The Pit and the Pendulum

Edgar Allen Poe is one of my favorite poets of all time. In high school many of my teachers made the class read his short stories and poems. What I learned was that he was a very disturbed man. He lost his wife, who died of tuberculous, and had made suicide attempts. The horror and crime in his writings how dark he viewed life. The one short story written by him that i like most is the Pit and the Pendulum.

The story is about an imprisoned man during the Spanish Inquisition. He is tormented and brought to a dark room where he cannot see how large it is. He figured out that there was a large pit in the middle of the room. When he discovered it, he went close by and smelled a horrible smell. It was the smell of dead bodies of past prisoners who raided the room unaware of the giant pit. He passed out and and was awakened strapped on his back. He soon realizes there is a large blade-like pendulum hanging above him, slowing getting closer to cutting through his chest. He finds a way to escape but the walls of his prison start to move and close in on him, pushing him closer and closer to falling into the pit.

I remember reading the story in class with anticipation and fear wondering what would happen next. It is one of my favorite short stories written by a gifted author.

Dracula

One of my favorite Halloween monsters would have to be the ever so famous Dracula. This character has been in a countless number of movies but is he really just a mystical creature? Little do people know.. he onced lived, not as a blood sucking creature of course, but as a feared, gruesome man.

Vlad the Impaler -Tepes was born in the town of Sighisoara in Transylvaniain 1431 and later ruled the area of Southern Romania known as Wallachia. His father was Vlad Dracul who was a knight in the Order of the Dragon which was a union of central and Eastern European rulers who were a tad worried about the rising Ottoman empire.
The Order of the Dragon's coat of arms was a dragon (the Ottomans) and a cross (Christianity). Vlad Dracul bore this coat of arms on everything, flags, coins, and his seal. It attracted the nickname of "Dracul" meaning Devil in Romanian.
The second son was soon born to Vlad Dracul - that being Vlad II - therefore the name developed an "a" representing the son of Dracul - "DRACULA", the son of the Devil.
The word "tepes" in Romanian means "impaler" and Vlad was so named because of his cruel and gruesome habit of impaling humans and leaving them to rot in the sun as a means of punishing his enemies. This is where the myth that Dracula kills innocent humans comes and leaving people to rot in the sun is similar to the legend that vampires die in sunlight. He was a cruel and terrible ruler. He killed citizens of the town who has done something that wasn't by the "rules".The victim was stuck on a sharp stake usually the width of a big burly man's arm .Vlad was said to especially enjoyed mass executions, where several victims were impaled at once, and their stakes hoisted upright. As they hung suspended above the ground, the weight of their bodies would slowly drag them downwards, causing the sharpened end of the stake to pierce their internal organs causing a slow painful death. In order to better enjoy these mass spectacles, Vlad routinely ordered a banquet table set up in front of his victims, and would enjoy a supper even though the pitiful sights and sounds of the dying were right in front of him . It is estimated that Vlad killed some 20,000 men, women and children - the amount of people he killed varies from anywhere between 20,000 to 500,000. He showed no mercy and often tortured his enemies before killing them.
At the same time that Vlad became notorious for his sadism, he was also respected by his subjects because of his fierce campaigns against the Turks. He was respected as a warrior and a stern ruler who tolerated no crime against his people, and during his reign erected several monasteries. He was a hero that was both worshiped and feared by his people

But maybe there was a bit more to Vlad's murderous bloodthirsty habits than we first thought.

In 1985 an Idaho physician Dr. Thomas McDevitt suggested that he may have suffered from a bizarre allergic reaction to blood. He said that in some allergic reactions to a given substance, sufferers also developed an addiction to that same substance, and if deprived of it they could react in a highly bizarre and deranged manner. Could Vlad of just been throwing a tantrum every time he craved blood? Portraits of Dracula show him with dark circles beneath his eyes, puffy cheeks and a sallow pallid complexion - classic characteristics of some types of allergy victim.

He was killed at battle in 1476 but his body was never found. This is why he became the mystical creature he is known to be today. The novel by Bram Stoker depicted him as a bloodthirsty vampire but who knows... maybe he's still out there waiting for his next victim.

Hocus Pocus

The movie Hocus Pocus begins in a small town in 1693, were a boy named Thackery Binx realises his little sister has fled into the woods, under the control of a witch. Thackery rushes after his sister, Emily, and eventually finds a house where Emily has been captured. Inside the house, 3 ageing evil witches known as the Sanderson sisters, are brewing a potion in a cauldron. Winnie, the oldest sister, highlights that the potion, when drank by a child, has the ability to rejuvenate them and restore their youth. Before the witches can force the potion into Emily, Thackery stops them and starts a brawl with Winnie, and is soon defeated. The sisters then suck the life-force from Emily and their youth is restored, then cast a spell on helpless Thackery that he take the form of a black cat for eternity. Immediately, a mob of angry villagers wielding torches capture the sisters and prepare to hang the trio from a branch of a tree. Winnie's spell book reveals a prophecy that on All Hallows eve a virgin shall light the black flame candle and resurrect them. The sisters are then hanged and Thackery remains a cat, unable to reassure his parents that he has taken the form of a cat.

