Perils of Poe
"What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells!"
This poem by Edgar Allan Poe slowly descends from a nice description of cheery tinkles and tunes to a crashing and crazed miserable gong, symbolizing the horror of LIFE itself!
The Bells :)
Fill in the blank with the correct form of "To Be" to make the subject and the verb agree!
Both Elsa and Anna ___ princesses
ARE :)
Two or more subjects get a plural verb!
The word "Cryptic" has the following synonyms: "obscure, puzzling, mysterious"
Is this the correct use of "Cryptic" in a sentence?
Her cryptic text told me exactly where I needed to go with no confusion.
No! A "cryptic" text would not be clear or straight-forward, but confusing and maybe even a little strange!
True or False: Shirley Jackson's short story "The Lottery" is about actually winning prize money.
FALSE. SOooOOO, false! "The Lottery" turns out to be a very, very bad thing to "win"
Gothic Literature often has _______ in distress.
Women/Female Characters.
Boooooo. Rude.
In "The Cask of Amontillado", the narrator describes his victim as being a raucous member of the partying in the streets during Carnival, he is dressed up too! What is Fortunato dressed as?
He is dressed as a jester or a Fool, a medieval clown with bells on his hat!
Is this sentence correct?
SpongeBob and Patrick are the most busy creatures in Bikini Bottom.
Nope. Here, we use "busiest"!
Spongebob and Patrick are the busiest creatures in Bikini Bottom.
Which of these words fits the following definition:
Not or no longer needed or useful; superfluous.
Sporadic
Redundant
Pacify
Redundant! :)
In "The Most Dangerous Game", how does the protagonist Rainsford end up on Zaroff's island?
He falls overboard from a ship he is traveling on-- splash!
Some common settings of Gothic Literature could be...?
A haunted or old castle, a rotting abandoned house, or any place dark and scary, really. Gothic Lit stories also love to dwell on the past.
Monstresor, the main speaker from "The Cask of Amontillado" is a specific type of character created by Poe to emphasize the spookiness, the uncertainty, and the mystery surrounding the tale. Often, we don't know if Monstresor is even telling the whole truth. In literature, this is called...
An unreliable narrator!
Does the subject and the verb match here?
Neither the fire-breathing chicken nor the flying pigs are welcome here.
Yes :)
Multiple subjects can be tricky, but the rule is to match the verb with the subject that is closest to it. In this case, it's "flying pigs"
Is this the CORRECT use of the word "punitive"?
"Her punitive dress was small and polka dotted".
Nope! Punitive is an adjective that means "inflicting or intended as punishment."
True or False: In "The Most Dangerous Game" Rainsford and Zaroff build suspense and horror throughout the story by "hunting" one another.
True. Men will do anything but go to therapy.
True or false: Gothic Literature has themes of family secrets, mysterious happenings, and ghosts.
True! Major tea happening in a lot of Gothic Lit stories. It's what we had before The Kardashians or Lovecraft Country
True or False: The Raven from Poe's poem "The Raven" is a symbol of peace, understanding, and acceptance.
FALSE! Quite the opposite, actually. The narrator is plagued by this bird and his singular squawk of "Nevermore!", which has to do with the narrator coming to terms with the fact that his life will never be the same, and the doom he feels about what comes AFTER life... Well, it's real.
Is this sentence correct?
If I goes to San Diego with $500, I will most likely come back with $0.
Nope. When using "I" or "You" statements, we use a singular verb to agree!
If I go to San Diego with $500, I will most likely come back with $0.
If you go to San Diego with $500, you will most likely come back with $0.
Is this sentence using the word grotesque correctly?
"Many people complain that modern art is ugly and hard to look at, but grotesque art is usually made to be that way on purpose."
Yes! Grotesque has synonyms like "distorted, weird, freaky, unnatural"
Shirley Jackson's story "The Lottery" discusses an old, nasty-looking black box that the townspeople draw their slips of paper out of for The Lottery. What is the symbolic reason that this gross box keeps on being used?
The box is a symbol of the townspeople's desire to keep with old traditions... no matter how barbaric they may be.
Gothic Literature requires that the characters and their dialogue be emotional and ______.
Dramatic! Think of someone becoming so afraid that they faint and fall onto a couch. It's a common occurrence within this genre... Sheesh.
What style of "literature" (besides spooky Gothic stories/poems) did Edgar Allan Poe popularize?
Hoax Writing, or "Fake News", and he also wrote one of the first detective stories! He was also a savage literary critic and tore apart other people's writing so viciously that he did NOT have many (any?) friends.
Put the correct comparative or superlative form of "Bright" in the sentence!
Miss Lexi's brother is ______ than Miss Lexi is.
Brighter (and that's the truth!)
Which of the following groups of words are synonyms of the word OBSCURE?
A. Taxing, Cryptic, Dire
B. Unclear, Doubtful, Vague
C. Yowling, Dangerous, Vile
It's group B!
Obscure, adj. not discovered or known about; uncertain.
"At daybreak Rainsford, lying near the swamp, was awakened by a sound that made him know that he had new things to learn about fear. It was a distant sound, faint and wavering, but he knew it. It was the baying of a pack of hounds."
This passage from "The Most Dangerous Game" helps the reader determine which literary element?
The MOOD is established in this passage! This section helps the reader feel terror, suspense, and anxiety!
What is unsettling and strange about how we feel about some antagonists/villains in Gothic Literature?
Often, villains in Gothic Lit are appealing or likable to the reader, and the protagonist... isn't! Are we siding with Dracula?!