Week Five: Witches

For week five, I read Black Maria, the first part of the Witchcraft series, and watched Dario Argento’s The Three Mothers Trilogy (Suspiria, Inferno, The Mother of Tears). The readings show two different takes on witches but ultimately revolve around the same theme of the empowerment of women. In Black Maria, Aunt Maria seems to be running the whole town with her gang of Mrs. Urs and their zombie husbands in a sort of matriarchal fashion. As she manipulates the main characters family into doing whatever she pleases, I can definitely see many of my own relatives in her unfortunately -- which made the story a little harder to get into. Witchcraft takes a different approach by showing the protagonist, a woman, first as the victim of a savage rape and murder, then with the help of the goddesses she worshipped coming back stronger to exact the revenge she seeks. This idea of a triple goddess consisting of the maiden, mother, and crone is very prominent is Wicca and other forms of Neopaganism and also represents the phases of the moon which is a major symbol of feminine power. All in all, I think I preferred this story more compared to Black Maria although the ending was frustrating.  Moving on to the films, I was really excited to watch these, as Suspiria was already one of my favorite movies. I found it interesting that Argento drew inspiration for the three mothers from a piece in Thomas de Quincy’s Suspiria de Profundis naming them after the three Sorrows that appear in that work. Aside from the captivating use of color and other strong visual elements, I enjoyed learning the mythos of the mothers as it unravels throughout all three movies.

Week Four: New Weird

Weird can be defined as something that is not normal but how can one truly define it when the meaning of normal is so subjective? What is normal for one person could be completely strange and unheard of to another. For this week, I read some of the short stories in China Meiville’s Three Moments of an Explosion: Stories. Meiville definitely has a unique style and writes about some interesting things; for instance, typically when one thinks of a collection of stories, it tends to be more narratively focused, however the titular story is more of an anti-narrative. It totally avoids the conventional elements of a narrative but is still very intriguing. I think the reason we are so interested in the unconventional or “weird” is because normalcy is a little boring. When you throw in the unconventional and/or the unexpected, it adds a little more excitement to life. I think reading Meiville’s work was refreshing to me because it was so different from the works I would typically read and that I have read for this class thus far.

Week Three: J-Horror

For the third week, I read some of the Chinese ghost stories by Lafcadio Hearn. More specifically The Soul of the Great Bell and The Tale of the Porcelain God. The Soul of the Great bell was more sad than scary.  The idea of sacrifice is very prominent in both stories. One must sacrifice oneself for the success of something being made. In the instance of the Great Bell, the daughter threw herself into the molten metals in order to save her father from death and then her spirit forever resides in the bell. In the Tale of the Porcelain God, a man sacrifices himself in order to successfully made a vase with the ”tint and the aspect of human flesh” and when tapped the vase utters the name of its creator. This attachment to objects by the spirit of those sacrificing themselves also seems to be a common theme within these ghost stories. Although I felt that the Tale of the Porcelain God was a little on the long-winded side, I enjoyed it a little more than the other story.

Week Two: Vampires

This week I read Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice and watched the films Only Lovers Left Alive and A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night.  While reading the novel I will admit it was hard to not imagine Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise from the film adaptation, but the book was far more enjoyable than the movie. I appreciated the use of the actual interview as a framing device for the story similar to what I mentioned in the previous post on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. This novel gives an atypical perspective on vampires depicting them not as monsters but just immortal beings with problems of their own. Sure some of them do have more animalistic qualities but they are far more relatable than the classic vampire. Only Lovers Left Alive does a good job at showing the more human side of vampires too. This film is also similar to the book in other ways too; for example, while Lestat and Louis are teaching Claudia, Louis focuses more on books and art while Lestat wants to show her how to kill. The same appreciation for art can be found in the characters of the film especially with Tom Hiddleston’s character Adam with his collection of analog equipment. In the film A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, the girl is first depicted as more of a monster but as the movie progresses her more human qualities are revealed.

Week One: The Gothic

Before the first day of class, I read Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.  Going into it, I had not read very much gothic literature aside from some Edgar Allen Poe in high school, but I knew the basic premise of the story. What I did not know was how enthralled by it I would become.  I thoroughly enjoyed the high emotion and romantic elements as well as the gloomy and gruesome bits. It was the perfect balance for me. I found it really interesting how Shelley framed the novel within the letters and stories told by the characters. To, me it gave the characters more depth and helped to realize the truth about who the monster really is.  One almost feels bad for the monster, as he is just a product of his environment. No one taught him how to live. The lack of knowledge and guidance about how to behave in society, as well as the poor treatment received from his creator drove the monster to become what everyone already assumed he was. After reading this novel and exploring the different common tropes of gothic literature, I was able to appreciate watching Mel Brook’s Young Frankenstein even more than before.  Although it is comedic, the film still included many of the same tropes and did a good job of presenting the same story in a different and fun way.