Presenter(s): Jess Thompson
Faculty Mentor(s): Angela Bogart-Montieth
Oral Session 1 DL
This project explores the method behind the fear-inducing works of fiction created by two of the most famous masterminds of literary horror, Edgar Allan Poe and Stephen King. The research delves into close readings of both King and Poe’s work, and analyzes the tactic known as “defamiliarizing the familiar,” a strategy that turns a variety of recognizable components—from characters to setting to even stylistic choices—into something strange in order to disorient and scare the reader. As an aspiring horror fiction writer, my goal is to put the work of these two authors in conversation with each other in order to borrow tools from them and further improve my own writing.