Novel – The haunting of hill house by Shirley Jackson.

Haunting of house hill is about a house hidden within hills, 4 people discover the house rented by Dr Mountage and his servants/freinds for the summer. The Dr seeks to find the existence of the super natural form of life, the story expands to show the four people being shown around by the Dr, he explains the past haunted stories and sucides in the house. There are two friends of the Dr who actually accept the invitation to stay at the house during summer, these characters being Elenor and Theodora – both of these people specifically choosen due to past experiences with super natural events. Eventually all characters begin to experience super natural issues with the house, including noises at night, unexpected movement and strange writing on the wall. The house ends up connecting with Elenors body, the fear of the super natural extends into her body, she is possessed and ends up killing herself as she is forced to depart from the house. The idea of fear comes from the unknown and the supernatural phenomena

An idea of fear presented in the text involved power, Dr mountage held large amounts of knowledge about supernatural activity, he choose to pursue his thirst for understanding and continued to sacrifice his friends until he knew what is causing these strange events. The power of knowledge is a fearful subject, his friends saw him pushing this to far yet knew they could do nothing about his thirst. We can see his obsession with the quote – “I assure you,” the doctor said, “that Hill House will be quiet tonight. There is a pattern to these things, as though psychic phenomena were subject to laws of a very particular sort.” he had everything tracked out worked out, when the pattern of disturbance was and the phenomena laws. I feel in society the power of knowledge is a dangerous thing to have, we see people ending up in jail as they know how to create illegal things, the ways in and out of high ended places, ways to get round borders etc, the power of knowledge pushes people to greed and need. I personally relate to the novel in the sense that sometimes obsessions can push you till you break, I tend to not be able to let go and this always cause pain rather than success.

Another idea of fear was the history of the house, the previous actions and stories told through time. Dr Mountage explained that apparent suicides took place in the house, this holds fear through the question of why?, what drove these people to do it and why was this house known for it? This fear connects with the fear of the unknown, past stories can only be told by people, the truth and the reasons why can only be kept with the people it happened to. In society we hear and see stories in the news about tragic events and suicide, with New Zealand reaching their highest ever number this year in march. We all question what was going on inside these peoples heads that we see on the news and in the papers, how bad was their life that they could leave their family and would rather be dead? these answers we will never know, things take bigger tolls on people than we could ever understand, everyone is different and making assumptions about why is not okay. I personally have never had to deal with the fear of scary stories close to home, I live in a place where that kinda stuff is hardy common, but I can see that suicide isn’t actually that uncommon. To this day and age technology has created a large toll on peoples mental health and emotions, in this time that the novel was set they would never have to deal with this, however the relastionship is formed through the suicide topic.“To learn what we fear is to learn who we are. Horror defines our boundaries and illuminates our souls.” This quote connects to the fear of the unknown, the Dr drove himself based of curiosity, he believed that he needed to relive himself of how the supernatural in the haunted house worked, in order to control his fear, if he didn’t then that moment would shape him as a person, it would stay in his soul.

I typically don’t read fiction books, however my reaction to this text was that it had a lot of ideas put behind it, the idea of fear was strong throughout with the simple nature of the supernatural phenomenon and the idea of not knowing if it exists or not. I started to comprehend the strength of an obsession can have on a person, it can drive your curiosity to a whole new level and push your boundaries you’d never think you’d break.

In conclusion the concept of fear is strong through the novel, I see the act of the Dr’s thirst for knowledge as a fearful manor, he persisted his cursiotry into areas that affected his friends life, not only as a reader did I pick up this fear but also the other characters did, they began to fear their lives as they knew the doctor wouldn’t stop util he undertook the house.

