Lost in the woods, in darkness, the mythic labyrinth of passageways with no exit, characters reveal the terrors that haunt them, the shrinking fear of being discovered, shamed, condemned, or of being alone, abandoned by society, unloved and unloving, at the mercy of some death-dealing power. Nathaniel Hawthorne's short story "The Minister's Black Veil," depicts the guilt ridden aspect of a preacher in Puritan times. What is his particular crime? Is the veil a symbol? Of what? What gives it its strange power?
And the schoolteacher in Stephen King's short story "Suffer the Little Children," what possesses her to behave in the way she does? Why do the young children seem to wear secret, menacing smiles? Why does she suspect them of being monsters?
Each of these stories asks us to consider the origins of sin, guilt, paranoia, and the strange, alien force(s) hidden within and around us. Can the "supernatural" be explained, our sense of forces so far from the ordinary world of business and routine. Stephen King, writer of horror stories, says "I think that we are all mentally ill; those of us outside the asylums only hide it a little better–and maybe not all that much better, after all" ("Why We Crave Horror Movies"). Stories of horror, of terror and darkness impenetrable, he says, appeal to "all that is worst in us" and allow us, for a little while, enjoyment of our "most base instincts."
No comments:
Post a Comment