The Critique Of Horror - Essay Example

The Critique Of Horror Jason Zinoman in his article “The Critique of Pure Horror” explores the reason of human pleasure behind being terrified and aghast. His analysis suggests that those notions, which are discarded by the society as acceptable become the entity of “horror” for people. It mainly contains the ideas, which are repressed or oppressed in a society for the sake of peace of mind or harmony. In the past decade homosexuality and family dysfunctions were most disturbing notions thus, sexually or politically rebellious agents were elevated through horror in general. Since, death has been a horrifying phenomenon for humans thus, filming it in a routine killing manner makes it also a part of horror genre. It is also a known fact that unknown usually falls under the category of horror; these ideas also contain oddity of thing, place or person as horrifying. However, to make unknown or odd idea horror, mystery and curiosity play key roles in making it odd and fearsome. According to the author, the essence of strangeness makes horror entailing ideas disgusting, but this feeling of disgust generates more curiosity and appeal to the investigating person. Violence inspires wicked and dark feelings of pleasure and this depiction is enjoyed by the spectator or readers. Aesthetic horror makes the imitate fear and instils trembling feelings. Horror not always gives a betraying feeling of constant fear, but it also evokes a sense of pleasure to know what is unknown to humans that is why horror is enjoyed besides of its grossness and absurdity (Zinoman). Yet, this absurdity makes it more unique and compelling to viewers or readers in general. Jane Austin’s “Northanger Abbey” is popularly known as a parody of gothic novel chiefly “The mysteries of Udolph” by Radcliff. Her satirical view of supernatural forces and mystery is commendable. She is unable to accept the notion of mystery and horror, which people wish to see or associate to places and people. This novel shows paradox in the second chapter, where Austin is depicting how her lead characters deem that they could observe supernatural in the incidents and places they thought were haunted. The lead and main character Catherine is a inspired from gothic novels and is anticipating the same to some extent through her visits to Northanger Abbey, which is an unknown place for her. Zinoman termed this curiosity and anticipation for unknown her inclination towards horror. She was inspired by Radcliff’s gothic novels so much so that she expected to see reality out of them in Northanger Abbey. This mysterious fear and curiosity to see horror is more deeply rooted by Henry Tilney, who assures Catherine that Northanger Abbey has hidden secrets and mystical ways of working. The secret link of Catherine’s room with St. Anthony Chapel, the series of rooms along with her room containing equipments of torture, old cabinet of ebony and gold and the secret manuscripts in it, were all self developed tales of Abbey by Henry to make it more of an interesting place to visit (Austen, 114). Catherine on her visit to Abbey observes the modern architecture and is highly disappointed to see no evidence of haunting at all. Zinoman terms this aesthetic horror witnessing expectation of Catherine a desire to enjoy absurdness in unknown. The stormy night at Abbey and in Eleanor’s room, Catherine finds nothing but her hats in the chest and the creaks of the floor due to the wind only made the situation fearsome. However, Austin mocks how Catherine finds an odd manuscript and how she is unable to read it due to fear of unknown superpowers against it. Environment developed for this finding of manuscript was aesthetic horror, but the manuscript was only a laundry bill nothing else. So our heroin is rather ashamed then scared eventually. One must deem that Catherine is way too imaginative for her own good and that was the point Austin wanted to make in her parody of gothic novel. The repressed idea of entertaining suspicion against a repudiated and powerful is also one horror element in pragmatic societies. According to Zinoman, horror in terms of psychopath killing pattern portray and encourage sadist male gaze and it is also mocked by Austen when Catherine gets suspicious of General Tinley for murder of his wife or enslaving her in a secret room. This idea is also shattered when she finds nothing strange in the cosy and sunlit home (Austen, 178). There is less evidence of supernatural forces in reality, but since Catherine is a wide-eye reader of Gothic that is why her imagery was highly influenced by suspicion, curiosity and fear of unknown. On the other hand, Stephen King’s renowned novel “The Shinning” is a more apt and real example of gothic tale. One can observe supernatural qualities in the boy Danny (Jack’s son) and also in Dick Halloran (the chef at Overlook Hotel). Zinoman pointed out that family dysfunctions were the ideas repressed in a society for the sake of honour. However, these factors do exist and King portrayed it through Jack, Wendy and Danny’s characters. This family is horror stricken not only of their present haunting situation in the hotel, but also of the past (Jack’s drinking and beating habit). Rotting corpse coming to life in room 217, supernatural phenomena in the shape of Tony, hedge animal coming to life and hunting Jack and Danny, ballroom’s coming to life them self at Redrum, psychic calling, drunk Jack’s craziness of killing his wife and child for betrayal have been a good blend of fear factors of a gothic drama. Zinoman also signified that horror in terms of violence is also a key feature of aesthetic horror, where one fears for his life and runs being afraid. Readers could sense how Wendy being beaten with a mallet crawled and ran for life. Similarly, how Jack the psycho-pathetic killer deemed that mallet is the medicine for disobedience for Wendy and Danny both. Zinoman signified the fear of unknown and the curiosity for gaining knowledge of it as well, which one can observe when Danny is unable to keep hold of his curiosity and enters room 217. The corpse of a woman in bathtub gets alive and even one can observe that Jack also heard her being outside the corridor. The knowledge costs several serious neck bruises for Danny, but this does not stops him from being with the family or running away from the hotel. Simultaneously, when Jack is possessed by some evil spirit of the hotel and Grady (ghost) lets him out of pantry on the promise of killing his family and the readers feel that the blood thirsty haunted building is ready to take the tool of sacrifice. The author has intensified every mystery of unknown in a very meticulously step by step manner. The arrival of Jack and his family in hotel and the normality of the psychopath killer Jack is initially very subtle as he is a family guy who loves his son. As, Zinoman pointed out in his article that darker feelings of human beings are scarier than any unknown supernatural entities in the universe. Thus, one can observe that Tony’s (a vision/ guiding spirit/ Danny’s future) presence is a super natural phenomena and Danny’s ability to read mind also, but nether it was fearsome or strange enough to be scary. Horror takes birth when humans utilize these supernatural factors in a brutal manner for their own selfish sake and on the stake of someone else’s life. Yet, readers could observe that this was not the case with Danny (the protagonist), though Jack did not hold any supernatural powers, but his darker side for violence was so strong that he ended up becoming the evil and faced his own ruthless ending eventually. Conclusively, this is how humans like to see the unknown end, taking the darker one with them and leaving the brighter one behind and alive. Bibliography: Top of Form Austen, Jane. Northanger Abbey. , 2014. Print. Bottom of Form Zinoman, Jason. 'The Critique Of Pure Horror'. Nytimes.com. N.p., 2011. Web. 1 Mar. 2015. Read More