C.R. Langille
Follow Me
  • Home
  • Blog
  • About C.R. Langille / Press Kit
  • Published Works
  • Contact
  • Shop

What Do We Fear?

6/13/2016

0 Comments

 
Picture
What do we as a culture fear at any given time? I’ve been giving this a lot of thought and I keep coming back to the same conclusion: we fear the unknown. H.P. Lovecraft said, “The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.” Think what you will of Lovecraft, but he had a profound effect on horror and literature, and his own fears of the unknown leaked into a lot of his stories.
​
If we move throughout history, we can see the face of horror changing slightly, at least the exterior of horror. For example, let’s look at Bram Stoker’s Dracula and dig deep into the subtext of that story. Deep down, it was a fear of sexuality, alien outsiders (think race, not cosmic), and a fear of barbaric or degenerative ideals. Bottom line, the culture didn’t understand these things, and they were unknown to them, therefore, the fear of something different arose.
Picture
​Moving forward, we can look at the werewolf, Mr. Hyde, and even the Hulk. These characters represent a fear of losing control and letting “the beast” take over, or giving into our base desires. Loss of control is a constant fear with mankind and it was characterized by these creations, where, given a certain set of circumstances, the darker side of an individual was pulled into the light for all to see, always with dire consequences. But if you were to get down to the root of the situation, people didn’t know what would happen if they gave into those desires, and we’re right back to square one, fear of the unknown.
Picture
​Fast forward again and take a look at the zombie uprising which is probably one of the newer popular phenomena. Zombie epitomizes that loss of control, they also characterize a fear of pandemic or disease. They represent the breakdown of society and structure, but really the whole sub-genre of zombie apocalypse works because we just don’t know what would happen in a situation like that. Fear of the unknown.
Picture
​Fear of the unknown permeates almost everything horror related, it’s why alien movies work (cosmic this time), it’s why slashers work (where is the killer now?), it’s also why movies like Paranormal Activity work (what will happen next, why is such-and-such happening). Fear of the unknown simply gets reskinned to fit the topic du jour.
Picture
What do you fear?
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    C.R. Langille writes horror, fantasy, urban-fantasy, dark fantasy, and is considering stepping into the sci-fi realm. He has a grasp of survival techniques, and has been a table-top gamer for over 16 years.

    Archives

    October 2022
    March 2022
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    October 2020
    July 2020
    May 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    November 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    September 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013

    Categories

    All
    Author Interview
    Book Release
    Book Review
    Bushcraft Interview
    Conventions
    Cross Promotion
    Dark Tyrant
    Game Review
    Gamer Interview
    Gaming
    Horror
    Hunter Interview
    Hunting
    Movie Review
    Stokercon2017
    Survival
    Tales From The Storm
    Training
    Women In Horror Month
    Writing

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly