• Welcome to BookAndReader!

    We LOVE books and hope you'll join us in sharing your favorites and experiences along with your love of reading with our community. Registering for our site is free and easy, just CLICK HERE!

    Already a member and forgot your password? Click here.

March 2014: March Macabre: Poe vs Dahl

Răspunsul said:
If this is an invitation to compare the two, then Poe with his superb prose, has to be the purist's choice every time.
I am new, so pardon me for asking but shouldn't book of the month be a book?
Read in a month and then discussed?
Click to expand...

Well technically yes, however participation in this section has dwindled considerably, I'm trying to make it easier to participate. April is back to a book again. Please vote for your choice of three suggested.
 
Meadow337 said:
OK here are my thoughts on these two stories. I chose them because on the surface they have a lot of similarities - both deal with the murder of a spouse in a momentary fit of rage, and both are by well known writers of the macabre but that is where the similarity ends. In one the murderer gets away with it, and in the other the murderer ends up on death row awaiting sentence. In one the murderer exults at her cleverness in covering up her crime while in the other the murderer takes full responsibility for his.

On the surface one is inclined to be sympathetic at the circumstances of the one murder - a pregnant wife about to tell her husband her wonderful news is instead told he is going to leave her for another woman; and entirely not be sympathetic to the circumstances of the other - a man tortures his pets, kills the cat, and then kills his wife and we do not feel much sympathy. Yet both of these stories turn your sympathy or lack thereof upside down. What sane man who was previously kind and loving suddenly becomes cruel and murderous? The story does not say, but he is man who clearly is deeply sorry, if puzzled by his actions and makes no excuse for them. He welcomes his impending death, and yet should we welcome it with him, for surely this story is a description of man's descent into true violent mental illness of some kind? Shouldn't we, in fact be sorry for him?

On the other hand, the murderous wife's story is told humourously and sympathetically and yet should we feel sorry for her? She coldly gets up, gets the frozen roast and kills her husband. She leaves his body on the floor and goes out and puts on a Oscar worthy performance for the grocer and continues her charade with his colleagues insisting they eat the dinner she cooked. At the end she giggles at her cleverness in successfully covering up her crime - is this not the picture of the stone-cold killer? She isn't remorseful, she is taken with her own superiority and finds the apparent stupidity of the police amusing. Isn't that a picture of a sociopath?

I think both these stories are very clever. They both twist and turn as you read them and play with your emotions.
Click to expand...

Well I would say that did not the wife in Dahl story also suffer from a mental breakdown? What makes her any more sane than the husband that first kills his cat and hurts his animals? As for her not feeling remorse, she might at a later time the same as the husband did but the story does not tell that part. Both in a way should be treated the same as although there are differences they are the same within those differences in a way. I would also ask would the husband be as remorsefull as he is if he had not been caught? Wasn't he for a time just as gloating with the fact that he had gotten away with it until he was caught BY his own pride?
 
Sparhawk said:
Well I would say that did not the wife in Dahl story also suffer from a mental breakdown? What makes her any more sane than the husband that first kills his cat and hurts his animals? As for her not feeling remorse, she might at a later time the same as the husband did but the story does not tell that part. Both in a way should be treated the same as although there are differences they are the same within those differences in a way. I would also ask would the husband be as remorsefull as he is if he had not been caught? Wasn't he for a time just as gloating with the fact that he had gotten away with it until he was caught BY his own pride?
Click to expand...

This is what makes these stories so good. There is more than one way to look at them :)
 
Meadow wrote:
Isn't that a picture of a sociopath?
Click to expand...

At the least an amoral person, I'm not sure if she quite reaches the sociopath mark.

I googled sociopath, because I am not familiar with all of the aspects. I found this link. http://www.mcafee.cc/Bin/sb.html

Of course we don't know her childhood or background, but she didn't seem to exhibit all, or most of the symptoms listed in the link.
 
yes I didn't mean it in a totally accurate clinical sense as there is insufficient information, but there is even in her thoughts and interaction with her husband before the murder a feeling of some one acting the part. She is murderously angry with him and none of that emotion shows. Perhaps I'm reading into it but personally I find her far more chilling than Poe's character. That giggle at the end sends chills down my spine.

Added note.

I will say that when I first read these stories some 20+ ( or *cough* 30+) years ago I found the Dahl story amusing and the Poe story frightening. I think I had nightmares about the ghost of tortured cats bricked up into walls for weeks, but coming back to them now I find my opinion has changed. The Poe story is a warning about consequences, while the Dahl story seems more frightening.
 
Last edited:
I still think she went just as crazy as the husband in Poes story rather than being a sociopath, the only difference was the fact that he was more obviously not well and for longer. :)
 
Sparhawk said:
I still think she went just as crazy as the husband in Poes story rather than being a sociopath, the only difference was the fact that he was more obviously not well and for longer. :)
Click to expand...

I think that history is littered with the corpses of husbands whose wives finally snapped, but there is a chilling normalcy to her actions. This for me is the telling line:
That's the way, she told herself. Do everything right and natural. Keep things absolutely natural and there'll be no need for any acting at all.
Click to expand...
 
Meadow337 said:
I think that history is littered with the corpses of husbands whose wives finally snapped, but there is a chilling normalcy to her actions. This for me is the telling line:
Click to expand...

Yes and she BELIEVED her own lie! Is not that a sign that she was not in any normal or sane state of mind?
 
Sparhawk said:
Yes and she BELIEVED her own lie! Is not that a sign that she was not in any normal or sane state of mind?
Click to expand...

Proof of insanity yes. I think for me it is the overall impression of a person who goes through life acting a role. And if temporary insanity due to the circumstances is her defense, I think she would have done better to have not been so coldly calculating about covering up her tracks.


PostScript. I suddenly realised she is drinking, albeit a weak one, while pregnant. Amazing how awareness of stuff like this has changed in the last 50 years. These days it would be unheard of.
 
Raspunsul,

LOL ,funny.
Democracy will be allowed in April. :)

Should be done re reading both soon.
 
Meadow337 said:
Proof of insanity yes. I think for me it is the overall impression of a person who goes through life acting a role. And if temporary insanity due to the circumstances is her defense, I think she would have done better to have not been so coldly calculating about covering up her tracks.


PostScript. I suddenly realised she is drinking, albeit a weak one, while pregnant. Amazing how awareness of stuff like this has changed in the last 50 years. These days it would be unheard of.
Click to expand...


Sparhawk said:
It is a bit shocking isn't?
Click to expand...

Surprising, for our present, but par for the course in that time frame.
 
Meadow337 said:
Yeah, but interesting for that, too see a small glimpse of a change in attitudes.
Click to expand...

Oh, absolutely. Just sayin'. :)

I mean, for example, cell phones.....if you watch films made in the last, I guess 15 years or so, they are everywhere. Watch a film from the 1990's, and nothing. It's almost disconcerting.

Anyhow, sorry for the off topic remark. :)
 
pontalba said:
Oh, absolutely. Just sayin'. :)

I mean, for example, cell phones.....if you watch films made in the last, I guess 15 years or so, they are everywhere. Watch a film from the 1990's, and nothing. It's almost disconcerting.

Anyhow, sorry for the off topic remark. :)
Click to expand...

Hey we like off-topic around here (mostly because I'm the biggest guilty party) LOL
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top