fandomhigh | Fear in Literature, Tuesday 4th period

Jon set his bag down at the front and pulled out his laptop, opening it to the text, then turned to the board and wrote on it: The Buried. He nodded decisively and took a deep breath before starting.

"The Buried is the fear of being buried alive, obviously. More generally speaking, claustrophobia, fear of being trapped, fear of things crashing down around you, physically or metaphorically. It's an extremely common fear. Even just choosing among Poe's stories, there are four or five you could use for it, and he's far from the only one."

He turned back to his laptop. "In Poe's The Premature Burial, we get the fear of both the physical and metaphorical burying - the protagonist is terrified of being buried while alive, but also terrified that all his meticulous preparations will fail and everything will go wrong.

"He begins by relating a number of stories of others being buried alive. These are, in case it isn't clear, fictional. There are a few stories of people being buried alive - look up Alice Blunden if you're interested - but many of the most famous are apocryphal, and the problem was never as widespread as legend or Poe's narrator would make it out to be, although there are a number of known designs of coffins and tombs that could be used to alert the living that somebody buried was not, in fact, dead. There are no recorded uses of them actually helping, but again, the fear was common."

He looked out to the class. "So, how do you feel this fear is reflected in the story? How well does Poe do it? Which of the included stories in the narrative best embodies it?" How best could you get your teacher to go on tangents about this or other things?

"And for next week, please read Defoe's A Journal of the Plague Year and be ready to discuss it."

[ETA: Next week's.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Claustrophobically

Troy Barnes

Belle

Josephine Jones

Malia Tate

Look like you know what he's talking about! Actually know what he's talking about! Look utterly lost and hope he doesn't call on you!

Discuss the story, or try and get Jon to rant about something!

Jo had found the story to be quite intense but still she attempted to answer as best she could, “I thought it was quite vivid and frightful,” she said, whose own fear was cold water and drowning and the idea of running out of air terrified her.

“I think the story where the wife was buried in the family vault and they found she had been alive and tried to escape was particularly horrifying and I really felt that fear when reading it,”

"That was especially horrid," Belle agreed. "Can you even imagine?"

Probably she could, Belle, and that was why she felt it was particularly horrifying!

"Oh most definitely," Jo nodded, "I'd never read anything like that before, it was rather frightening,"

Well Jo hadn't read much of anything before, so it wasn't much of a stretch.

"Why do you think...Hm. I'd like to hear why that one struck you as the most horrifying."

“It would be simply awful going out that way,” Jo suppressed a shudder, “the idea of running out of air and not being able to breathe and being all alone and no one knowing that you were still alive,” she said, “I think that’s why I found it so horrifying,”

Jon nodded grimly. "Another name for the Buried is 'Too-Close-I-Cannot-Breathe'. It relies on that fear. Many stories, not just these, involve someone dying after being buried alive. Few have insane lovers digging people up for their hair and saving them."

Hopefully because not many people were insane enough to dig a lover up for their hair, but probably because it simply made a more horrifying story.

"Escapes don't sell as well, I suppose."

"So much of this stuff would be solved if humans just had a better sense of smell," Malia noted.

She had not done the reading, no.

"Er...um. Not really? Maybe a little bit. Can you...I wasn't aware dead people smelled differently from alive people. Well, until decay sets in."

"Fear is smelly," Malia said. "So is death, but . . . differently."

Jon nodded. That much he could understand. "But if someone is unconscious, enough to seem dead, then they wouldn't be afraid. And they might not smell of death right away, I don't think."

“Lots of animals can even smell it before it happens,” Malia said. “Helps so you know what’s good to eat or not.”

"O-oh." Congratulations, Malia. Could you smell a little extra concern on your teacher now? "I, um. Right."

He wrenched himself back to the class. "So, for the...um. Well, not really for the sake of argument, since it's true..." Well... "Mostly true. But let's just take for granted that humans can't. Do you feel...what...hm. I'd like if you told me if you felt Poe got across the fear of being buried alive."

Malia shrugged. “I guess? I mean. If I didn’t have claws and the ability to heal really fast I guess it might freak me out, too.”

It would. She hadn’t done the reading, though, and now that she’d shaken the teacher, she was kind of having fun keeping him on edge.

Yeah, sorry, Malia. The claws and healing were less weird to him. Not not weird, but he was adaptable.

"But you, um. You still couldn't claw your way out of a sealed tomb. I think." He tried to ask the question without actually asking it.

“Depends on what it’s sealed with.”

"Right. Well, assume it's something you can't claw or break your way through," Jon said. "You really are trapped. That's the fear that Poe is intending to get across here."

Malia scowled, puffing the hair out of her face with a little huff and sinking down a bit in her seat.

"Gross."

Jon actually chuckled a little at that. "Quite."

He's here!

Seriously, Poe was big on this. I almost went with "Cask of Amontillado", but I mean...this one's right in the name.

Fear in Literature, Tuesday 4th period

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Talk to Jon!

OOC!