Analyzing the Horror Genre

Analyzing the Horror Genre

Learning Intentions:

I am learning to identify the author's purpose for writing a horror story. 

I am assessing a story to infer the meaning of the author’s sentence structure. 

 

I am analyzing the horror genre to learn more about the message the genre conveys.

Open Ended

In your ELA class you have spent time reading about the horror genre. What can you tell me you know about it? (setting, characters, what happens to the characters)

What is the Horror Genre?

Many people define horror by its subjects. We all think of creatures like Frankenstein’s monster, Dracula, and the wolfman as monsters in the horror genre.But we also know that horror covers more than just these monsters. We could all make long lists of the kind of creatures we identify with horror. The minute we would start to make such a list we would also realize that not all monsters are alike and that not all horror deals with monsters. The subject approach

is not the clearest way to define this genre.

Open Ended

1. Why does the author reject characters or subjects as a way to categorize the horror genre?

What scares you? What do you fear?

Open Ended

What does the first paragraph suggest about the author's purpose in writing this essay?

What is the Horror Genre?

"The tension we feel when a character goes into the attic, down into the basement, or just into the abandoned house is partially a result of suspense. We don’t know what is going to happen. But that suspense is intensified by our knowledge of the genre. We know that characters involved in the world of horror always meet something awful when they go where they shouldn’t. Part of the tension is created because they are doing something we know is going to get them in trouble."

Open Ended

The author says that in horror stories "suspense is intensified by our knowledge of the genre." What knowledge is the author referring to?

What is the Horror Genre?

"Many works concentrate on the conflict between good and evil. Works about the fantastic may deal with the search for forbidden knowledge that appears in much horror literature. Such quest are used as a way of examining our attitude toward knowledge."

Open Ended

What does the author mean by "the search for forbidden knowledge"?

Open Ended

Name a horror movie, show or book you have watched or read about. What made it a horror story?