Horror and Catharsis Essay - Quick Style Quiz

1. Which citation is correct?

A. He states this as a person who is an object of fear “Those who attack people weaker than us,
because if they are not already objects of fear, they will be when they have grown strong.”
(Aristotle, 72)

B. He states this as a person who is an object of fear. “Those who attack people weaker than us,
because if they are not already objects of fear, they will be when they have grown strong”.
(Aristotle, 72).

C. In discussing objects of fear, Aristotle writes, “Those who attack people weaker than us,
because if they are not already objects of fear, they will be when they have grown strong” (72).

2. What’s the correct way to cite this in the Works Cited section?

A. Aristotle. The Art of Rhetoric. Trans. Robin Waterfield. Oxford UP, 2018.

B. Aristotle. Rhetoric. London: Oxford UP, 2018.

C. Aristotle. The Art of Rhetoric. London: Oxford UP, 2018. Print.

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3. Which use of title format is correct? Punctuation?

A. Horror stories like Thomas Ligotti’s The Shadow At the Bottom Of the World and other similar
strange tales allow readers to confront their fears head-on by comprehending them and why
the events, objects, and people in them can be fearful.

B. Horror stories like Thomas Ligotti’s “The Shadow at the Bottom of the World” and other similar
strange tales allow readers to confront their fears head-on by comprehending them and why
the events, objects, and people in them can be fearful.

C. Horror stories, like Thomas Ligotti’s “The Shadow At the Bottom Of the World” and other
similar strange tales, allow readers to confront their fears head-on by comprehending them
and why the events, objects, and people in them can be fearful.

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4. Which is the correct title format?

A. In his article, Horror is Good for You (and Even Better for Your Kids), Ruth talks about horror
as a coping mechanism, and that when we are scared, it can be useful to actually watch or
read a piece of horror fiction in order to deal with our actually fears.

B. In his article, “Horror is Good for You (and Even Better for Your Kids)”, Ruth talks about horror
as a coping mechanism, and that when we are scared, it can be useful to actually watch or
read a piece of horror fiction in order to deal with our actually fears.

C. In his article “Horror Is Good for You (and Even Better for Your Kids),” Ruth talks about horror
as a coping mechanism, and that when we are scared, it can be useful to actually watch or
read a piece of horror fiction in order to deal with our actual fears.

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5. Which source citation is correct?

A. Imagery such as “it was something black and twisted into the form of a man (Ligotti, 439)” or
“all was a freakish mask painted with russet, rashy colors - colors that bled with virulent
intensity so rich and vibrant that things trembled with their own ripeness (Ligotti, 443)” conjure
distinct imagery in a reader’s mind.

B. Imagery such as “it was something black and twisted into the form of a man” or “all was a
freakish mask painted with russet, rashy colors--colors that bled with virulent intensity so rich
and vibrant that things trembled with their own ripeness (Ligotti, 439, 443)” conjure distinct
imagery in a reader’s mind.

C. Imagery such as “it was something black and twisted into the form of a man” or “all was a
freakish mask painted with russet, rashy colors--colors that bled with virulent intensity so rich
and vibrant that things trembled with their own ripeness” conjure distinct imagery in a reader’s
mind (Ligotti, 439, 443)”.

D. Imagery such as “it was something black and twisted into the form of a man” or “all was a
freakish mask painted with russet, rashy colors--colors that bled with virulent intensity so rich
and vibrant that things trembled with their own ripeness” conjure distinct imagery in a reader’s
mind” (Ligotti 439; 443).

https://style.mla.org/capitalizing-start-of-quotation/

https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/mla_style/mla_formatting_and_style_guide/
mla_in_text_citations_the_basics.html (Multiple citations)

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6. Which is correct?

A. This is what Aristotle does explicitly in his “Art of Rhetoric”, and Lovecraft implicitly in his
introduction to “Supernatural Horror in Literature.”

B. This is what Aristotle does explicitly in his Art of Rhetoric, and Lovecraft implicitly in his
introduction to “Supernatural Horror in Literature.”

