Gothic Story

 Callie is a 14 year old girl who lives with her mother and three year old sister named Abby..  Her mother is looking for a new house because her parents just recently got divorced.  The mother is now dating a man named Stephen.  She is looking for a new house for her and the girls. She wants a petite house with enough room for the girls and her. She doesn't have a lot of money since they are going through a divorce, so she is looking for something that is a little cheaper than expected.  They was a secret about this house though, that only her mother knew.

Callie was not too fond of the house her mother chose for the family, but they needed cheap, and cheap is exactly what they got. The house hadn't looked like it had been lived in for years, the grass was dried up and brown, it had rocks lying around the path that lead to this dead abandoned building.  The old wood siding was chipped and peeling of paint, windows opaque with all the dust that's been building up over the months, and getting closer to the front door could be found the address hanging from a nail hold the number 85.  The inside of the house wasn't any better. Her mom had no choice but to buy the run down old house for the three of them.  Callie stood in a room, her eyes scanned the four walls and felt intimidated.  

About a month later they had moving vans parked along the curb unloading all the belongings of the family.  Callie went down to the basement to explore their new house and couldn't help but notice the stair case.  Grey steel rails and  a wooden railing.  These stairs led to the basement.   She had an eerie feeling about the basement.  She felt as if someone had been watching her as she wandered around.  

It's been about 4 months since they lived in their new house and everything seemed perfect. Callie started at her new high school and had plenty of friends, her mother found out she was pregnant and her sister Abby had a new imaginary friend.  Their mother was so excited about the new baby because she has been trying so hard but nothing seemed to work.  Also Abby's always talked about her friend, his name was Mike.  Mike always influenced Abby to do strange things.  Some of the things Mike would tell her to do would be the opposite of what her mother told her.  Her mom would give Abby certain directions and rules, but Mike would tell her to do something different. He tells Abby to mess up her room after her mother cleans it, he tells her to hide her mother’s things, and the worst one is when he tells her to go into the basement.  Her mother does not allow the children in the basement.  The girls don’t know why but her mother does not allow it.  She keeps a lock on the door at the top of the steps, so only she can get down there.  Callie always wondered why her mother wouldn’t let them down stairs, but she guessed it was because her mother kept important papers or something in the basement.  She also thought it was because she didn’t want Abby to fall down the stairs when no one was watching her.  Either way Callie found this quite strange.

After some time things around the house would go missing, be broken, or they would even start to hear strange noises.  The girls thought the house might be haunted, but their mother always had an excuse for everything that was going wrong.  The things that would go missing, she would blame on herself for forgetting where she put them.  Things being broken would be blamed on accidents, and the washing machine or trees outside would usually be responsible for the noises they would hear.  Her mom was keeping a secret from the girls that she was hoping she wouldn’t have to tell them.

One night Callie was at home watching Abby while her mom ran to the store.  She had heard a woman calling her name from the basement.  Callie had thought that maybe her mom hadn’t left yet and she was in need of help with the laundry.  There was no lock on the basement door, so she continued down stairs.  The door slowly started to shut quietly and Callie didn’t notice.  When she had seen that no one was down stairs she started to turn around, but had saw that the door was shut.  Callie started to freak out because she couldn’t get the door open.  She started to panic because it wasn’t to bright in the basement, and she was alone.  She started to hear her name again from behind her but she kept trying to ignore it because she was so scared.  Callie was stuck banging on the door at the top of the twisted staircase that she was so afraid of when they first moved in.  as she was screaming for help she had realized that her mom was still gone.  She started calling for Abby so she could get out of the basement.  She could hear Abby, but Abby wouldn’t let her out.  Mike kept telling Abby not to help her and that it was funny.  Abby started laughing at Callie as she was screaming for help.  Mike was influencing Abby to continue making these horrible decisions.

Their mother walks in and sees that she was locked in the basement.   Her mom tries pulling in the door, but it won’t even nudge.  Her mother is trying as hard as she can but nothing is happening.  They all thought there was no way of getting her out.  At the last minute she finally gets the door open.  Callie was terrified of the basement and especially the stairs, and how they felt haunted. 

