Fear in Literature, Tuesday 4th period

[intheeyeofthebeholding]

“Right.” Jon nodded at them all. “I, um. I hope those of you who celebrated had a good holiday. I hope you read this week’s book. Or, well, manga.”

The board read: The Spiral: Fear of madness, deception, the world being wrong.

"This one is quite literal, about the figure of the spiral as much as its fears. And if you look at each chapter as having a beginning and end of its own that leads to the next one, the structure of the story itself goes in progressively more intense circles.

"So, how well do you think the story got across that fear? Do you think the ending was at all happy, or merely tragic? What do you think they might have done differently? Was there a particular chapter that worked best for you?"



And as always, when it was done, next week's assignment was on the board: Legion of Plotters.

Comments

Sign in!

[intheeyeofthebeholding]

Spinning!

Listen to the lecture

[intheeyeofthebeholding]

Wonder if your teacher is nuts.

Class activity

[intheeyeofthebeholding]

What chapter worked best for you? What degree of tragic (or not) was the ending? Did it get across the feeling of madness and wrong?

Talk to Jon

[intheeyeofthebeholding]

He's here!

OOC!

[intheeyeofthebeholding]

Totally cheated on this one, since apparently Jon-Sims-the-writer is on record as saying this was an influence on The Magnus Archives. Still fun, though! (And really super weird. WTF, Junji Ito?)

I wanted to make this a longer class, but then we lost power last night, so that was fun.

Re: Sign in!

[x_discospider_x]

Troy Barnes

Re: Sign in!

[noonedecidesmyfate]

Belle

Re: Sign in!

[onlyajones]

Josephine Jones

Re: Class activity

[onlyajones]

Jo was never looking at spirals the same way again, “I think it was pretty tragic and disturbing on the whole,” she admitted, “I didn’t realise spirals could be so disturbing,”

Re: Class activity

[intheeyeofthebeholding]

"With luck, this fiction is as close as you'll get to seeing it," Jon said. "I'm curious if there was a particular chapter you found resonated the most with you or was the most indicative of that fear."

Re: Class activity

[onlyajones]

"I think chapter two stood out the most, with the mother," Jo said as she considered, "the part with the eardrums, especially," the whole chapter had been disturbing but that part had probably stood out for Jo the most.

Re: Class activity

[intheeyeofthebeholding]

"Yes, it. That one is definitely disturbing," Jon agreed. "Particularly in the aspect of going mad, rather than the rest of it."