300 years later a boy named Max decides to enter the house on Halloween with his younger sister Andy and soon to be girlfriend. He decided to light the candle that would bring back the witches but he did not know that would happen. As soon as it was lit the witches appeared and were able to sense children in their home.

The rest of the movie is basically the 3 witches trying to capture Andy so that they can suck the life out of her and be young and beautiful forever. Of course they were defeated and turned to dust. This movie is creepy yet hilarious. I enjoy watching it durning the Halloween season.

The Nightmare Before Christmas

One of my favorite Halloween movies is The Nightmare before Christmas. Every year during the Halloween season I watch this movie. It puts me in the Halloween spirit and has become a tradition.

Jack Skellington is the pumpkin king of Halloween town. It is the same routine every year in Halloween town, on Halloween the monsters come out and perform a real scare. This particular Halloween, Jack is very bored of the idea, he goes off into the woods with his dog Zero after Halloween night. Upon the break of dawn, he discovers a clearing of trees with different doors representing various holidays. The Christmas Tree door attracts his attention and discovers the world of Christmas, Jack is fascinated with this new idea of Christmas that he must absolutely share with the citizens of Halloween town. It winds up that the real Santa Clause is kidnapped by the citizens of Halloween town and Jack wants to take his place. Of course everything goes wrong and did not go the way he planned. In the midst of all of this he falls in love with a girl named Sally.

This is such a creepy yet adorable movie that truly gives a feeling that Halloween is on its way!!

Halloween = O

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. You have the opportunity to dress up as someone you are not for a day. This thrilling holiday has been around for many centuries.

Halloween's origins date back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain.
The Celts, who lived 2,000 years ago in the area that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom, and northern France, celebrated their new year on November 1. This day marked the end of summer and the harvest and the beginning of winter, a time of year that was often associated with human death. Celts believed that on the night before the new year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred. On the night of October 31, they celebrated Samhain, when it was believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth. In addition to causing trouble and damaging crops, Celts thought that the presence of the otherworldly spirits made it easier for the Druids, Celtic priests, to make predictions about the future.

To celebrate this event, Druids built huge sacred bonfires, where the people gathered to burn crops and animals as sacrifices to the Celtic deities.
During the celebration, the Celts wore costumes( which is why we dress in costumes today) consisting of animal heads and skins, and attempted to tell each others fortunes. When the celebration was over, they re-lit their hearth fires, which they had extinguished earlier in the night, from the sacred bonfire to help protect them during the winter.
By A.D. 43, the Romans had conquered the Celtic territory. In the course of the four hundred years that they ruled the Celtic lands, two festivals of Roman origin were combined with the traditional Celtic celebration of Samhain.
The first was Feralia, a day in late October when the Romans traditionally celebrated the passing of the dead. The second was a day to honor Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit and trees. The symbol of Pomona is the apple and the incorporation of this celebration into Samhain probably explains the tradition of "bobbing" for apples that is practiced today on Halloween.
By the 800s, the influence of Christianity had spread into Celtic lands. In the seventh century, Pope Boniface IV made November 1 All Saints' Day, a time to honor saints and martyrs. It is widely believed today that the pope was attempting to replace the Celtic festival of the dead with a related, but church-sanctioned holiday. The celebration was also called All-hallows or All-hallowmas (from Middle English Alholowmesse meaning All Saints' Day) and the night before it, the night of Samhain, began to be called All-hallows Eve and, eventually, Halloween. Even later, in A.D. 1000, the church would make November 2 All Souls' Day, a day to honor the dead. It was celebrated similarly to Samhain, with big bonfires, parades, and dressing up in costumes as saints, angels, and devils. Together, the three celebrations, the eve of All Saints', All Saints', and All Souls', were called Hallowmas.

Memoir

A memoir is similar to an autobiographical writing. It is shorter and stands for a different meaning. It tries to capture certain highlights or meaningful moments in a person's past. It also includes a contemplation of the meaning of that event at the time of the writing of the memoir.

A memoir does not go into every detail of a person's life, it simply just highlights important key events.

There are many characteristics of a memoir such as:

...Narrative structure, setting, plot development, imagery, conflict, characterization, foreshadowing, flashback, irony and symbolism
... The writer's contemplation of the meaning of these events in retrospect
... A fictional quality even though the story is true
... Higher emotional level
... More personal veiw of the events and their impact
... Therapeutic experience for the author of the memoir, especially when the memoir is of the crisis or survival type of memoir

All of these listed can pertain to a memoir. Even though memoirs are not as commonly used, the memories of a certain event or time in your life willl always live on.