Its been almost 10 months since they have lived in this new house and they are all starting to hate it. Callie is afraid to go to sleep and be alone in certain parts of the house, Abby is not listening to her mother ever, and she herself is just terrified of the house.  Callie’s mother I due in three more months and is more excited than ever before.  Stephen has been more supportive than ever with everything.  They were all at home having dinner and once again Abby was being persuaded by Mike to not listen to her mother.  Her and Abby were having an argument and Abby got up and walked away.  Her mother followed her into her bedroom and started to lecture Abby about her behavior.  Mike was getting very angry when her mother started trying to get in control.  His anger was just building and building and her took it upon himself to slam the door her.  Her belly was in the door and crushed it.  Stephen had to rush her to the E.R. because they were concerned about the baby.  They waited what felt like forever.  The doctor came in with bad news and had said that the door slamming on her baby caused her to have a miscarriage.  She was beyond depressed when she found out and started balling.  When she went home everything went down hill from there.  Her mother knew it was the house and knew they had to do something and they needed out fast.  She didn’t feel comfortable staying there one more night so she packed up some things and they all stayed in a hotel that night.  The next morning they went back to the house and they started to pack things up because she decided they had to move out. Mike was telling Abby she couldn’t let them go though with this.  He didn’t want the family to leave.  He was already left alone once, he didn’t want it to happen again.  Abby knew something bad was going to happen so she told her sister that she wanted to leave.  She knew that her friend was going to far with things this time and they had to leave.  Callie immediately went and told her mother, so they grabbed their things and went straight to their car.  They pulled out of the driveway in such a rush, and the last thing Mike whispered to Abby was “I told you that you should have listened to me”.  Within seconds a semi comes flying down the road, hits their car, and that was the last of them.

The voice of Mike is a sign of death.  He keeps giving warnings to not listen to her mother and because Abby didn’t listen to Mike, he took control.  The secret to this house was that it was house were a boy was murdered in by his father.  He murdered him in the basement, under the stairs and haunts the house and they people in it.  Secrets like this shouldn’t be kept especially when it involves the safety of someone’s children. 

Poe Essay Bibliography

Poe, Edgar A. "The Black Cat." By Edgar Allan Poe. Web. 14 Mar. 2012. .
Poe, Edgar A. "The Fall of the House of Usher." By Edgar Allan Poe. Web. 14 Mar. 2012. .
Poe, Edgar A. "The Masque of the Red Death." By Edgar Allan Poe. Web. 14 Mar. 2012. .
Poe, Edgar A. "Ligeia." By Edgar Allan Poe. Web. 16 Mar. 2012. .
Poe, Edgar A. "The Tell-Tale Heart." By Edgar Allan Poe. Web. 14 Mar. 2012. .

Poe Essay

In Edgar Allan Poe's stories he likes to talk about the death of his characters. He is not afraid to describe the deaths of the people and how others dealt with it. In the stories The Black Cat", "The Masque of Red Death", "The Fall of the House of Usher", "Legeia", and "Tell Tale Heart" he uses death a lot.  Although people may think that Poe is obsessed with many dark things, the thing he is obsessed about mostly is death.  

Another short story that Poe talks about death in is the story “The Black Cat” there was a man with a wife and many animals.  They had all kinds of Animals.  Animals such as birds, gold-fish, a dog, rabbits, a small monkey, and a cat.  This man was once humane and tender towards all his animals. He grew to love this cat more and more everyday.  Him and his wife named him Pluto.  This cat was a big beautiful creature and entirely black.  This cat was his favorite.  Pluto was also very fond of him.  This man suffered from the disease of alcoholism.  He would often beat or torture these poor animals.  This cat made him go insane.  On night when he came home after having a few drinks, and being extremely intoxicated found that this cat kept getting in his way.  “I took from my waist-coat-pocket a pen-knife, opened it, grasped the poor beast by the throat, and deliberately cut one of its eyes from the socket” (Poe, “The Black Cat”)!  This man claims that the cat urged him to continue what was left of the cat.  In the morning he took Pluto, slipped a noose around the cats neck, and hung him from a tree.  He ended up coming across a cat obtained the same characteristics of Pluto. When he tried to keep the cat, his wife tried to stop him.  He didn’t know what to do so instead he got rid of her.  He cut her up with an axe and shoved her in a wall with the cat.  Poe has an unusual obsession with death especially in this story.  

