To paraphrase Elizabeth Barrett Browning, in this and the next post, we ask of life, “How do I fear thee? Let me count the ways.”
Jails and prisons. Why do they frighten? The answer is simple. They’re full of psychopaths in with whom one is locked! There may also be brutal, sadistic guards and an apathetic warden. There are beatings, rapes, and murders, and one can never trust anyone. Parole board meetings are likely to end in a denial of parole and a continuation, for at least four more years, of one’s sentence. For those who are scheduled to be executed, the electric chair, the gas chamber, the lethal drugs, or the firing squad looms, with seemingly interminable appeals stretching between the present (life, after a fashion) and the future (death by execution). Neither family members nor true friends are present. The closest thing to hell on earth, jails and prisons both isolate and imprison, trapping men and women in hostile, potentially lethal environments from which, as a rule, there is no escape, for which reasons they are, in horror fiction, as in life, bases for fear.
Lamia. Why does it frighten? The answer is simple. A lamia, or snake-woman, is a fusion of two creatures that are never otherwise a synthesis--a reptile and a human being of the feminine persuasion. Such hybrids are, in themselves, horrible. However, they are horrible for more than the reason that they represent a being that defies natural law and the way things are supposed to be. In such hybridizations, the animal component benefits from its fusion with the human, gaining much greater intelligence (unless the woman with whom the snake is fused is Brittany Spears or Paris Hilton, perhaps), but the human component of this ungodly union is not as fortunate. His or (in the case of lamias, gorgons, mermaid, naiads, and similar creatures) her nature is compromised and reduced because it takes on bestial features and qualities. The hybrid is less, not more, human. She slithers, not walks, and hisses, not talks, and her desires and needs and goals are more those of the serpent than the woman. This crossing of species is a crossing, too, of lines of propriety, a defiance both of nature and its God, who has cast the canons of existence into categories which are not to be regarded as mere conveniences but as expressions of divine will and natural law. As a defiance of nature’s status quo and the will of God, the lamia is, in horror fiction, if not in life, a basis for fear.
Mazes. Why do they frighten? The answer is simple. Mazes are difficult to navigate, because all but one of their many meandering corridors come to abrupt halts, or dead ends, against walls of brick, stone, or some other all-but-impenetrable substance, leaving the confused and distraught victim, once again, frustrated in his or her eager attempt at escape. The addition of a threat--a wild animal, a madman, or a monster--to the labyrinth, of course, ups the stakes considerably, making the maze, as a potential deathtrap, all the more horrifying. As symbols of the confusion and dangers of irrationality, mazes are, in horror fiction, as in life, bases for fear.
Night. Why does it frighten? The answer is simple. Night is darkness, and darkness is blindness. It robs one of his or her most-used sight, vision. Night transforms a safe and secure--or, at least, a seemingly safe and secure--environment into one in which nothing is certain and no one is safe. And night lasts a long time--hours, or, if one is at the Arctic Circle, even days--which is plenty of time during which the monstrous forces of darkness can execute their plans for the death and destruction of their diurnal foes, which is to say, you (but never me). At night, what one does not see is what one gets! The long-term blinding effect of night is, in horror fiction, as in life, a basis for fear.
The ocean. Why does it frighten? The answer is simple. The ocean is vast. It is also deep. It is filled with strange, often deadly, life forms alien to landlubbers and odd even to seafaring folk: giant squid, octopi, man-eating sharks. If the “finny denizens of the deep” don’t get the shipwrecked fool, the elements or hunger or thirst will. Meanwhile, one’s skin will burn and one’s mind will play delusional tricks that could result in the death of oneself or another who shares the lifeboat or a bit of flotsam floating upon the face of the deep. Land is hundreds, perhaps thousands, of miles away, and the only hope of rescue is the chance passing of a ship, should its crew see one among waves of twenty feet and more. To be lost at sea is to be lost, indeed. The ocean, therefore, is, in horror fiction, as in life, a basis for fear.
Pain. Why does it frightening? The answer is simple. It hurts! It also possesses. Rather like the demons of old were thought to be capable of possessing a person’s soul, pain can possess a person’s body and mind, filling a nerve--or a million nerves--with impulses that the brain will interpret as excruciating agony. Pain is a seizure. Although painkillers can kill pain, for a time, at least, and, sometimes banish it for good, new pains can seize one’s frame at any moment. Pain grabs hold, and, without--and often in spite of--painkillers, it does not release one until it is ready to subside. Pain can last seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, or a lifetime. It’s a symptom, too--but a symptom of what? That’s the truly terrifying question, for although pain can portend nothing more serious than a paper cut, it may also foretell a long, drawn-out, and agonizing demise. Because pain is both painful in itself and because it may also be a sign of even worse things to come, it is, in horror fiction, as in life, a basis for fear.
In the next post, additional bases for fear will be identified and considered, but, ‘ere we part, let’s summarize our findings with regard to the nine bases of fear that were listed in this post:
- Jails and prisons isolate and imprison, trapping men and women in hostile, potentially lethal environments from which, as a rule, there is no escape, for which reasons they are, in horror fiction, as in life, bases for fear.
- As a defiance of nature’s status quo and the will of God, the lamia is, in horror fiction, if not in life, a basis for fear.
- As symbols of the confusion and dangers of irrationality, mazes are, in horror fiction, as in life, bases for fear.
- The long-term blinding effect of night is, in horror fiction, as in life, a basis for fear.
- To be lost at sea is to be lost, indeed; the ocean, therefore, is, in horror fiction, as in life, a basis for fear.
- Because pain is both painful in itself and may be a sign of even worse things to come, it is, in horror fiction, as in life, a basis for fear.
Source of photographs: U.S. Government Photos and Graphics