Spooky Challenge Wrap-Up

Spooky Challenge Success:

Collection of short stories and poems I read from. 

My challenge was a success. I read almost every day I missed two days where I didn't read anything. I read two poems and four short stories. 

!!SPOILERS BELOW!!

Poems: 

The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe (★★★) 

The Raven is one of Edgar Allen Poe's most known works. The poem is a raven appearing to a grieving. He has lost his love, Lenore. Throughout the poem, the Raven repeats the word "Nevermore" after the narrator asks the bird questions driving him to go mad. This poem is not one of my favorite's, but I remember having to do analysis on it in school. That might be why I don't like it as much as his other works.

Annabel Lee by Edgar Allen Poe (★★★★★)

Annabel Lee has been one of my favorite poems of all time. Poe finds a way with words that encapsulates both this love for a beautiful woman and the sadness of death. It is heartwrenching and breathtaking. I love the flow of the poem, how you can just get swept away in the story. I find it hard not to read this poem out loud. I feel to get the full effect you have to hear it. I recommend listening to the reading by Matthew Gray Gubler: Anabel Lee

Short Stories:

The Adventures of the German Student by Washington Irving (★★★★)

This story is about a young german student who is sent to study in France by his family and friends because they are worried about him. The man is reclusive and has a dark imagination. One day while walking he comes across the place where people were beheaded. He walks up to the guillotine and just as he is about to leave he sees a woman dressed in black sitting about the steps. He recognizes her from a recurring dream he has. He brings her back to his place where he tells her his dream and they confess their love for one another. In the morning, he wakes to find that she is dead and that she was a victim of the guillotined the day before. The student then is taken to a madhouse where he dies. The whole story was spooky and sent chills down my spine. I greatly enjoyed it.

The Buried Alive by John Galt (★★★)

This short story was about a man who has been ill for a while and he is given a premature burial after the nurses assume he is dead. He still can hear what's going on around him, but he can't move. After he is put in his grave he hears noises above him. He thinks that his friends realize their mistake and are there to save him but in fact, it's grave robbers. They take him and when the go to cut into him he wakes. This story disturbs me because of the true accounts of people being put in premature graves. That is one of my number one fears, small enclosed spaces. 

Sawney Beane by Charles Whitehead (★★★★)

Sawney Beane was a strange read. It gets 4 stars for grossness. It is about this clan of 48 people that lived in a cave on the coast of Scotland with his wife. They ended up with a family (products of incest) that killed and ate small groups of people. The villagers found some of the discarded body parts of the victims, but they didn't know who was responsible. Sawney Beane's clan were very skilled they hunted only at night. Then as more people went missing search parties were sent. They were finally caught after the clan ambushed a married couple, but the man was skilled in combat, deftly holding off the clan with sword and pistol. The clan killed the wife but before they could kill the husband a group showed up on the trail and scared away the group. After that incident, King James VI of Scotland led a manhunt with a team of 400 men and several bloodhounds. They found their cave which held human remains. The family was caught and executed without trial. The men had their genitalia cut off, hands and feet severed, and were allowed to bleed to death; the women and children, after watching the men die, were burned alive. They didn't show any remorse. This story out of all the others was the most appalling. 

The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe(★★★★★)

The Tell-Tale Heart is my favorite story to read. The story goes that a man has an old man with whom he lives with. The old man has a clouded, pale, blue "vulture-like" eye which troubles the narrator so much that he plots to murder the old man. For seven nights, he stands in the doorway to the old man's room watching him sleep. Then on the eighth night the narrator accidentally wakes the old man. The "vulture-like" eye opens and the narrator strikes causing the old man to scream. The neighbours hear the scream and call the cops. Meanwhile, the narrator dismembers the old man and places the parts under the floor board. The narrator is so confident in the clean up job he did that when the police show up he lets them in. He even places their chairs right above the body. The police question him when the narrator starts to hear a ringing. The ringing gets louder. The narrator is convinced it's the old man's heart. He becomes paranoid and guilty that the police can hear the noise. He suddenly confesses, yelling that the police need to tear up the floorboards. This story is a classic horror story. It definitely will always be a favorite.