The secrets we hide – Tiffany Franklin

We struggle to have meaning 
in this world, which we all know.
We try, but yet we wonder 
where we all should go.
Hidden in the questions,
we cannot find
the answers. They’re are all hidden
deep inside our minds.
Hidden in our soul
is the life we try to hide,
but in time it will find you,
and it will release 
all of its secrets hidden beneath,
so before it ruins the life you have made,
release those dark secrets, 
and the memories will fade.
Hidden in our lives are stories left untold
of the things we didn’t want them to know,
but once you tell somebody
and make your feelings known,
the struggle will be over
and you’ll finally be home.

This poem is about the secrets she hides from her friends, family and loved ones. It discusses the idea of the unknown through her thoughts, mind and life. She hides her secrets, fearing the idea of facing them. The poem shows that when the time is right we need to face our issues, talk to others and share them – whether they are dark or not – in order to find answers, release the fear and accept that pain.

As we mature and time passes these secrets or things we have hidden became unhidden. We need to deal with them, and as we do, they no longer seem such a problem and the memory of them disappear. Talking about them and sharing them help with this. If we do not deal with them, they can become more of a problem. We see another example of fear through our secrets, we turn our issues into secrets in order to protect ourselves from the truth, in this quote ” Hidden in our lives are stories left untold
of the things we didn’t want them to know,
but once you tell somebody
and make your feelings known,
the struggle will be over
and you’ll finally be home” we see that she highlights the feelings around secrets, the way they can cause fear and trauma to us if we don’t express them and the way that letting people into your struggles relives you. The society holds many secrets, we all have them, not just things we are afraid of but things we don’t want to admit, a huge struggle in this day and age is letting people into our lives, we hide behind social media to let out our pain instead of talking to someone. When my aunty passed away I had the fear of losing more of my family members, constant nights I would wake up to a nightmare screaming, I didn’t reach out to my family because I feared the idea of accepting being afraid, I felt like if I told someone that I was scared of it happening to another it would grow the chance of it actually happening, this affected me a lot and sleep and time became a huge strain on me, letting myself speak to people helped me, I’m able to express myself more to this day.

Whether it is bullying, a first break up, issues at home, a fight with a friend, a mistake you made, or a death of a close family member, we face many issues and emotions we have never experienced before. Fear is around us all the time especially at my age, we are growing and learning how to cope and understand the world. I believe this quote from the poem – “We struggle to have meaning in this world” … “we wonder where we should all go” creates a relation with the fear that thousands of teenagers are dealing with currently, who we are going to be and how are we going to make an impact on this world we live in. This opened my eyes to the fact that we are all just people, most people strive to be someone important and to make a name for themselves.

When I read this poem I thought of  a tragic experience I have had this year, the poem made me feel anxious. I could relate to it totally, as this is how I felt and some of how I am still feeling. I hid alot of my feelings to deal with my pain, and feeling of loss of control, and being unable to deal with so much emotion at once. Fear of what else would happen to other people I loved, and how I would deal with it all.  Time is healing and taking away the raw emotion, as sharing and talking, and remembering the good times, laughter and fun bring peace. Learning to deal with this experience, I have found some answers to the unknown questions, and feeling some control, so the fear is less,and I can expose a bit more of what I have hidden, and deal with that in a positive way. 

The poem shows  that we hide fear or emotions we cannot deal with away as a coping mechanism, but time is healing, and slowly bringing to light the fear or emotion surrounding it, we can be released from the fear.The poem ends by saying that by dealing and sharing  with your feelings and issues, the fear and anxiousness disappears and you can find the real you, be at peace, and live your life.

