Monster Mash Essay Example for Free

Monster Mash Essay Everyone loves a good scare. The rush we feel when our worst nightmares are realized, and yet that small inkling in our minds reminds us, this isn’t real. It’s fun. First we clench and scream and our hearts pop out of our chests. Then, we smile, laugh, and say â€Å"wow, that scared me† escape our lips, and we again move on with the rest of our average everyday lives. It’s exciting, and to some, arousing. But the concept of horror raises an all too common inquiry. What if you could become one of those famous monsters of the silver screen? Would you choose to be the seductive vampire, the gnarly werewolf, the ghastly ghost, or the ravenous Frankenstien? Now I know what you’re thinking. What about Jason Vorhees, or Freddy Kruger? What about Leatherface, or the Pinhead? Those are all excellent horror film identities. They are however, latter day principals that have all been crafted from the inspiration of the age old favorites. We couldn’t possibly begin to appreciate Jason Vorhees or Leatherface without first acknowledging the colossal juggernaut that was Frankenstien. So for this paper, I’ll only be focusing on the primary figures of horror. Let’s kick this off with an all-time classic. This horror figure amassed not only one of the largest fan bases in film, but directly influenced its own underground culture. Bela Lugosi donned the crimson cape in 1927 as Count Dracula in a Broadway adaptation of Bram Stoker’s novel, where he was talent-spotted as a character actor for the new Hollywood talkies, appearing in the first Dracula film with sound. It would be four years later, with the movie adaptation of that play that vampires would become a public icon. Here we are almost ninety years later, vampire lore has erupted into many renditions, many new ideals. There has been games, and music inspired by their sultry image. These being thrive on the lust and temptation of man, the sexiness of evil. They indulge in blood, and ritual. Only ever able to enjoy their immortality at night, as sunlight invariably reduces them to dust and ash. They are dexterous, equally cunning, using sleight of hand and a quick tongue t o gain your every allegiance. They are connected into every faà §ade of regular, and have either allies, or brethren in powerful social circles. The older the vampire, the more attuned to the gift. On the darker side of this coin lies the cold hard fact that you are completely vulnerable to fire, sunlight, and according to EVERY SINGLE vampire movie, the inevitable betrayal of those closest to you. Which for me begs the ultimate question, â€Å"what good is immortality, if you have no one to share it with†. One a cold dark night, when the moon is full, can you hear the howling of their kind. They are excellent hunters, and even better combatants. They are supernaturally strong, fast, and almost impossible to fend off. All it takes is a simple scratch and your fate is sealed. The werewolf is a tragic Monster. There is nothing sexy or fun about this curse. Every four weeks, when the moon is full, your body reconstructs itself. Breaking bones, and rearranging them. Stretching muscle mass, and skin. I don’t recommend watching someone turn if you are squeamish or faint of heart. The mind goes into an instinctive mode, where you can only process hunger, and anger. You’re compelled not by your humanity, but by the beast within. No matter how you shake it, or which rendition of this monster you look at, werewolves are awesome and sad. Immense power, and raw animal agility, but without a single ounce of control. The concept of man becoming beast has been around for a long time. Ancient Celtics used to believe the spirit of the earth created them to protect her forests from all dangers. It wasn’t until 1941 that the â€Å"wolf man† would see the silver screen, and forever change the way we looked at secluded romantic ventures in the wood. Speaking of silver, nothing but, can truly bring this monster to peace. Ghosts are a funny ideal. They scare the daylights out of us, yet never even threaten us with imminent danger. Most of the time, they are the remnants of someone looking to warn us or tell us something they didn’t get a chance to while they were alive. Yet, like the others, they manage to drive us crazy, and inspire multimedia frenzies. Personally, I hate all these darned ghost hunting shows on TV nowadays. They never seem to really grasp the concept. Its like I’m watching the ghost of Seinfeld, trying one last time to do a horrible stand up monologue. Still the imagery of being there, but not there, and subsequently affecting your surroundings with how you feel, sounds like horror gold. For as much literature is out there on these monsters, very little is actually known. There are a lot of myths about spirits, so it’s hard to decipher what is truth from what is fiction. Some sources say they cannot cross running water, others say that salt naturally repels them. Most say that wrought iron, or cold iron will disperse them quickly. Last but not least, the awesome Frankenstein monster. The twisted dream of an eccentric medical school dropout. A being brought to life with the grotesque remain of the dead. The feeble attempts of a mad man to play god. This monster is as powerful as he is awe-inspiring. Unnaturally super strong, and equally impatient, he towers over the other monsters. He is remarkably resilient, and can repair himself but using new parts. A horrific machine of flesh and bone. Having to accept the weight of being the only of his kind, is the only solace he will ever hope to achieve. At least not until bride of Frankenstein, and we all know how that ends. Mary Shelly gave birth to this horrific story in 1818, originally adapted to be a drama that focused on Dr. Frankenstein as tortured soul, looking for repentance from his monolithic creation. This would fade in 1931, when Boris Karloff donned the neck bolts and platform boots. Becoming an instant classic on the silver screen, Frankenstein would later be seen taking care of Dracula’s coffin in the daytime and feeding the wolf man on the full moon. Never saying much, as to forego the myth that reanimated brain tissue results in a zombie state of mind, Frankenstein does most of his communication in gestures. I would like to believe that the incredible HULK is somehow inspired by him. Choosing an archetype of horror can be taxing. But knowing not only what you stand to gain, but what you stand to lose is paramount. Everyone focuses so on the merit of being a monster. As much as they are powerful, they are weak. To truly choose means to condemn yourself to a live of horror. Would you sacrifice the sun for immortality? Or are you more privy toward the animalistic freedom in exchange for your sanity. Or maybe you’d remain human, and use this hypothetical as tactical advantage. Knowing is half the battle, right? References: IMDB.com Copyright  © 1990-2013 IMDb.com, Inc. Bela Lugosi http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000509/bio The Wolf Man http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0034398/?ref_=sr_3 Frankenstein- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0021884/?ref_=sr_6 Monsters An Investigators Guide to Magical Beings Creators: John Michael Greer Publisher: Llewellyn Worldwide, LTD. Sept. 2001

