Aura by Carlos Fuentes

Aura is a very interesting story as it displays variety of supernatural elements. Aura, depicted as a niece of the old widow, is described in so many different ways that makes reader think that her age changes every day: some times very young and beautiful, and other times as a mid-aged woman. In addition, it is also very hard to relate the old widow to Aura because the widow must be more then 100 years old and the niece seems as if she is barely 20. 

When readers dig deeper into the relationship between Aura and Consuela, it comes to mind that they mirror each other: Aura behaving and talk as same as the widow. Not only Aura and the widow shadow each other, we can see this from the narrator and the General, the widows husband who passed away. As the narrator gets into bed with Aura, he finds himself transforming into General and Aura into Consuela. 

Interestingly, features such as claustrophobic characterization of a character (in this case, the widow Consuela), dark environment, mysterious decline of heritage. Moreover, alike many other Gothic literature, the narrator seem to suffer from anxiety as story climaxes. The horror that was characterized from the environment eventually consumes the narrator and in the end, he cannot even tell who he really is. 

Haruki Murakami and filling the void with imagination

In "Honey Pie" Junpei is a victim of unrequited love. In "Super Frog Save Tokyo", Katagiri is a victim of his own imagination, and in "Ufo in Kushiro", Komura is a victim of abandonment. All three men are depicted as to not having any other family members that they closely and comfortably interact with. In this way, their imagination fills their void of that missing person. I found this aspect more of fantastic than supernatural, because these stories did not creep me out, but it intrigued me how their thoughts and imaginations are extended into their new sense of reality. they are extended to the point where they start interacting with them. Especially in the case of Frog and Katagiri, it reminded me a lot of a film, Donnie Darko, in which a large demonic bunny is a figment of Donnie's imagination and he has this whole elaborate dream of doing all these crimes in his town and not getting caught. In a way, it was like how Katagiri has Frog, telling him to save Tokyo and just end up a silent hero. I guess these bouts of active imaginations are these characters' ways of seeking a sense of attachment to something to keep them grounded into the reality after something shocking has occurred to them. When things suddenly shake up the norm in our lives, it is a tendency to want to get back to stability.

The Sandman

In the story "The Sandman" i find it ironic and shallow that the protagonist is in love with basically a back-in-the-day robot/blow up doll. He wanted someone that could understand him and love him for who he was, and he had that in Klara but he didn't like the way she had thoughts of her own and her own opinions about his writing. Even when he writes to Loathar and tells him that she must be picking it up from him and that he was educating her beyond what her appearance would allow, and he told him to "stop it" seemed to me a very arrogant and close minded perception on his behalf to think that the woman he supposedly loved could not have her own thoughts or be educated like men were in that time period. Also, when he sees Klara at the end as a cold and lifeless robot instead of rightfully seeing Olympia as what she really was, merely because of Klara's rationality and mindful interactions with what was in front of her, seems to be as if whatever he was repressing in his childhood could have exploded from within him and caused him to snap, because he is so consumed by the idea that everything he experienced was real and that people or things that objected that statement weren't real or living at all. His eyes were tainted by something repressed, and he couldn't see exact reality from then on; whether it was supernatural or not, his judgement was forever skewed by the fact that he wasn't even able to tell Olympia was an automaton from the very beginning when he wasn't yet looking through the perhaps enchanted spyglass.

Sandy

"The Sandman" is representative of the uncanny for a slew of reasons. Not only is Olimpia revealed to be a humanoid automaton, the classic example of the uncanny, but several other characters and occurences throughout the story also display similar creepy traits. For instance, the original legend of the Sandman is twisted in this short story, with the once friendly behavior of putting children to sleep replaced by feeding stolen eyeballs to moon owls. This perversion is uncanny because of its alteration to a once familiar tale; what was once comforting is now frightening, and the reader is left unsure about past perceptions of the titular Sandman. Another example is Nathaniel's own cautious approach to Coppola, as his similarities to the fearsome Coppelius represent an uncanny valley of their own. Nathaniel, wary of the connection between the two yet not positive enough to act on his theory, senses a strange grotesqueness from Coppola similar to the repulsion felt by humans when met with an especially uncanny robot.

The Haunting of Hill House

One interesting point to be noted about the Hill House is how the world outside is shown to be almost a separate world completely in a number of different ways. Jackson frequently refers to the light from the outside as it comes into the world. She does this several times which draws the reader's attention to it making the reader feel as though it's separate and not part of this world. This separation is further shown in  the way that people are disoriented upon leaving Hill House because of the angles of the house. Since it's architectural  core is distorted, it makes the reader feel more as if Hill House is another world. It being another world from our own strengthens the strange consuming nature of the building.

How does the a Gothic Tale relate to a Christmas Special?

Through out the gothic tale about Hill House, we noticed many moments of repetition. As we had discussed in class, there was an agreement that it seemed that the events that occurred in Hill House would continue on in a cyclical manner. Repetition can be used as an author, a writer, or anyone really to highlight points that they want their audience to see and understand. It's like that too in cartoons. During Christmas, a cartoon played on Disney channel that featured a trio of ducks, Donald Duck's nephews. In this animated short, they relived Christmas Day over and over again until they grew tired of it and learned a great moral. In this sense, repetition is used to provide a lesson for the characters and they know of it, but what about the characters stuck in Hill House? They seem to mock the repetition like when they joke about when the meals are set. When they do this are they ignoring a warning about the terrible events that will keep on happening? While repetition is a tool used by writers, if the characters, Eleanor and the group, looked into it would it have changed the outcome of the story? The characters in the Christmas story were able to break free of the repetition because they knew that Christmas was repeating but can it be said for the Hill House group?

The Haunting of Hill House

The significance of family was obviously an important concept in The Haunting of Hill House. The pair I found most interesting and significant is Eleanor and her sister. The lack of affection and connection between the two causes a rift between Eleanor’s sense of belonging and the almost obligatory need of consolation from a sister. I could not relate much to their relationship because I have always been close to my sisters, which causes me to think Eleanor would have acted and reacted differently to every situation in the book. First off, Eleanor might have never been her mother’s sole helper and would have never even responded to Dr. Montague’s letter. Eleanor’s shyness could have not existed at all, or her strong desire to belong somewhere and almost anywhere would have been absent from her personality. Theodora was a companion to Eleanor and Eleanor thrived in being able to interact with another female whom she felt was trustworthy; without much care from her sister (besides the obsession with keeping their car) or family, Eleanor was almost pushed into Hill House to experience a sense of belonging.