Pretty little liars tv show episode – episode 1

Pretty little liars carries the theme of fear throughout the episode, with the initial scene being the disappearance of Alison right before the eyes of her four friends – Aria, Spencer, Hannah, and Emily. The theme music and opening intro hold a dull tone with notes of higher-pitched beats, this adds the sense of fear for the watchers that correlates with the missing person theme, the simple fact that somebody is lost draws out your sense of fear that lingers within your body, everyone has the characteristic of fear buts its not often Brought out. The episode carries on to explain the lives of the four girls a year later without Alison in it, they grow apart and develop completely different lives, fear of the mystery remains constant. The girls individually begin to receive messages in many forms from an unknown person, they identify themselves as A, these messages all propose threats and information about them. The fear of this is brought from the unknown, A has information on them that no one else knows, where does A get it? One of the messages received says ” poor spencer, always wanting Mellisa’s property, but remember if you kiss i tell” because this happened in the comfort of her own closed home, how would A know? this is where spencers fear begins. Questions arise from each of the girls and they wonder if they have stalkers. Fear can be a simple or complex thing, both are shown in Pretty Little Liars, through the fact that their best friend went missing with questions not yet answered, and that someone unknown to them is getting into their heads. Alisons body is found buried in her backyrad, but the texts still carry on, A seems like they will remain anymous forever.

My initial reaction to the episode was also fear, but a different version, you know when you were younger and you would watch a scary movie before bed, then have nightmares? – that is the kind of fear I held, the fact that someone had control over her emotions and had inside knowledge of her life, do the people we think are our close friends betray us? most movies show the missing person coming back into their lives fairly quickly, however after a year eyebrows start to be raised. Each girl’s lives are complex enough but the added mysterious person pushes it over, sympathy comes over me watching this but also the drive of curiosity, this is one of the reasons you want to keep watching. I started to think about the episode, that’s when I started to think that maybe fear came also in the context of trust, the fact that you never know who someone really is, whether they are close to you or not. This is where the quote “My enemies are everywhere. And sometimes, those we least suspect turn out to be our biggest threats.”  fits in, we really can only trust ourselves, the fear of others is a real thing.

Everyone in the world holds a fear, whether its a missing person or not. Fear is often dormant until an event happens that triggers it, no-one can control when its going to happen or stop it. According to an article written by BBC 300,000 people go missing in the world yearly, this creates a relation with pretty little liars as its theme is based on Alison, the girl who went missing. Family is a huge value in the eyes of many in our society, often we don’t realise how much we appreciate someone until they are gone, then the fear of loosing someone comes into your mind. Alison’s four friends lost her and the fear of them being next suddenly was a possibility – this is where they started to value each other and realise that even though Alison wasn’t always nice to them, she was always there for them.

The Film rocket man

The film Rocketman is the story of Elton Johns challenges, the opening scene shows Elton in his childhood, growing up with a verbally abusive father figure and an unsupportive mother. At a young age he developed a talent for the piano and playing notes he heard, this quickly turned into a career for him as he expanded his knowledge for the art at a top-end school. Elton came out as gay in his mid 20’s, his grandmother is the only one supporting this, he grew into a famous piano player and singer, quickly this developed him into being associated with drugs, with that came a heavy addiction. The idea of fear comes from growing up without a parental figure, having to learn things on his own and finding himself in a world of different people.

Parents help shape us as a person, however when your in the position where they don’t support you with who you want to be, it can hurt you. Elton left his family at a young age, to pursue his dreams of being a famous pianist. The fear developed as he didn’t know how to act or how to support himself and this ended up affecting him as when got to a challenge he didn’t know how to overcome it. Elton ended up making his own rules, he didn’t think before he acted and this ended up turning him into a soulless person lacking respect for other individuals. The quote ” Live for each second without hesitation“ from Elton John relates to this point as we see he didn’t have much respect for himself or others, he did what he wanted as he was afraid to feel emotions and care. In ways I’m the opposite to Elton, I have a family who supports me and cares for me, but in ways, I can understand him in the sense of career, his father wasn’t supportive in his piano career, like my parent’s aren’t keen on me becoming a plumber, instead they want me to do something intellectual at university, not my choice but refusal isn’t really possible. In the world, adoption is common, 5 million people in America are adopted, all have perosnal reasons but the kid has gone through the porcess of feeling neglected,many people go through the process, neglect is everywhere. Everyone deals with the fear of not being loved and appreciated, we all need someone to nurture and care for us.