Bicycle Xing :: essays research papers

Bicycle Xing   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã¢â‚¬Å"The Lords Prayer is 66 words, the Gettysburg Address is 286 words, and there are 1,322 words in the Declaration of Independence, but government regulations on the sale of cabbage total 26,911 words.† This statement made from government annalist Ralph Reed in the summer of 1993, show just how absurd some government regulations can be. If something is important, we generally tend to just say it. If something is not entirely needed we just fill it full of jargon and become very longwinded. An example of a frivolous regulation is the one in Missouri that all bicycles are to be ridden on the street only. The regulation strictly forbids riding on the sidewalks. This asinine regulation violates personal liberties and should be eliminated.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  This regulation should be done away with for several reasons: First, the regulation is ineffective. People ride their bicycles on the sidewalks currently and they are not punished for it. This means that there is little to no enforcement for this regulation. So, if the regulation isn’t observed or obeyed by the citizens of the state, and it isn’t enforced, than it does no good to have the regulation in the first place. It is not needed and therefore should be eliminated. Next, the regulation says that bicycles should be rode in the streets, but riding a bicycle in the street can be very dangerous. In today’s society automotive drivers are distracted way too much as it is. Accidents happen because drivers are distracted by things such as cell phones, bad weather, darkness and sometimes because they just aren’t paying attention to the road ahead. Having to worry about a cyclist on the street is just another hassle that drivers should not have to put up with. Finally, little kids learn to ride there bikes between the ages of four and six. It is very dangerous for a little child who is just learning how to handle a bicycle to ride in the street with cars that are much larger and could potentially harm them. Sometimes children swerve on there bikes because they are just getting used to them, and a child swerving into traffic could be deadly. Then this creates a problem because it’s too dangerous for a child to ride in the street, and the sidewalk is off limits, so the child has nowhere to pursue the happiness that a bicycle could bring.

How are Relationships Presented in the Poems you Have Studied?

