Is It Really Horror?

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Is it really Horror?

The stories of “horror” genre have been much popular throughout the history. People loved to watch and read the horror stories to be afraid or to surpass their fears. All these horror stories dramatize the nightmares of human beings. After reading those stories, individuals are unable to confront those narrations. However, on a repetitive reading those stories do not terrify people any longer. It does not mean that people stop reading horror stories if they do not find it scary. It is because the horror stories are mysterious and talk about unusual scenes. The mysterious things make the readers curious about the stories. Most of the horror stories try to influence the human mind through some common scenes like Death bodies, Darkness, scary places, suspense and strange creatures. Same is the case with these two stories; “Ligeia” and “The Damned Things”. Both of the stories are attention-grabbing because these are plotted on the common themes like death, suspense, darkness and strange sounds. A person gets terrified while going through a few scenes in the stories.

Bierce starts the story in a cryptic setting and he tries to dramatize the story by illustrating the environment. Story begins in a room where group of men are assembled around a dead body. All are investigating into the mysterious death of a person in the shades of darkness. It is a midnight setting, a reader can get terrified by imagining the scenes of night. A little noise in the calmness night can terrify anybody. Likewise, hearing the “strange cries of night birds” are very scary (Bierce, p.01). Death is also prevailing in Poe’s short story. Death of Ligeia is makes the story complete and it proves that the horror movies is incomplete without death.

Most of the humans are afraid of darkness, not because it is dark. Instead, they are afraid of things which are hidden in the darkness. The scene setting by Bierce is quite disturbing because it depicts too much darkness in the story. The “Blank Darkness” outside the window makes the reader imagine things and gets little panic. Likewise, Poe has also highlighted the scenes of night at the ending paragraphs of the story.

In the story of Ligeia, the beginning part is very interesting and there is nothing like horror scenes in it. The reader enjoys the scenes of starting paragraphs and finds nothing odd and unusual unit reaches the last paragraphs. However, the story takes turn with the death of Ligeia. There is pain in the story and it talks about “sorrow” and “desolation” rather than some terrifying elements (Poe, np). At the same time, some of the scenes described in the story are disturbing because of the strange voices which seem unpleasant to the human ear. The spooky noises and unusual can easily terrify people. The writer describes some unusual sounds like “notes that stir no chord” and such sounds can affect the human ear (Bierce, p. 06). Secondly, Poe also mentions some distressing noises in the story like “Some vague sound” coming from the bedside (Poe, np).

In conclusion, the horror stories are popular among people from the past. All these stories exaggerate the nightmares of human beings and try to influence the human state of mind. All the horror stories have some common scenes like Death bodies, Obscurity, creepy places, suspense and strange creatures. Two of the stories of Bierce and Poe are also conspicuous because these are plotted on the common themes like death, suspense, darkness and strange sounds. It is not necessary the horror stories talk about horror throughout the story, there can be a one scene to blow the human mind.

Works Cited

Bierce, Ambrose. The Damned Thing. Krill Press via PublishDrive, 2015.

Poe, Edgar Allan. "Ligeia." Ebooks.adelaide.edu.au. N. p., 2014. Web. 6 Mar. 2019.