Madness and Lost Love

“The Furnished Room”, “The Boarded Window”, & “Berenice”

 

“The Furnished Room” – I think that is story offered a cool aspect of incorporating the colorful lives in New York (I’m assuming). It was cool that O.Henry chose to make the setting of the home in the theatrical district. The housekeeper tells us the various stories of the people who lived in the room before our speaker and how colorful their lives were. Even the little things life behind like the hairpins, the bow, the etched “Marie”. These were all little pieces of people’s lives that were left behind. Clearly O.Henry thought that this city was lively and everyone in it had a story to tell, they all left a small piece of it behind in this room. However we must consider that the housekeeper could have made up all of these stories just to sell the room. But that does make her a colorful person in this city too.

“The Boarded Window”- This story was AWESOME. There was no way that you could read this without getting chills down your spine, especially the last paragraph. I must hold my ground in saying that I do not believe this story had any aspect of the supernatural in it. I think that Bierce specifically set up his reader by mentioning death, an overall eeriness and the rumors of a ghost to take the readers mind there. It was very impressive how Bierce used this kind of literary techniques to turn a suspenseful natural story into a creepy one. At first I did think that this was a supernatural story but there were a few lines in the story that clued me in otherwise. The first real element is when Murlock hears the “child-like” scream. Yes it is a scream of some sort but the story says that it may have been a beast of some kind or even just him dreaming. Secondly, the reader may become startled when Murlock wakes up and his wife’s body is no longer there. Although this was concerning, in the last paragraph it reveals that his life was still living! When he was in the process of “preparing” her for burial she must have still been unconscious from sickness. There are two things that tip the reader off that she was still living, one is that the sash around her wrists were broken and her hands were clasped together. Second, the biggest, there was blood pouring out of her lacerated neck and wasn’t yet coagulated. HINT: DEAD BODIES DO NOT BLEED. Therefore, at the time of the attack she must have been alive! This was no story of a wife coming back to life. A panther had come to consume the carcass of a decaying person, in the process of the attack, the woman must have woken up and tried to defend herself but failed.

“Berenice”- I have to ask, was it common for people to be buried or pronounced dead when they weren’t in this time period? I mean was this just a thing authors explored through literature or did this actually used to happen. I feel like reading Poe is like going over to an old friends house after you haven’t seen them in a while, he is very unique and explores common themes in his writing. Like I said in a previous blog, it is so easy to recognize Poe the second you read it. I have to say that although I love these kinds of stories, the teeth were a little gross, even for Poe. Madness and severe mental illness is explored in this story to a point of obsession.  I enjoyed it as I do all Poe things but not nearly as much as the other two stories for this week.     

“There is a point at which terror may turn to madness; and madness incites to action. With no definite intent, from no motive but the wayward impulse of a madman, Murlock sprang to the wall, with a little groping seized his loaded rifle, and without aim discharged it. “– The Boarded Window, Ambrose Bierce