Blog Post 12

In "Premature Burial" by Edgar Allen Poe the narrator is a man who is terrified of being buried alive. His fear is also very realistic because he suffers from a disorder called catalepsy. The narrator says that this disorder causes him to go into a state that mimics death and these episodes can last from days to weeks. When I first read about catalepsy in the story I had a feeling that it was a legitimate medical condition but the symptoms might have been tweaked or exaggerated. After doing some research I found out that it is a legitimate condition and that back in the times where this story is set cataleptics were confused with being dead many times. A lot of the cases where people were buried alive were people who were cataleptic. I also learned that catalepsy is usually a condition that results from other illnesses such as schizophrenia. Knowing how much Poe loves mentally insane people, it's possible that the narrator of the story was schizophrenic.

"The Monkey's Paw" is a story of the supernatural because it contains an object that is claimed to have magic wish granting powers. The monkey's paw also shows that the claims made about its powers are true when it starts to actually grant the wishes. When the Whites wished for 200 pounds the paw granted their wish and they got it the next day. Besides the 200 pounds they also got their sons lifeless corpse as a seriously fucked up bonus. Later on when Mrs. White wishes for her son to come back to life someone comes knocking at the door. The husband, knowing that wishing for the resurrection of their son was a bad move, probably wished to reverse the one his wife made and then the knocking stopped. It all seems pretty supernatural, like this monkey paw has some serious juju going on but it could also just all be a huge coincidence. Okay the part where the son died the next day and they got exactly 200 pounds is really freaky and pretty hard to believe it was just a coincidence but there's definitely a possibility. The time when the wife wished for her son to be back and then there was knocking at the door it could've been ANYONE. There's no way to say that it was the son for sure. When the husband wished for zombie son to go away it's assumed that the knocking stopped because the wish was granted but it could've just been that these people took 80 years to open to the door and the person got tired of knocking right at that moment. It all just could've been some realllyyyy freaky coincidences.