Prompt: How is the terror readers feel when reading “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” different from the terror of watching a terrifying movie? Be specific in your response. When you read a scary story, you bring it to life in your mind, imagining the scenes and feelings based on your own thoughts. This makes the fear feel more personal and real because you’re actively involved in creating it. On the other hand, when you watch a scary movie, the fear is presented to you through visuals and sounds. You’re more of a passive observer, experiencing the fear as it’s shown on screen. This can make the fear more intense and immediate, but it’s not as personal because you’re not actively imagining it. So, the fear you feel when reading is different from watching a movie because reading involves your own imagination while watching is more about what’s shown to you.
Daily Archives: April 21, 2024
The difference between the short story “Where are you going, where have you been?” (Joyce Carol Oates)” and most typical horror movies is the way that the horror is built up. When you watch a movie, everything is in front of you. The scenes where the villain is terrorizing people, the gore, the backstories, everything can either be seen or heard. However when you read it, as in this short story, it is up to the readers imagination and interpretation of what is going on in order to really fully capture just how terrifying the situation the protagonist (or other side characters) are really experiencing, based on what is written. If you were to compare a simple horror movie like “a nightmare on elm street”, compared to the short story, the difference is that when you’re reading, there is so much more description, so much more important dialogue that really make up the whole situation, while something like a freddy krueger movie really just has the antagonist going around killing people in their dreams.
The experience of fear while reading “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” differs significantly from that of watching a terrifying movie. In a movie, the visual and auditory stimuli can evoke a more immediate and intense reaction compared to reading a story. In the other hand viewers are confronted with pictures images and sounds designed to provoke a more realistic sensation of situations terror. Reading requires mental visualization relying on the reader’s imagination to interpret the events described on text. This reliance on imagination can vary among readers potentially limiting the some aspects like fear or jump-scares. When we were reading the story I wasn’t to aware of the situations in the reading, while reading the story, I found myself less aware of the situations compared to when watching a movie, this can be an effect of English not been my first language.
The terror of reading “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” are very different from the terror of watching a terrifying movie because when you’re ready a terrifying story all you really do is get goosebumps for real . When you’re watching a scary movie on the screen it is meant to make you jump at the screen spill your popcorn type of thing . You get scared & cover your eyes when watching a movie . Another thing is when you watch a scary movie depending on how scary it is it causes you to have sleepless nights that doesn’t happen when your reading a scary story . Being that a story can drag on for days you want have time to get scared the movie gets straight to the point so that you have enough time to actually get scared . Also when you tend to read scary books you tend to want to read more into the book when your watching a scary movie you stop to turn it off because it’s a horror that you can’t handle as much as you would if you were just reading a book .
When reading “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”, the narrator puts in a lot of imagery and wording to describe scary situation like Arnold in the story. When you’re up to the part where Arnold starts being weird and creepy you get some type of chills for a bit and makes you want to read more to see what will happen next. When reading you are learning about the situation at your paste, taking time reading and processing what is actually happening and trying to imagine it. But, when watching a terror movie you are actually seeing what is happening. All of the loud creepy sounds, the gore scenes is what brings people actual fear when watching. You can’t process the situation at your paste but have to process it quickly and understand it quickly. Also, when watching scary movies you end up getting scary dreams but when reading it is less likely to happen because you are not actually seeing the situation happening.