This story is about a disease called the Red Death and it can kill a large quantity of people.  In this story there was a prince named Prince Prospero.  Prince Prospero did not want to die of this disease so e became very selfish and decided to lock him and a few other people, not including the middle class, in his castle so that way the disease could nit get to them.  The Prince would throw parties in his castle every night and they would all drink so that way they didn’t have to think about the red death.  The one thing that they could not forget about though, was the clock in the castle.  The people in the castle would feel very uncomfortable every time the clock went off.  The clock would go off every hour, and one night there was a man that had dressed in a red mask.  This man in the red mask was trying to say that the prince was trying to kill him.  When the prince heard this, he tried to murder the man, but instead the man in the mask killed the prince.  The people were in shock, and when they tried to remove the mask to see who was hidden behind it, they found nothing. The man had vanished.  “He had come like a thief in the night. And one by one dropped the revellers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall”(Poe, “Masque of Red Death”).  This man resembles death.  Death cannot be escaped, it is always there and no matter how hard someone tries to escape it or run away from it, it will find you.  Another story that Poe talks about death in is “The Fall of the House of Usher”.

In this story “The Fall of the House of Usher” symbolism is used.  The house itself is a symbol of death by the way it is decaying and how it breaks to pieces when the narrator looks back at it.  This story is about a man named Roderick and his sister Madeline who live in an old rundown mansion.  Roderick is very sick physically, and mentally.  His sister Madeline starts to become ill and she ends up dying.  The end up burying her underneath the house so that scientist will not dig her up and examine her body.  Shortly after his sisters death he starts to hear strange things coming from around the house.  These noises make him go crazy.  After a little bit they start to realize that they accidently buried Madeline alive.  Madeline finally makes her way out of the grave and out from underneath the house.  Madeline was furious and wanted revenge towards Roderick.  She wanted Roderick dead.  She got her wish and Roderick died.  The Narrator runs in fear away from this haunted mansion.  As the narrator turns around and looks at the house, it starts to break into pieces and falls to the ground. The house resembles death because everything dies and so does this house.  “I gazed, this fissure rapidly widened --there came a fierce breath of the whirlwind --the entire orb of the satellite burst at once upon my sight --my brain reeled as I saw the mighty walls rushing asunder --there was a long tumultuous shouting sound like the voice of a thousand waters --and the deep and dank tarn at my feet closed sullenly and silently over the fragments of the "HOUSE OF USHER””(Poe, “The Fall of the House of Usher”). 

In the story ligeia there's a man who once had two wives. His first marriage was with a woman named Legeia. She was a pale woman with long black hair. Shortly after they were married she became I'll and passed away. After Legeia died he moved over to England and met a women Lady Rowena. Lady Rowena reminded him of Legeia. And again just like Legeia she had died right after the got married.  He stayed at her bead side as she slowly started to come back to life.  “I shrieked aloud, "can I never --can I never be mistaken --these are the full, and the black, and the wild eyes --of my lost love --of the lady --of the LADY LIGEIA"(Poe, “Legeia”).
He payed attention closely as Lady Rowena started to change into Legeia. 

In "The Tell Tale Heart" a man lives with an older gentlemen who he adores.  But this old man has a strange eye. They called it the vulture eye. This man hated it. And every time he saw it he grew weak. This man is convicted that he may need to kill the man because of his eye. Every night at midnight the man would come into the old mans bedroom with a lantern and check if his eyes were closed and he was planning the murder of this old man. On the eighth night he tried to check up on the old man and the old man heard him. He yelled and the man tried to wait outside the door until he went back to sleep. The old man didn't go back to bed and the man ran in dragged him in the floor and smothered the old man with the mattress. After he kills the old man he started to disassemble his body. He cut off the legs, arms and head.  He shoved him under the boards of the floor. He cleaned everything up and made it seem like nothing happened.  Police showed up at his door asking about the scream. The man convinced the police that the scream was him and that the old man had been out of town for a while. In the floorboards all the man could hear was the beating of the heart.   It kept getting louder and louder and he started to get paranoid. He ended up admiring that he murdered the man and hived him under the floorboards. "Villains!" I shrieked, "dissemble no more! I admit the deed! --tear up the planks! --here, here! --it is the beating of his hideous heart”(Poe “Tell Tale Heart”)!  Poe had an obsession with death and this story shows it by him going into detail about the murder. 

