The Naomi Brenneman Award is given to an essay that critically examines literature. Inspiration Point is pleased to present the winning essay of this year’s contest!
…… Fear is a tool that has helped to shape both society and individuals from the beginning. It was perhaps the very first emotion ever felt by humanity’s ancestors. Strangely, it has the dual ability not only to scare people away but also to draw them in; “when to this sense of fear and evil the inevitable fascination of wonder and curiosity is superadded, there is born a composite body of keen emotion and imaginative provocation whose vitality must of necessity endure as long as the human race itself” (Lovecraft 14). Thus, people are drawn to sources of fear such as horror fiction. A definition of horror fiction reveals that it is “a story in which the author manipulates the reader’s emotions by introducing situations in which unexplainable phenomena and unearthly creatures threaten the protagonists and provoke terror in the reader” (Spratford 13). People are drawn to ways of reproducing the terror that, at one time, was essential for maintaining the wellbeing of them as a species, encouraging people to avoid dangerous and potentially deadly situations. Furthermore, horror has not exactly stayed static. Instead, as culture changes, so do some of the specific events or situations that people find frightening. In order to stay relevant, horror fiction as a genre has adapted to the culture into which the author is writing.
…….Adaptation of this kind can be seen specifically in two surprisingly different novels, Dracula and World War Z. The authors, Bram Stoker and Max Brooks, are clearly using the way that they write horror fiction to respond to two very different cultures, based over one-hundred years apart. Because the two novels are reflections of very different cultures, Dracula is able to effectively frighten the reader using individual threats while World War Z does so with threats to society as a whole. Both are functional horror novels, despite the differences in their presentation and in the way that they attempt to inspire fear. As a reflection of the culture in the nineteenth century, Dracula is a novel that uses vampires as threats against individuals. The characters often show very clearly that they are afraid. This is illustrated very clearly at one point, with Harker saying of vampires, “There was something about them that made me uneasy, some longing and at the same time some deadly fear” (Stoker 31). On the other hand, World War Z was created with the twenty-first century in mind. Because of this, its threats are against society as a whole. Still, fear can be seen throughout the novel. One character in this novel calls out hysterically, “They’re not afraid! No matter what we do, no matter how many we kill, they will never, ever be afraid!” (Brooks 104). In this case, because the emphasis of the fear in the novel is on entire groups, the character uses the plural ‘we’ when speaking. How can it be that the two novels, both designed to frighten readers, can go about doing so, and succeed, while using very different types of threats? As culture changes through time, so too do the threats that people find most frightening. For that reason, Dracula was written to scare using individual threats while World War Z does so using threats to the individual. Both novels are effectively frightening because they are reflections of the culture into which they were written. Continue reading →
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