The Woman in Black Discussion Questions Part I

What do we know thus far about the Woman in Black?  What don’t we know yet that we want to know?

Hauntings are linked not only to people, but to places (usually, places where some sort of trauma occurred). Some theorists have posited that architecture can be seen as an extension of the body, that our homes are a part of us just as much as our limbs and heart are.  How is Eel Marsh house “animate” (like a living body)?

Hauntings usually present themselves indirectly, obliquely, at the edge of consciousness and reason (much as trauma does). We're talking whispers, thumps in the night, flashes at the edge of vision. In what ways does the haunting communicate itself to Arthur Kipps?

What is the attitude of the townspeople toward the haunting? How might their attitude contribute to its ongoing nature?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Horror often deals with inversion. King begins various sections of the novel with references to Biblical narratives such as Lazarus, which is a story of resurrection. How does Pet Semetary “invert” biblical narratives of resurrection, and to what end? What truths is King hoping the reader will discover through this inversion? When Louis explains death a second time to his daughter, after the death of Gage, he covers a number of religions’ different beliefs in the afterlife. Later, he mentions various funeral superstitions such as how the toes of the dead were tied together at Irish funerals to ensure that the deceased ghost’s would not walk. Why is it important in the narrative that so much ground is covered, in terms of different cultural beliefs about death? How might this story be different if only one perspective about death was presented as some kind of absolute truth? What is the significance of the references throughout to Oz the Great and Terrible from the W...
Read more

Cabin in the Woods discussion questions

1) What is this film attempting to say about the nature of the horror genre? 2) Who has agency (free will to make choices) in the film? How is that agency limited? Discuss both the puppeteers and the four main characters in the film. What might this be saying about agency within in the horror genre itself as well as in US society more broadly? 3) How does the film implicate the viewer in the horrors they are witnessing? (To implicate means to make them partially responsible for the horrors). 4) What role do screens play in the film? What does this reflect about our cultural condition? *Consider the scene when Marty finds the small camera in his bedroom. 5) How does the game-like nature of the film reflect our cultural condition? 6) What do the ancient gods represent? 7) What are the four  main characters horror film archetypes? What does the film seem to be suggesting as far as where these archetypes come from? 8) Do you see any tropes of other horror books...
Read more

Write your own urban legend

With your partner, come up with a brief urban legend. It's a story  you "heard from a friend, about a friend of a friend." What happens in the story? Consider some of the famous ones: Coke and pop rocks Blood Mary Slender man and the slender sickness The hitchhiker on the roof Your legend should be brief enough to be told in one to two paragraphs, and should take place at Whittier College. You're coming up with a legend that speaks to the fears and frustrations that Whittier students face on a daily basis. If you want, it can be based on an actual story you've heard from someone at Whittier, or it can be invented. You may want to consider what it is "cautioning" about or if there is a moralizing element to it. Mostly, though, you just want to come up with a creepy story. You can use the example legends as templates. Remember, all urban legends possess the following elements: they are believable, involve a person/people, and take place in a very ...
Read more