In 1988 Elton John came out as gay, in this time it wasn’t a socially accepted thing, he feared being himself in the world and didn’t know how to cope with it. Elton ended up not accepting himself and marrying a woman, this quickly ended in a divorce and drugs and alcohol was his next option, we see this as his way of coping with the fear of being himself. In the end he accpeted himself, “I think being gay is a blessing, and it’s something I am thankful for every single day.”for who he was, was a beautiful thing.

Initially the film made me feel sad, the environment he was Brought up in wasn’t ideal and he wasn’t supported, after a long thought I realised that because he had to deal with this fear by himself his actions made more sense, I felt like this related to Frankenstein as he also was abandoned and had to learn and make choices for himself. He intally destroyed his childhood to be a different person, and this was a choice he made “You gotta kill the person you were born to be in order to become the person you want to be. “ this quote explains that he put his career before his life.

Society is quick to judge people, we can’t see other peoples internal fear we just judge the actions they take to fix them. Everyone has different vaules, a large one is family, family is important as they bring you up and teach you their ways, without this who are you? in the context of fear there are many attributes of it, almost everything you value can bring you fear in one way, fear drives us and sometimes breaks us.

Poem

Traffic Light

© Linda Grantham

This traffic light inside my head
Is always green and never red.
My thoughts, my dreams, and all my fears,
They all speed past my listening ears.

I close my eyes to block it out,
But inside my head they rush about.
I take a breath to slow it down,
But upon my face appears a frown.

My heart beats fast,
But my breathing slows.
I breathe in life
Then out it goes.

My body’s numb,
Yet I feel my tears.
I’ve lost count of the days,
The months, and the years.

This traffic light 
Inside my head…
I’m scared of the day 
When it turns red.

This poem by Linda Grantham is about how depression is played out in her head, what she thinks about and the struggle it presents her. This poem represents fear in the sense of the unknown, she is never going to be aware of when depression will come over her and how her body will react each time.

My initial reaction to the text is that fear is very obvious , but to anyone else you wouldn’t see this person withholding fear, I relate to her in the way that the mind is a powerful and scary thing, when my aunty passed away my head was filled with fear, mostly that the same thing would happen to my mum or another family member, this is how my connection was created with this poem.

The quote from her poem “I close my eyes to block it out,
But inside my head, they rush about” shows us that her body and mind communication tries to block out the internal fear of her depression without success. Mental depression also known as clinical depression is seen throughout the poem, although I haven’t had to deal with depression, I understand the mental challenge of dealing with her thoughts, we all have challenges and ideas in our head that we try to block out and get rid of. Everyone in society has different beliefs and values, mono-phobia is the fear of your own mind, what you see in your head and not in the real world is unbelievable, I feel the poem can relate to this as she used the idea of a “traffic light”, she referred to this as the way she was feeling, that if she got to the point where she was in the state of red she wouldn’t know what to do

Another example of fear in the text is the miscommunication of your dreams versus your fear, “My thoughts, my dreams, and all my fears” shows that she places her dreams and her fears together, when someone gets to the point where your fears and your dreams interloop with each other there is a misbalance. I relate to the idea in this text in the way where your dreams can portray your fears, when my Aunty passed away this year, my fear of losing someone in my family came to the surface, this is when the overlap of my fears and dreams started, I began to have nightmares about losing someone else. Often in society when a traumatic event occurs our dreams turn into nightmares, it’s not something we can control or push away.

The poem portrays fear in many different forms, I feel that the key things to take away from this poem are that we can’t always control it, the mental struggle of controlling our thoughts can cause fear within us and that everyone has to deal with our own mind damaging us. Although fear isn’t always obvious from the outside, lots of people are dealing with it internally and to make an assumption if somone is fearful or not is wrong.

Who has the power to decide whether someone’s life support should be turned off, medical professionals or family members?

