adding, “There was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart--an unredeemed dreariness of thought which no goading of the imagination could torture into aught of the sublime. What was it--I paused to think--what was it that so unnerved me in the contemplation of the House of Usher?”

Like Jackson and Siddons, in introducing his haunted house, Poe both hooks his readers while, at the same time, making his haunted house forever--well, haunting!

Ironic Settings

Copyright 2011 by Gary L. Pullman

In my series concerning “How To Haunt a House” and my critical review of the movie The Descent, “A Descent into the Horrors of Extreme Feminism,”  I discuss the symbolic significance of setting as a means of conveying themes. A house can represent its resident’s soul or personality, with various rooms corresponding to aspects of the person: the attic, his or her mind; the kitchen, his or her instincts and appetites; the living room, his or her persona; the basement, his or her unconscious; and so forth. In the movie The Descent, the underground cavern in which the female spelunkers are attacked by subterranean monsters, the cave, I argue, represents the womb, and the monsters represent the fetuses that liberated women have aborted in favor of childless independence from their traditional and, indeed, biological, roles as mothers and wives.

As Nicholas Ruddick points out in Ultimate Island: On the Nature of British Science Fiction, a symbol can involve a long history of philosophical development. The idea of the island as a symbol of insular individual identity followed, he says, the loss first of the geocentric worldview and then of anthropomorphic notions which left each man and woman an isolated subjectivity, or island, as it were, cut off from the mainland, which is representative of the rest of humanity:

The idea of an individual island has become associated with that of the individual psyche, though the metaphor of the insular Self. The decline first of geocentrism and then [of] anthropomorphism as a result of scientific discovery has led to the rise of individualism, the philosophical privileging of existence over essence. . . and [the idea of] a universe in which the human domain seems an insignificant speck--at best an island--in the oceanic immensity of the spatiotemporal macrocosm (56-57).

Symbolism can be far richer than one imagines!

According to the teleological argument, which is also known as the argument from design, the existence of the universe, as a created artifact, implies the existence of a Creator. Natural theology suggests that we can learn of the nature of God, the Creator, from His creation, nature. This theology, unlike that which is based upon divine revelation that includes the doctrine of humanity’s (and the cosmos’) fall from grace, doesn’t explain (or, some might argue, explain away) the existence of evil, but accepts it as part and parcel of God’s creation and as, therefore, in some way, indicative of God’s own nature as well. As Herman Melville’s Queequeg declares, in Moby Dick, “de god wat made shark must be one dam Ingin.”

Whether one accepts the portrait (or, possibly, the caricature) of God that natural theology paints, one may apply its insight to the artifacts of human technology: whether microscopes or atomic bombs, the things that we create suggest something about us, their creators. Writers, especially of horror, do well to remember this lesson--and to apply it in their work by consciously and deliberately suggesting the symbolic nature of their central properties, or props, and settings by using them as thematic motifs.

As usual, contemporary writers can take a lesson in doing so from Edgar Allan Poe. The house of Usher (in “The Fall of the House of Usher”) is identifiable with its resident, protagonist Roderick Usher; the fall of the former is also the fall of the latter. Indeed, even physically, the house resembles its resident. According to Walter Evans, the windows of the house are Usher’s eyes, the sedges his mustache, and the white tree trunks his teeth (“‘The Fall of the House of Usher’ and Poe’s Theory of the Tale” in Studies in Short Fiction, 14.2).

Poe also uses the wine cellar in “The Cask of Amontillado” to great symbolic effect. Wine is the drink of camaraderie and friendship; indeed, in Christianity, wine is an element of communion, representing the sacrificial blood of Jesus Christ. In Poe’s story, the significance of wine, as represented by the titular cask of Amontillado, is subverted through irony. The libation of friendship becomes the means by which a mad and vengeful Montresor lures his victim Fortunato to his doom.

Appealing to Fortunate’s friendship as much as to his expertise in wine, Montresor succeeds in getting him to follow him through catacombs, where, after expressing concern for Fortunato’s health while plying him with wine (the catacombs are damp, Montresor says, and Fortunato is coughing), the villain walls up his victim alive, leaving him to die. Half a century later, Montresor, in recounting his tale, brags that he has never been caught.

Wine, which normally cements relationships, here helps to destroy a man who was once at least ostensibly a friend. In the story, the Amontillado, it may be argued, thus represents friendship itself, albeit, in this story, friendship more feigned, on the part of the protagonist, anyway, than real.

Poe’s masterful use of irony to undercut symbolic images and motifs enriches his narratives and, indeed, adds a subtle subtext to the story's overt horror. In learning from the masters, contemporary writers of horror can accomplish similar wonders in their own works of fiction.