Discuss how horror each story is a horror story.

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Define a horror story. Using "Hop Frog," "The Black Cat," "The Pit and the Pendulum," "The Masque of the Red Death," discuss how each story is a horror story. Which is the most horrifying?

-- Anonymous, March 03, 2002

Answers

Hop Frog may be a topsy turvy satire of Poe's own stories, most horrific by the shocking murder of the king and his ministers. But in my opinion the greatest terror is in the first person, claustrophobic tale on imminent, fiendish death in The Pit and the Pendulum. Masque is lurid triumph of Death over proud decadent nobility trying to throw an endless party behind protective walls, but in the third person and in a remote setting using heavy symbolism. The Black cat is in the mind of a man demented by drink and his own worst enemy, horrible to what extremes his obsession leads. No, the Pit identifies us with a normal man, innocent, ignorant, bereft of sensual data and fighting to keep his reason that alone can defer death a little while longer. The horror is partly that these heroic efforts ARE part of the torture.

-- Anonymous, March 04, 2002

I view a horror story as a story which inspires horror, or some degree of dread or apprehension through suspense, storyline and/or action.

I needed to catch up on some of the literature, so I read the selections.

"Hop Frog" would be a horror story, technically, because it scared people backwhen it was written (take "the Raven"... it was considered a horror story too)

"The Black Cat" was one I did not read, so I'll come back to it some other day.

"The Pit and the Pendulum" is suspenseful, and creates an atmosphere of anxiety, fear, etc., inspiring the reader to delve into the story more, to find out what happens.

"The Masque of the Red Death" is not quite so horror as suspenseful - the end is where horror comes into play, but the main chunk describes the gaety (sp?) of the situation, and how it leads into death.

I found "Hop Frog" to be most 'horrifying', but mostly from the end (typical of Poe horror stories, with the end horror, and the rest gay and happy).

-- Anonymous, March 05, 2002


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