Edgar Allan Poe Has written many short stories.  He writes about death in a lot of them. Some if these stories are "The Black Cat", "The Masque of Red Death", "The Fall of the House of Usher", "Legeia" and "Tell Tale Heart". These stories all mention death and in some of them Poe decides to describe the death of these people very well. He is not afraid to talk about death. He uses death more than anything.  Although people may think that Poe is obsessed with many dark things, the thing he is obsessed about mostly is death.  

Faust Legend

Catherine grew up on a Native American reservation.  She lived in poverty all her childhood.  She promised to leave the reservation and find someone that could take care of her and start a family together.

Catherine and her family lived on the Native American reservation.  Catherine had eight other brothers and sisters that her parents had to take care of and feed.  Her mother struggled to keep her children alive. Catherine’s father was often out for long periods of time because he had to travel for business.  Catherine’s mother was stuck home tacking care of the nine children.  Catherine understood how hard her mother tried to take care of them and make sure that they were all okay.  Catherine and her siblings were often left alone and hungry because their mother was off at work.  None of the things Catherine had done helped.  She had to work at age 11.  She prayed every night to God asking if he could help out her family. But to no avail. She felt God had forsaken her.  One night instead of praying to God she decided to pray to the devil.  She asked the devil if he could help her out and get her off the reservations and take her to the United States.  For a while it seemed that nothing was working, but one day Catherine was walking home from work a man approached her.  A man in a dark brown leather jacket came up behind her and grabbed her by the shoulder.  Catherine was startled by this man.  She had an eerie feeling about him just by the way he dressed.  As she turned around and looked him in the eyes she noticed something different about this man.  He had a grey-white skin tone with eyes wide open.  They were black in color throughout the entire iris.  He had jet black stringy disheveled hair that came down to his shoulders.  He was wearing a bracelet with little charms on it.  Each of the charms had a name on it.  She had recognized some of the names were people that were deceased or have gone missing.  The man mentioned that he had been sent by the devil. He was sent to make a deal with her.  She was shocked at first but remembered that she had made a promise.  She agreed with the man to make a deal with the devil and give him her soul so that way she can move to the United States for a better life.  He said that her wish would be granted as long she promised to give up her soul to the devil.  She thought she could trick the devil because Native Americans don’t believe in the devil.  She was just desperate and needed to find a way out. If she doesn’t believe then he can’t take her soul. 

Catherine went to the United States at the age of 18.  She met a French man named Francis.  Francis and her grew close and fell in love.  Catherine was 24 when she and Francis got married.  This was a new life for Catherine.  She had everything she wanted, a beautiful house, a loving supportive husband, and a baby on the way.  The best part of all of this was that Catherine has everything she wanted and still won’t have to give up her soul. 

A few months later they had a healthy baby boy and decided to name him James.  James was a unique child he learned to do everything at an early age.  Catherine and Francis loved him dearly.  He was their little baby boy.  Well, Catherine made her promise and the man came back to visit Catherine and take her soul. 

The man started by saying “years ago you promised that if the devil gave you the life you dreamed of, you would trade it with your soul”.  Catherine said bitterly “my beliefs are not that of the devil, but of God.  I believe the devil does not exist”.   The man was furious about this thinking that the women could trick him and the devil.  In return the man said “Since I can’t take your soul, I will have to find something else.  During the birth of your child, part of your soul transferred into your son.  I will have to take your son’s soul in exchange for your soul”. 

The man who was sent from the devil took her son in exchange for her soul.  She was devastated when she had her baby son taken from her.  Her life started falling apart and she became depressed.  Her husband no longer wanted to be with her.  She had a horrible life and she was lonely.  Catherine’s life turned around rapidly and things got to their worst.  Catherine eventually committed suicide and the devil took her soul.  She thought she could trick the devil and he won.  It’s impossible to trick the devil and win.