Comparing The Feather Pillow And Home For Peculiar Children
Rough Draft Gothic literature has a specific tone and vibe that sets it apart from other genres of literature. In many gothic literature stories and novels, it seems that there is usually a presence of monsters, one or more characters suffers from psychological issues, or one of the characters is stuck on a memory from the past. These elements play a key role in portraying the characters accurately, and giving a deeper understanding to the story. In The Feather Pillow and Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children (MP), monsters are present and are the main antagonists in both stories. In MP, the infamous monsters Jacob’s Grandpa always tells stories of, but Jacob has never seen, eventually kill his Grandpa. When Jacob is at his side, he
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looks up to see the monster, “It stared back at me with eyes that swam in dark liquid, mouth open so long eel-like tongues wriggled out” (Riggs 36). He describes them earlier in the book as “Awful hunched-over monsters with rotting skin and black eyes” (Riggs 13). In The Feather Pillow, a woman slowly dies each night for unknown reasons. Once she finally passes, and the cause unknown, they notice her pillow is very heavy. They cut it open to find something “…slowly moving its hair legs, there was a monstrous animal: alive, round, and viscous” (Quiroga 2). It had sucked the woman’s blood for five nights straight and killed her. In the story Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment and MP, a few of the characters are infatuated with the past. In MP, Jacob’s Grandpa, Abe, is infatuated with a place that Jacob is convinced does not exist. He always showed Jacob pictures and told stories that seemed impossible. For example, he said a 12-year-old boy could lift a boulder with one arm, and another boy was invisible, and that one of the girls could fly. While Jacob sits at Abe’s side, while he is dying, he manages the strength to say, “Find the bird. In the loop. On the other side of old man’s grave. September third, 1940” (Riggs 37). While this doesn’t make sense now, it is the directions to seek a loop in time where Jacob will be safe from the monsters. Or at least he should be. In Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment, the three old gentlemen and widow lead miserable lives, that are soon to be over. Dr. Heidegger creates a beverage that will cure them of old age and make them as young as they want. Hearing this, the four seniors become excited and obsessed with becoming youthful again. “Quick! Give us more of this water! We are younger but we are still too old” (Hawthorne 2). In the story The Black Cat and MP, the characters suffer from psychologic issues, or at least that’s what one of them thinks.
In The Black Cat, the narrator loves his pets. But his absolute favorite is Pluto, his black cat. One day the cat bit him and instead of acting rationally, “The fury of a demon possessed me. I knew myself no longer. My soul seemed to take flight from my body” (Poe 2). He then proceeds to cut the cats eyes out. Later he kills his wife for getting in the way of him trying to kill the cat, then kills the cat by hanging it from a tree. He is definantly suffering from some type of psychological issue, especially since he is apparently being taken over by demons. In MP, Jacob has accidently found the time loop, and he doesn’t even know that he is in it. He notices things that are off and says to himself “I’m having a psychotic episode. Right now. This is what a psychotic episode feels like” (Riggs 128). Only he is not, he is just convinced that he is crazy. Also earlier in the book, after the monster kills his Grandpa, he suffers from nightmares and horrible day dreams for a long time. He is convinced at first that the monster wasn’t real, he was just seeing things. “It was Grandpa’s stories that planted creatures in my head… and I can’t get them out” (Riggs
43). To conclude, the presence of monsters, flashbacks and memories of the past, and psychological issues or demons, play a major key in giving a deeper understanding of the characters’ background, and giving more meaning to the story.
looks up to see the monster, “It stared back at me with eyes that swam in dark liquid, mouth open so long eel-like tongues wriggled out” (Riggs 36). He describes them earlier in the book as “Awful hunched-over monsters with rotting skin and black eyes” (Riggs 13). In The Feather Pillow, a woman slowly dies each night for unknown reasons. Once she finally passes, and the cause unknown, they notice her pillow is very heavy. They cut it open to find something “…slowly moving its hair legs, there was a monstrous animal: alive, round, and viscous” (Quiroga 2). It had sucked the woman’s blood for five nights straight and killed her. In the story Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment and MP, a few of the characters are infatuated with the past. In MP, Jacob’s Grandpa, Abe, is infatuated with a place that Jacob is convinced does not exist. He always showed Jacob pictures and told stories that seemed impossible. For example, he said a 12-year-old boy could lift a boulder with one arm, and another boy was invisible, and that one of the girls could fly. While Jacob sits at Abe’s side, while he is dying, he manages the strength to say, “Find the bird. In the loop. On the other side of old man’s grave. September third, 1940” (Riggs 37). While this doesn’t make sense now, it is the directions to seek a loop in time where Jacob will be safe from the monsters. Or at least he should be. In Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment, the three old gentlemen and widow lead miserable lives, that are soon to be over. Dr. Heidegger creates a beverage that will cure them of old age and make them as young as they want. Hearing this, the four seniors become excited and obsessed with becoming youthful again. “Quick! Give us more of this water! We are younger but we are still too old” (Hawthorne 2). In the story The Black Cat and MP, the characters suffer from psychologic issues, or at least that’s what one of them thinks.
In The Black Cat, the narrator loves his pets. But his absolute favorite is Pluto, his black cat. One day the cat bit him and instead of acting rationally, “The fury of a demon possessed me. I knew myself no longer. My soul seemed to take flight from my body” (Poe 2). He then proceeds to cut the cats eyes out. Later he kills his wife for getting in the way of him trying to kill the cat, then kills the cat by hanging it from a tree. He is definantly suffering from some type of psychological issue, especially since he is apparently being taken over by demons. In MP, Jacob has accidently found the time loop, and he doesn’t even know that he is in it. He notices things that are off and says to himself “I’m having a psychotic episode. Right now. This is what a psychotic episode feels like” (Riggs 128). Only he is not, he is just convinced that he is crazy. Also earlier in the book, after the monster kills his Grandpa, he suffers from nightmares and horrible day dreams for a long time. He is convinced at first that the monster wasn’t real, he was just seeing things. “It was Grandpa’s stories that planted creatures in my head… and I can’t get them out” (Riggs
43). To conclude, the presence of monsters, flashbacks and memories of the past, and psychological issues or demons, play a major key in giving a deeper understanding of the characters’ background, and giving more meaning to the story.