C. This is what Aristotle does explicitly in his Art of Rhetoric, and Lovecraft implicitly in his
introduction to Supernatural Horror in Literature.

7. Which is correct?

A. Greg Ruth says it best in his essay Horror is Good for you (and Even Better for Your Kids),
when he says that “HORROR CONFIRMS SECRET TRUTHS”.

B. Greg Ruth says it best in his essay “Horror Is Good for You (and Even Better for Your Kids),”
when he says that “HORROR CONFIRMS SECRET TRUTHS.”

C. Greg Ruth says it best in his essay “Horror Is Good for You (and Even Better for Your Kids)”
when he argues that “horror confirms secret truths” (“Horror”).

D. Greg Ruth says it best in his essay “Horror Is Good for You (and Even Better for Your Kids)”,
when he argues that “horror confirms secret truths” (Ruth, “Horror”).

https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/mla_style/mla_formatting_and_style_guide/
mla_in_text_citations_the_basics.html

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8. What is the problem with “A” here? Let’s check the original source.

A. In Thomas Ligotti’s horror story “The Shadow at the Bottom of the World”, the main perpetrator
of terror upon a small village is simply just “something dark”, “something abysmal”, an
“entwining presence...that has gone into crisis” (Ligotti 437). (It’s the most unknown thing
possible, so unknown that the most specific thing it can be called is “something”.) In “Children
of the Corn”...

B. In Thomas Ligotti’s horror story “The Shadow at the Bottom of the World,” the main perpetrator
of terror upon a small village is simply just “something dark, something abysmal...some
entwining presence….that had gone into crisis” (Ligotti 437). (It’s the most unknown thing
possible, so unknown that the most specific thing it can be called is “something.”) In Children
of the Corn...

REFLECTION-ESSAYS - EXPAND AND EXPLORE

1. Respond to the prompt EARLY. Don’t meander your way towards it. (Save that for your New
Yorker article.) The prompt asked if you thought the weird tale was cathartic or not. Answer that
question in your first paragraph.

2. Don’t “hit and run” after using a quote. Expand and explore the language from the quote. Pull some
language out of the quote. If you quote it, use it, analyze it, connect it.

MEH (Where does it need more analysis?):

An understanding of horror parallels an understanding of complex fear, an essential skill. This need
for horror is mentioned in Greg Ruth’s article, “Horror is Good For You (and Even Better for Your
Kids). “Fear is not the best thing in the world, of course, but it’s not going anywhere and we are likely
forced to meet it in some capacity, great or small, each and every day (...) Denying this fact only
provides more fertile ground for fear to take root” (Ruth, 7). I believe that while each person has a
unique relationship with fear, some form of education is necessary in order to understand one of our
most primal instincts. Once this understanding is reached, the horror genre can provide catharsis and
emotional relief because it allows an individual to detach from the mundane and immerse themselves
in a visceral, emotional environment.

BETTER:
Every time you face your fears and come out the other side alive and okay, you gain confidence.
Aristotle states in The Art of Rhetoric, that “Confidence is the opposite of fear” (Aristotle, 73). I agree
with this statement in part, because I believe fear to be a feeling that something bad is going to
happen to you, and confidence to be a feeling that everything is going to be okay. However, I believe
that fear and confidence can exist simultaneously. Confidence doesn’t necessarily eradicate fear, but
it allows you to persevere through the fear. By watching horror movies and reading horror literature,
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you are exposed to your fears in an environment where you can explore them without any chance of
not surviving it. Thus, you naturally gain confidence and gain the ability to face the things that scare
you even more easily than before.

3. Expand your ideas in a clearer way and use the texts and quotes to bolster your arguments, not
replace them. There’s just too much going on in this example. Too many quotes. Too many ideas.
Control the discussion and argument. Use quotes to back up your ideas.

