When I looked at the syllabus and saw that we were moving on to the Horror section of our readings, I was terrified. In my introduction blog post I mentioned that I am terrified of horror and try my best to avoid and stay away from it, and I expressed my dislike for the entire genre itself (however, there are some exceptions to how scary things are).Although in my introduction blog Ms. Geerling reassured me that the horror reading we'd be doing in this class weren't going to be that scary, just creepy, I was still anxious about reading these stories. However, it was to a pleasant surprise that we were reading "The Raven" and "Annabel Lee" by Edgar Allan Poe.
Nothing can express my admiration for Mr. Poe. He's a writer of much controversy and brilliance. For example, it is well known that Edgar Allan Poe was an alcoholic; however, writing scholars debate whether or not he was a drug addict as well because in his story "Fall of the House of Usher" he well expounded on the usage of opium. Or his other controversy of him losing his manuscript (the lost manuscript of Poe) that in actuality was never lost because he had a copy of it. Edgar Allan Poe by far was an interesting character, and his life (for lack of better words) pretty much sucked. However, his brilliance, eeriness, and dreariness shone through his works, that are very depressing, Going back to his story "Fall of the House of Usher" most writing scholars marvel at how his story perfectly reflects. The first half of the book reflect the other half, the house reflects the family. It was just so precisely and amazingly structured, Poe get major recognition for his writing abilities.
Okay that's enough of my rant about how I love Edgar Allan Poe. I was excited to read "The Raven." The plot is very simplistic a man was half awake, half asleep was awoken by a knocking not by his door but by his window. When he opened, his window, in came a bird who only uttered the words "Nevermore." The protagonist takes a little while to become aware of the raven's capability to only say one word and continues to ask the bird questions that increasingly get more personal-- eventually going insane. "The Raven" is one of Edgar's most famous works and he coined the term "forevermore" once this poem went viral,
The poem "Annabel Lee" was one of Edgar Allan Poe's last works. At the time, it was a mainstream concept of a beautiful woman dying. I've read this poem a few times in my life when I'd get bored and go on poetry splurges, stumbling across "Annabel Lee." Every time I read it, I'm always left with questions I'm way too lazy to Google. Does Annabel Lee and the speaker speak and communicate on a supernatural basis or did the speaker kill himself to be with Annabel Lee?
Update:
Well it was cool having the author for The Culling. I learned a lot of what went on in the processing of the book and it gave me a new insight which was interesting, Also, that mini trials we had in class gave me so much anxiety! I literally forgot who The Lady was and the entire last trial was based on The Lady. I couldn't deal with this conflict of emotions in my chest. Surprisingly, I ended up winning the trials and winning his second book. I was super shocked and that trials made me way more nervous than I should have been.