Disclaimer 

If you feel uncomfortable with the subject of life support i’m giving you an invitation to leave, or if any part of the speech becomes too much you may leave quietly.

In 2018 over 300 new zealanders  were in the crucial state of life support, life support is where you have a machine artificially controlling a physical function – such as breathing, oxygen and blood flow. The need of life support can be triggered by drug overdose, drowning, a severe lung disease, muscle and nerve diseases, cardiac arrest, heart attack, blood clot, brain aneurysm, a stroke and in cases other things.  

My speech will touch base on the controversial topic on whether the decision of turning off life support, should be made by a medical professional or a family member.  This usually happens when your organs have failed to function on their own or your brain connections have been lost. 

This topic links to the story of Frankestien through the topic of life or death, although the creature wasn’t on any form of life support he was in the position where someone could decide if he died or not. Frankenstein believed that because he created the life of the creature he had the power to make the decision of him leaving this world, Frankenstein was angry because of the actions of the creature therefore wanted him out of this world.

Medical professionals often have no connection to the patient, this means they can form a decision based entirely of the condition the patient is in. Often we see family members holding attachments to the patient, when they are past a viable condition allowing them to pass is a hard decision, in my experience I find that making a decision as a family will show your true emotions and often this contradicts what’s actually best for the patient, this is why medical professionals are more qualified to make this decision as they are in a stable mind space to make the correct decision for the family.

Family members  

If I could change anything about daily school life … what would it be

I believe that theres a lot of things that could be changed about our school life, but only a few that will actually ameliorate or benefit our learning. To make my daily school life better ( not in the context of learning), I would like to have shorter lunchtimes so we can finish the last period earlier and go home. Having an hour long lunch is a waste of time, usually kids are so excited to enjoy lunchtime but when it gets to NCEA level I feel that we just want to get on with it , sitting around after eating trying to think of things to do to make up time is insufficient. I know there will be positive and negatives of this.. like not all parents will be finished work by the time your kids finishes school- however I feel a lot of people ( especially the senior school) are independent when it comes to transportation methods.

Other things I would like to change about our school is the fact that we are building more and more which is slowly taking away the unbuilt parts- like the fields and grass areas etc, these parts in Wanaka are becoming rare and if we take it away then we will having nothing but buildings left… Wanaka’s known for its beautiful and amazing scenery so why take that away?

I am conflicted about zoos. I worry they’re an extension of our other colonial activities, marking our territory at the apex of the natural world and a form of species-level dominance that shares a root with the domination of men over women and of majority over minority. 

Or, perhaps I’m overthinking things, Maybe they’re just a playground to take the children to rather, than go stir crazy at home. Whatever they used to be, zoos are now playing a different role in conservation and reminding people of the challenges humans have created for the diversity of global fauna.

The theory of The Categorical Imperative

This theory investigation of the rights and wrongs of someone’s choices and that should rather depend on their intention.

KANTIAN ETHICShttps://www.csus.edu/indiv/g/gaskilld/ethics/kantian%20ethics.htm

Novel –

Date written : Term 1

Desert Dawn

By Waris Dirie

“Mama tied a blindfold over my eyes. The next thing I felt my flesh was being cut away. I heard the blade sawing back and forth through my skin. The pain between my legs was so intense I wished I would die.”

The Novel Desert Dawn is written and lived by Waris Dirie, having  an eventful and terrifying sequence of events throughout her lifetime, Waris was able to write this book from true depth and meaning, it introduces the culture of some religions and groups in demeaning ways , straight from the actual events of Waris Dirie’s younger years. This novel visits the fear held within the childhood  of Waris, through female circumcision and arranged marriage before she was even 15, fear is active through pain infliction and simply her family, how can your own culture be so cruel yet seen as the right thing to do?