Lovecraft gives fear a place of honor, calling it the “oldest and strongest emotion” (444). Off the bat,
he states that the greatest fear is the unknown. Lovecraft uses Freud to explain this in greater detail
by saying that human emotion and instinct are formed by a nurtured environment. When we find
ourselves outside of this environment, we have limited experience and “few and simple ideas”
(Lovecraft 445). The unpredictable nature of horror makes the weird tale cleansing. The unknown
becomes known when reading about it, especially once our few and simple ideas begin to grow and
make sense.

4. On the other hand, don’t use summary in a breezy way to replace quotes.

Like Aristotle pointed out, horror or fear is incredibly relatable; it is applicable to almost
everyone who sees, reads or hears it.

5. Always recalibrate and reconstitute your terms and ideas now that you've discussed them over
several paragraphs or pages. Repeatedly pull your arguments together and concisely tell us where
we are and what we've learned before building off what you've already done and moving on.

The Greek philosopher, Aristotle, believes fear to be an imminent threat to one’s physical self. In The
Art of Rhetoric, he writes, “Let us take fear to be a feeling of pain and disturbance accompanying a
mental image of imminent evil of a life-threatening or painful kind” (71). Aristotle therefore does not
believe it plausible to fear something that is far off, like death, or something that will not cause
significant pain, like darkness, or the unknown. He goes on to assert that most people are “cowards in
the face of danger,” meaning one can never truly prepare herself for an approaching hazard, and is
thus always at the mercy of her surroundings. Aristotle’s sentiments are frightening in themselves,
because they convey the idea that fears are grounded in reality, and cannot be pushed aside as
unreasonable.

ANOTHER GOOD ONE:

Horror is not only cathartic to those who consume it; it is also cathartic for those who create it, as it
can be an outlet for the horrors of reality. A great example of this is Jordan Peele’s Lovecraft Country,
a show that combines Lovecraftian cosmic horror with the horror of 1950 Jim Crow- era America. In
the first episode of Lovecraft Country, the main protagonists are followed out of a sundown town by
racist police officers. They are arrested by these officers and taken into the woods, where they are
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then ambushed by terrifying creatures straight out of a Lovecraft novel. Peele makes the police
officers just as - if not, more - terrifying than the Lovecraftian monsters. Peele uses horror as a social
commentary to show how truly horrifying racism in America once was and still is. I believe that this
use of horror to comment upon reality is cathartic because it allows us to express pain and suffering
through fiction, as well use it as a tool to educate others.

AND ONE MORE GOOD ONE:

Aristotle covers the conditions of physical fear, but he fails to touch on the more irrational and
existential fears that also creep into our lives. On the other hand, Lovecraft’s ideas on fear in literature
focus more on humankind’s innate fear of the unknown. Lovecraft states that “the oldest and
strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown,” which speaks to the origins of humanity’s psychological
fears (Lovecraft 444). The unknown is always around us; it lies at the edge of our physical world and
stretches far beyond into what seems to be a never ending darkness. Lovecraft calls this fear of the
unknown “cosmic fear,” which is, according to him, far superior to mere physical fear. I agree with
Lovecraft's argument here because while physical fears can be understood in reality, cosmic fears
lack this grounding, which strengthens the intensity of the fear. So while, Lovecraft argues that the
origins of true fear come from the unknown, Aristotle argues that fear is a condition of imminent death
or pain. In my eyes, neither of these arguments are wrong, but rather both Lovecraft and Aristotle are
speaking of two different types of fears: one of the physical world and one of the existential.

6. Irony/humor/sarcasm/self-deprecation are always appreciated! We’re writing about horror after all.
We SHOULD laugh a little or we’ll all lose it.

No one truly knows why we’re here, what we’re supposed to be doing, or if we’re alone. Our own
personal fears usually stem from the countless unsettling implications in this, and the horror of
the unknown utilizes this to leave us with a feeling of the natural world being not quite right. It’s
uncomfortable, but being faced with fictitious scenarios that bring in this very real fear can help
us work towards accepting these unknowns through cathartic moments. We may be scared of
what’s out there, but we can find comfort in knowing that we aren’t actively dealing with
Ligotti’s scarecrow.

7. Make sure to proofread for spelling, capitalization, punctuation, and spacing issues!