In ‘Havisham’, ‘Quickdraw’, ‘Salome’ – all by Carol Ann Duffy, the current poet laureate of Britain – and ‘The Farmer’s Bride’ by Charlotte Mew, relationships are presented as being constant power struggles between the two parties involved. These poems do not conform to traditional romantic poetry, but instead take a candid approach to the aspects of relationships that aren’t conventionally explored. All four of the poems I studied are dramatic monologues, giving the reader a first person perspective of what happened in the build up to, or during the poem itself.Although a comprehensive psychological insight into the character is available to us, allowing us to make our own judgements about the personas adopted by the poets, we are nonetheless given a biased account of the occurrences and hence it is difficult to conclude whether or not their portrayal of what happened is trustworthy. The titles of the po ems serve to objectify the person they are referring to: the lack of honorific title in ‘Havisham’ takes away the reader’s ability to judge the gender of the persona, which, in turn expresses the character’s loss of status.Those who have read ‘Great Expectations’ by Charles Dickens would be aware that ‘Havisham’ refers to Miss Havisham in the book. The lack of an honorific title symbolises her embarrassment and denial about her rejection in love and moreover puts her on par with characters like Hamlet and Othello, who weren’t at any point called ‘Prince Hamlet’ or ‘General Othello’. This technique used by Duffy portrays the persona as being of great importance; however, to anyone who hasn’t read the book, the question remains: who, or what is ‘Havisham’?Both the title and the first line of the poem ‘Salome’, also by Duffy, is a single word: Salome. Igniting our curi osity, we wonder: what’s Salome? It could be a person, a place or a thing. This uncertainty is what encourages the reader to continue reading. Lastly, ‘The Farmer’s Bride’ is a perfect example of objectification. This suggests to the reader that the wife is the property of the farmer, which is further emphasised by the lack of a name for her throughout the poem.According to the context of the poem, this was customary of the time: in the 19th Century, many farmers would choose wives who had a useful skill set for  life on a farm. The institution of marriage gave total legal authority to the man and a wife could not legally refuse the sexual demands of her husband. This borderline misogyny expresses the position of women in the community. The title portrays the wife as nothing but a mere object that can be used to aid its owner either through manual labour or sex. The incongruous poem, with regards to objectification, is ‘Quickdraw’. Duffy ins tead plays on Wild West iconography, suggesting that the relationship the poem describes is a battlefield.Immediately, we can guess what this poem will be about – dissimilar to ‘Havisham’ and ‘Salome’ – even if is in a metaphorical sense. A â€Å"quickdraw† is a tense gunfight at the end of which only one person is left standing – further proof that the title is a metaphor for this all-consuming relationship. Plosive consonants are used by Duffy to show the emotional callousness of the characters she adopts: in ‘ Havisham’ the character shows the reader that love doesn’t just affect us emotionally, but is felt in our entire beings, when she says that it isn’t just the heart that â€Å"b-b-b-breaks†.This could suggest that her speech is just as broken as her withering body and life; however, it also shows the violent side to the persona, making us question her sanity. From very early on in the poe m, the reader doesn’t question that the character of Salome is unhinged due to her flippant attitude to her actions, but the use of the onomatopoeic words – which happen to contain plosive consonants – â€Å"clatter†¦ clutter† adds not only to the fast rhythm of the poem, but also to the coldness and devilry of the persona.In ‘Quickdraw’, the character adopted by Duffy is portrayed as being the inferior person in the relationship; however, after being stoic and obsequious for so long, she attempts to retaliate, ultimately failing: â€Å"squeeze the trigger of my tongue, wide of the mark†. The Western imagery, â€Å"wide of the mark† adds to the heartlessness of the character, as in Wild West cinematography, people didn’t often show mercy. The â€Å"trigger of [her] tongue† may have been her only weapon left in the destructive relationship she found herself in and furthermore, this parody could perfectly descri be an argument: the inevitable truth is that words do hurt.Additionally, the alliteration of the ‘t’ sounds is comical, juxtaposed with the subject matter. The use of irony in both ‘Havisham’ and ‘Salome’ seems to emphasise the mental instability of the characters, which in turn symbolises their superiority, as they refuse to take responsibility even when the truth is obvious to us. The character of Havisham asks herself, â€Å"Who did this to me? †. This shows her genuine confusion at the state she is in, but to the reader, it is blatant that she did this to herself.She made a conscious choice to be self-pitying and not move on with her life. However, due to the context, we know that it would have been difficult. The persona labels herself a â€Å"spinster†. She, evidently showing how condemned she feels, spat this Victorian label out in distaste, as if she was worthless without a husband. The character of Salome said that her la st lover had â€Å"come like a lamb to the slaughter to Salome’s bed†. Here, the persona refers to herself as Salome, who according to Christian mythology was the stepdaughter of King Herod.After dancing for him, he said he would grant any of her wishes, so, prompted by her mother, she asked for the head of John the Baptist. He had said that her mother, Herodias’ marriage to King Herod was unlawful and incestuous. Herod sent an executioner to the prison where John was being kept and his head was brought to Salome in a dish. By comparing herself to this Biblical character, she is portrayed as being able to use the powers of seduction and lust to defeat her feeble and naive prey, making us view her as a conniving character.The irony lies in the fact that she had, in fact, murdered him the night before and seems proud of it: â€Å"I flung back the sticky red sheets†, which insinuates that, firstly, the blood was clotted and thus relatively old, and that she was delighted to present what she had created by â€Å"[flinging] back† the sheets. The structures of ‘Havisham’ and ‘Quickdraw’ are organised into four quatrains each, directly juxtaposing the personalities of the characters and relationships portrayed in them.The persona of Havisham lacks stability and the relationship in ‘Quickdraw’ is whimsical and fast-paced, emphasised by the two lines: â€Å"you ring, quickdraw, your voice a pellet in my ear, and hear me groan†. These erratic verses are followed by the crux of the poem, cleverly disguised by Duffy through the use of enjambment. If lines 5 and 9 are put together, they read â€Å"you’ve wounded me through the heart†. This ingenious manipulation of structure intensifies the meaning of the poem and makes us sympathise with the speaker about her failed relationship.On the other hand, it is the chaotic structure and rhyme scheme in ‘The Farmer’s Brideâ €™ that reflects the wife’s apparently unpredictable personality. At first, the wife is described by Mew as not being a woman, but more like â€Å"a little frightened fay†. On the surface, this simile would suggest that she was a demure, lithe character who is afraid of human contact; nevertheless, according to Elizabethan folklore, fays – also called fairies or faeries – were wicked creatures that would happily unleash their wrath on those who didn’t cajole them and comply with their every demand.This paints a much more alarming picture of her persona, which could somewhat reflect Charlotte Mew’s own mental state, as she had a thorough insight into mental illnesses. Similarly, the speaker in ‘Salome’, by means of the tumultuous structure and rhyme scheme, paints an ominous picture of the insane character. The chilling aspect being that throughout the poem, the persona is calm and collected, adding to her menacing satisfacti on by using throwaway remarks such as â€Å"there, like I said†¦ was his head on a platter†.Both of the poets I have studied are female and homosexual, thus it can be said that they may have taken a slightly biased approach to talking about the idea of power struggles in relationships. In all but one of the poems – namely ‘Salome’, in which the female acts as a despot – the female is the sycophantic character, clinging onto the idea that she would be nothing without a man by her side.In all of the poems however, there is an element of trying to make their lives better, regardless of if the relationship continues or not: the character of Havisham says that she â€Å"stabbed at a wedding cake†. This is a metaphorical way of saying that she ‘gave it a stab’ but the cake symbolises her failure to make it work. In ‘Quickdraw’, the use of â€Å"Last Chance saloon†, a piece of cliched Wild West iconography shows that she tried to fix their relationship, but the â€Å"silver bullets† of her partner’s kisses eventually drained the life out of her.The character of ‘Salome’ declares â€Å"Never again! †, although it was short-lived, the addition of an exclamation mark shows us that she was determined to change her ways. The farmer in Mew’s poem describes the ground as being â€Å"spread white with rime†. This symbolises the inevitability of the disintegration of their relationship. This unconventional take on relationships is more realistic than idealistic and provides a cynical viewpoint on what is usually heavily romanticised literature.

