Witches and Women in Genre Response

The story that I read was "Aunt Maria (Black Mariah)" which was very interesting. The only witch book/story I've ever read was Harry Potter, so reading this story was very interesting. I believe that Aunt Maria portrayed what everyone thinks a witch actually is: rude, mean and manipulative. I'm not sure I enjoy this type of witch better, but it does pertain to a very popular type of witch. I get the feeling in terms of women this story shows that we're typically angry when things don't go our way. Also shows that once we have some type of "power" like Aunt Maria we manipulate everyone we meet (guys). Which personally I don't agree to, but that's what I get from this story and characters. Regardless I think Aunt Maria was very good for it being a witch story which I personally aren't into very much.

New Weird Response

Being a huge zombie fan I read The Walking Dead by Robert Kirkman and Tony Moore. I first enjoyed reading this because it is a graphic novel. I’m not a big fan of reading so I try my best to find reading material that is exactly like this graphic novel. However, personally I think the word “weird” has no set definition, because it’s different for everyone. Personally I think “weird” is something that is out of the ordinary for a specific person or something that makes someone uncomfortable. For example, I find spiders gross and weird, but some enjoy spiders and don’t think they’re gross.

There are also people who enjoy the “weird”, they find it very compelling. I don’t know why exactly people enjoy the “weird”, but I have a thought that it is something like why people enjoy horror movies. People get a drive from what is weird, they enjoy the suspense of what’s going to happen I suppose or being out of the ordinary. For example, the movie watches in class today where the man and woman enjoy pain and got a drive from it. Not saying they thought it was weird, but to others it’s weird and that’s why the man and woman enjoyed it too.

Now The Walking Dead is something “weird” too, but people still enjoy watching movies and reading about them. I think the whole thought is “weird” because it’s something that isn’t today in our time. It’s something people know can possibly happen and there have been incidences where something similar has happened, but not like The Walking Dead. I think people keep watching and reading things about zombies because they know it can happen so they enjoy the idea of it actually happening by watching them. I think The Walking Dead was very interesting and weird and I love everything about Zombies because they’re weird.

Japanese Horror Response

The story Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things was very interesting to read actually. I have read some Japanese Horror Stories, but not enough to be familiar with them. However, I believe reading this gave me a perspective of what to expect when reading these types of stories. For example, what I've noticed especially in Kwaidan was that Karma was  big thing. Sort of like the saying "what comes around, goes around". Also tying into the whole Karma deal, selfish/materialistic it is known as a type of sin. To me the story was simply a ghost story, Japanese horror tends to focus more on curses involving the themes of revenge and grudges which I find very fascinating. These's a lot more honor and trust in these types of movies that often get broken in some type of way, shape or form. This also ties into the whole honor and dishonor ritual type stories and traditions. All and all this story was not a heroic Japanese story, which I enjoyed very much.