T'was a dark and stormy night. You're stranded in the chaos of swirling rain and wind, lost with no where to go. Just as you are about to abandon hope and give into death's cold grip, a light suddenly appears in the distance! You scramble towards the eery beacon, so desperate you fail to notice the sign reading: DO NOT ENTER. As you inch nearer, the source of the light comes into focus. A large, dark, gloomy, run-down house with boarded windows and rotting wood remains still as a mountain amidst the ongoing storm. For the first time you hesitate, but a large gust of bone chilling wind reminds you of your purpose. You run up the creaky porch with a fist already raised, prepared to knock for entry, when suddenly you realize the door is already ajar. A lone specter waits in the gaping mouth of the dark residence, as if anticipating your arrival. You say hello and ask for shelter. There is no response. Wiping the rain from your eyes you try once more to say hello, only to see an empty doorway to a house that no longer offers any light or hope of enduring the cruel weather.
What a bone-chilling scenario! The feeling of being stranded with no where to go amidst a violent storm is familiar for most people of this era. Not so much because we've actually experienced it through first hand situations, but because we've experienced it through novels, movies, and stories. Think for a second and try to remember every book or movie you've ever read or seen that opened with a stranded protagonist looking for shelter. Eventually, this protagonist ends up in an eery setting where chaos and paranoia ensue. The movie, The Woman in Black, which came out just a few years ago starring Daniel Radcliffe, was about a man who got trapped in a haunted estate due to a flood and had to survive encounter after encounter with the residence's notorious ghost. The Disney Channel movie properly titled A Haunted Mansion, starring Eddie Murphy, had almost the same scenario, just more kid friendly. But where did all of this start? Why is this story structure so popular when writers want to creep out their audiences?
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| An illustration from Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights |
Well, all of these stories are rich with elements of the gothic. Gothic novels were becoming increasingly popular during the early nineteenth century. Novels such as Dracula and Frankenstein shocked their audiences with themes of death and activity of the paranormal that had never been explored before. However, the most interesting of these dark gothic tales came in 1847 when Emily Brontë wrote her one and only novel Wuthering Heights. Brontë used the stuck-in-a-storm scenario along with many gothic elements in much more passive, yet effective, ways than anyone before or after her. It starts off her plot as one of her narrators, a certain Mr. Lockwood, must stay the night at Wuthering Heights, a large decrepit old house, during a violent storm. That very night, Lockwood finds himself in the clutch of a ghosty hand belonging to a mysterious woman! The rest I'll leave for you to discover on your own.
WOW. I absolutely loved your hook. I am a huge, and I mean HUGE, horror movie/thriller fan so you encapsulated me after the first sentence and it only got better from there. There probably aren't many scary movies that I haven't seen, and it has come to the point where I can guess what is going to happen within the first five minutes because of the gothic structure to them all that is so efficient in evoking fear from the audience. I was so happy to read this book when I learned that films and stories were based on the structure of it. I am also glad you wrote your blog post on it-and your structure was spot on. Personally, I can attest to how many movies there are that start in a similar fashion. Usually, in more recent films, movie writers have strayed away from the "dark and stormy night" and just decided that a family was going to move to a new house and strange things were going to start happening. I am assuming that form has come from some Gothic literature as well. Great post!
ReplyDeleteI love you hook!! Your hook is filled with awesome vocabulary and your use of visual imagery is just spot on. Unfortunately, I did not watch any of the movie or show you mentioned because I am not a fan of scary movies or any movies that give me chills.
ReplyDeleteHowever, there are many similar scenes in Chinese movie and shows that I had watched. Therefore, I was able to connect your allusions to my past experience. In contrast to my blog post, your blog is filled with voice. Perhaps I need to break my formula on my blog post style and try to incorporate my personal experience with the novel into a creative blog post. Now I am wondering how the Gothic elements would change over time. Would they get more scary or less? Perhaps you will be the one who transform Gothic elements to another level in film.
Like Kendall and Cheuk-Lam, I personally really enjoyed reading your hook as well. Unlike Kendall, I am not a huge fan of horror, or as I like to call, scary movies. If you have not noticed, I get startled really easily. Your hook did not startle me, but it gave me a feeling as if I was about to be startled from some sort of jump scare. After reading this book, I realize that what Thomas Foster said rings true: "there's no such thing as a wholly original work of literature". This applies to every single art form. In the case you showcased in your post, certain horror films borrow the same concept of being stranded in the midst of a storm. In art pieces, new artists apply the same styles into their own artwork. And Foster obviously made a sound case with as to how certain books can carry the same shape as well. I am glad I read Wuthering Heights and I am glad you wrote this post. Awesome read!
ReplyDeleteI heard your voice and pictured your facial expressions throughout this entire post. Mainly because we are in the same writing group and because I have seen you act before. Nonetheless, this blog post really voiced your opinion and outlook on the setting of the novel. Throughout your post, I felt as though I was on a thrilling journey to an haunted mansion. I love how you incorporated little about the novel but given that we read the novel, we knew exactly what you were addressing. I personally feel as though horror/Gothic movies are kind of funny because the characters don't think in spite of their. Anyways...your blog post was awesome. Loving the new ideas and connections made.
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