The representation of fear in this novel is expressed through the concept of body torture and unlawful acts, along with the mental idea that Waris mother puts into her head that demons exist spiritually. I believe that Waris intentions were to help people become aware of what happens outside of your own culture , however anything that happens to you mentally or physically can be overcome by your own power, strength and persistence. Through detail and written events it becomes obvious that fear is consistent throughout the story and i see it as a large part of the novel.

My initial reaction to the text was simply astonishment, because i live in small town in New Zealand and have a completely different culture i’ve never been exposed to this kind of thing before, i behold little knowledge to african culture therefore can’t say i relate to this specifically, however through the family part i can form some small connections, Waris’s mother insisted that culture comes first and didn’t even wait till she was old enough to consent  to significant shapings of her childhood, although i was never forced to do such things on the level of Waris, i have been in positions were my voice isn’t heard and that i didn’t get a choice- for example when i was younger ( i wouldn’t say forced) but was insisted that christian culture was a large must, because this is how my mum grew up and that’s how her whole family is to this day, especially with my grandad being the priest in Wanaka for a long time, i learnt that not coming to Church would make my grandad sad and disappointed in me, which impacted my childhood with the idea of fear in my own family.

The idea of feminism is also amongst the novel, the fear within Women because rape wasn’t seen as a bad thing, I believe Waris was also trying to link this into society in general as to this day we see women being body shamed, not given authority and seen as the second best gender.  “Because women and girls are not valued equally as human beings, they are treated as less than such. Female genital mutilation is one example of this that has to be stopped.”

The beliefs of others also ties into this, because the culture of where Waris lived at the time was common to be circumcised, her Mother followed the beliefs of their ancestors in fear that if she doesn’t she would be seen as evil or not part of their religion.

Waris is now seen as a powerful rolemodel, she expressed her fear of being forced into pain and unwanted cultured tasks into changing history, having a voice for women who aren’t able to and for herself, this is Wris’s story

• Kirsten Blackley

• The fear of not ‘being’ someone or something
• The fear of being rejected and alone
• The fear of the uncontrollable

For the three bullet points above, discuss how these types of fear are presented in Frankenstein. You can use characters, events or a combination of both to explain how Shelley teaches us about these fears. In addition, you should address the impacts that these fears had on the characters in the text- what did it motivate them to do and what were the consequences of the action they took?

The fear of not ‘being’ someone or something

Frankenstein story follows the idea of fear, Dr fransktein himself was fearful that if he didn’t achieve and be something then he would let himself down, the way he choose to express himself as being something wasn’t through a respective way – creating a creature to satisfy his interest in death. This created anxiety of the outcome for fransketien and had a negative impact on him as a character, and then lead him to sacrificing his friends rather than facing the creature. The creature went from being nothing to something when he was re born , he daily faced the idea of not being something, he came into the world with cluelessness and seen as nothing, a monster rather than a human being with the ability to feel emotions.

• The fear of being rejected and alone
• the creature goes through the story by being born into an unborn world , followed by being abandoned this goes onto him trying to help people yet again being pushed aside and chased – being called a monster and a horrid sight. not only being alone but being isolated in the story is a large part, fransketin sets himself away from the social world to work on his own work, fransktein suffers being alone through his mother dying and separating himself from his family and friends.

• The fear of the uncontrollable- After creating his creature Frankestein comes across the fear of the uncontrollable, the creature sets loose and causes terror by killing people, fransktein understands that he can’t stop him as he is stronger and faster than him, this can also be a mental thing for Fransktein, knowing that something he created can’t be controlled ad he has no ability to stop him. The creatures fear of the uncontrollable is slightly different, he can’t control how people view him and react to him, he doesn’t know that if he shows himself to the villagers which he has been helping how they are going to react to him, he can control his anger problems after being shunned and abandoned

These aspects of fear create the characters throughout the story, they are self reliable and they learn to not count on others but to stand for themselves- which can also turn into greed as the story goes on, the consqueces show to be death of loved ones and being hated

Mary Shelley shows the idea of fear throughout her story to us, through