ENGL 3940 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Ghost Story, Haunted House, Optical Illusion
3 Feb 2017
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Fear, eerie, tension/suspense, fear of unknown, injury/death (don(cid:835)t know ghost intention, doesn(cid:835)t belong/should not exist in the same realm) The complete other (antithesis of what you are, i. e. death, not supposed to exist) Question real life, what is real and what is not. Ghosts and vengeance (i. e. hamlet), unfinished business leads to haunting (ghosts lose agency, need living person to complete something) Ghosts there to teach you a lesson, ethical. Connections to past, race, gender, history, etc. Above mostly originated in the victorian period (when the ghost story genre began) Literary ghost as indestructible, changes with styles and fiction but never goes out of style. Power of the dead to return and confront the living. Literary ghost becomes more dynamic and active as stories become more popular. Ghosts take on a number of roles. Between heaven and hell (weren(cid:835)t good enough or bad enough for either, sent to suffer the torturous purgatory)