The White Men Have Intentions Opposite Of Those From...

I. The white men have intentions opposite of those from Invisible Mans. IM is merely an entertainer or comedy act for the wealthy white men. In Twarie’s article, he discusses an element of moral and emotional ambiguity to the novel, contributing to the mode of questioning that dominates it. Symbolic situations are illuminated in Ellison’s novel such as the Battle Royal, and the boxing match which give rise to the stereotypes we see throughout the chapter (196). When the IM first arrived at the ballroom, he was under the impression that because he was there anyway, he might as well take part in the battle royal to be fought (Ellison 2). The Invisible Man suspected that fighting a battle royal might distract from the dignity of his speech. Tewarie tells us that the Battle Royal scene emphasizes the essentially feudal nature of southern society in the relationship between the black, and the white men. Tewarie emphasizes that â€Å"a black man cannot hope to be conceded his individuality nor his personhood† (193). As the chapter continues, we see how the white men at the smoker treat the IM, and interact with him. Before the battle royal begins I can see that the Ellison forecasts an air of humility and social responsibility- acknowledging social inequality. II. The humiliation, and dishonor the boxing match plays out to be IM has had no voice in whether or not he wanted to enter the boxing ring, or participate in the battle royal. In Tewarie’s article we learn that the BattleShow MoreRelatedRalph Ellison’S Invisible Man Tells An Important Story1846 Words   |  8 Pages Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man tells an important story about identity and visibility, by following a nameless narrator who - at the time the story is told - lives in a hole in the ground to avoid society. 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