The Clever Thing to Do Would Be to Make This Title an Epigraph, but Alas, No Such Title Is Readily Apparent

The Last of the Mohicans makes consistent use of epigraphs, opening every chapter with one, often taken from Shakespeare or Gray. In this vein, chapter XV opens with an excerpt from Shakespeare's Henry V. Taken from the end of act 1, scene ii, this passage is spoken by the Archbishop of Canterbury as he and the Bishop of Ely go to join the king in his meeting with the French Ambassador, with the intent of spurring Henry into a war with France. While chapter XV does also deal with an ambassadorial meeting with the French, the situation is nearly the reverse.

Setting aside the superficial detail that it is an English ambassador going to meet the French, the major reversal from Henry V comes from an attempt to end the siege against the English troops through surrender. The English are in a very different position, one of weakness, rather than strength, trying merely to survive, rather than trying to win. The war is not beginning, it is ending.

The epigraph is thus not an accurate predictor of events, creating an irony. It is obvious that the relative timing do not line up, as the reader knows full well that the war is not in it's infancy. It may however create the impression that the British may be able to take a position of strength through their negotiations, which of course shall not be the case.

Or it may have simply been chosen due to the connection of an ambassadorial meeting between the French and the British.

Edgar Huntly and the Worlds Worst Road

At length, Edgar Huntly finds himself in the wilds, lost and exhausted, struggling to survive long enough to find civilization. After awaking in wild, unsure of how he arrived there, and after an encounter with a band of "savages", Huntly is abandoned by the civilized men he meets, and left to find his own way home. Thus, Huntly finds himself upon a long road, more a path, with little to aid him on his search for home.

This road (described on pages 195-6) is described briefly. The path slowly fades as the wilderness subsumes it, and his long walk is broken up by only the most occasional of water sources, a few scattered streams. As the early morning turns to day, Huntly pushes forward, but never feels as if he is making any progress. His exhaustion, dedication, and hopelessness is conveyed through his continued wanderings on a path ever more vague. This increasing vagueness betrays Huntly's dedication, with him pursuing the only trail he has, not knowing where it will take him, but with this dedication come his exhaustion. Forever forward, night turns to day with Huntly's passage broken up only by the occasional stream. When hiking, it seems there is no greater distance than that between water, and so every stream along Huntly's way makes it seem as though a great distance has been traversed to reach it. And given the rather lacklustre quality of these water sources, his trek seems ever more hopeless, and desperate.

In the picturesque tradition, this road would see far greater detail. The sun would perhaps become more oppressive, the distance perhaps more explicitly emphasized, the path's perilous nature more clearly disclosed. It is true, that such detail would emphasize the emotion, the feeling of hopelessness and exhaustion. Any detail given to the sun would itself be enough to intensify the feeling of being trapped and tired in an oppressive wilderness. And of course describing just how inhospitable the environment is would go far in making Huntly's exhaustion apparent. Despite this, I feel that further describing these details would help no more than does the original. The original text is able to convey all of this so succinctly, and with the exact details of the sun and the terrain undisclosed, the mind will always make the sun the hottest sun that has ever shone, and the road the longest road to ever be walked.

The Terrifyingly Horrendous, and the Horrendously Terrifying

There is, in literature (although I suppose in other media and in real life as well), a distinction between levels of fear. A distinction made between horror and terror. In the case of horror, the fear comes from an encounter with the grotesque and the gory. It's counterpart terror comes from the anticipation, knowing that some horror lies in wait, and trying to escape this gruesome fate. To sum it up in a quick, but terminologically confused, analogy, terror is the J-Horror to horror's slasher-flick.

Unsurprisingly horror is regarded as the weaker of the fears, a quick shock-value scare of a pulpier nature. Terror, the stronger of the fears, is all about the build-up to the horror. A slow, constant heightening of tension, as you draw closer and closer to the horror that awaits. As a result, terror is nothing without horror. Without the possibility of some grotesque fate, there's nothing to fear, and so terror and horror must go hand in hand, and the horror must be able to live up to the terror, or both just feel lacking. 2009 horror film Paranormal Activity is a strong example of such a failing. Terror was built up throughout the film, with the presence of the demon always looming over the house, always a threat, always building to some terrible climax. Whoops! A last second shock that actually engenders laughter more than anything else, dissipating all feelings of horror (the demon) and of terror (the fear from knowing of the demon's presence but being able to truly fight back).

This fearful dichotomy is, I feel, flawed. If horror is the supernatural beast with the machete, and terror is knowing that this beast is stalking you, where do we place the fear felt before identifying the horror? It could be a part of terror but that doesn't seem entirely accurate. In The Hanged Man Orson Scott Card identifies this third fear as dread, the earliest stages of fear, when you know something is wrong, but cannot yet put a face to the fear. In this 3 stage breakdown of fear dread is finding your front door mysteriously open and knowing that something is wrong, horror is the mad man with the axe who has entered your house, and terror is that point in between, where you know that this mad man is stalking you, knowing what it is you fear, and trying desperately to escape it.

A blog? For class? Such a thing has never been done!

You know what started running into trouble with the onset of Modern English? English Literature. Sure it wasn't all bad, but poetry is better when it's in Anglo Saxon. My modern English interests are almost solely in the novel, which didn't really start to get it's act together until the 19th century. As a result my interests in literature are very much focused on the 19th-21st century, and pretty much everything from Cædmon's Hymn to the mid 1600s.

My name is Holden Bellamy, and I like to voice broad sweeping opinions that may not be entirely fair. Here are some pictures of some beetles.