Personal Narrative Fiction

He compares what he hears to a “sea that overwhelms” or basically complete silence. Edgar also wants us to imagine complete darkness, fear, and hopelessness.

In the year 1625, Francis Bacon, a famous essayist and poet wrote about the influences of fear on everyday life. He stated, “Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased with tales, so is the other” (Essays Dedication of Death). Clearly, external surroundings affect perceptions of fear as well as human nature in general. Although C.S. Lewis published the novel, Out of the Silent Planet, over three centuries after Bacon wrote his theory on fear, Lewis similarly portrayed external surrounding to manipulate perceptions of fear. From the first chapter of the novel, Lewis revealed fear to be a weakness that leads to ignorance. It was this

“This experience is much harder, and weirder, to describe than extreme fear or terror, most people know what it is like to be seriously afraid. If they haven’t felt it themselves, they’ve at least seen a movie, or read a book, or talked to a frightened friend – they can at least imagine it. But explaining what I’ve come to call ‘disorganization’ is a different challenge altogether. Consciousness gradually loses its coherence, one’s center gives away. The center cannot hold. The ‘me’ becomes a haze, and the solid center from which one experiences reality breaks up like a bad radio signal. (Saks, p. 13)”

Markus Zusak focuses the novel on a distrait young girl, Liesel Meminger, which through her the audience captures the spectrum of existence. Each human, having a stand on a certain place at random, waits for chance to give its say. Liesel experiences tragedies and disasters alike that only engulf the fear of being either alive or dead. The same way the act of no longer breathing is terrifying, so is the incidental continuation of a pulse; having of seen other characters die before her adds to it. The author takes points of views from characters, aside from Liesel, that’ve been chosen to live through traumatizing events. Their dialogue and surroundings further act as a basis for survivor's guilt--- which causes those who survived to continue

“But a deeper terror immediately gripped me: I couldn’t remember where I was. A warm bed, darkness, the sound of traffic. What country is this? What is this house, and who am I with. I reached out a hand; there was no one else in the bed. Was I alone because I had no partner, or because my partner was far away? I floated in the dark, anonymous to myself, lost in the sensation that the world existed but I was no longer a part of it” (130).

"Imara!" I moaned in pain and felt my head. "Imara!" I dug into my pockets and pulled out my flashlight. I turned it on and shone it around. "Where am I?" Alister sighed in relief. "Why didn't you answer me? I thought you died." I was currently sitting in a half circle room that led only one way. "I don't know. There's only one path." I stood up expecting pain but my leg felt normal. I patted my arm and again everything was fine. "How long was I out?" I pointed my light into the tunnel. "A while."

“All of these analyses share one characteristic: they set the indifferent witness apart from the rest of us. Certainly not one of us who reads about these incidents in horror is apathetic, alienated or depersonalized. Certainly these terrifying cases have no personal implications for us. We needn’t feel guilty, or re-examine ourselves, or anything like that. Or should we?” (6).

It is midnight and a wintry breeze flows through your window causing an eerie noise on the shutters that flick parallel with the breeze. At this time, all of us will certainly be contained by fear of the unpredictability of what will happen next, but what is the true meaning of the fear of the unknown? The fear of the unknown occurs in all of us as a deep fear of the uncertainty of what is going to progressively follow afterward or even an object with its obscurity that serves as a potential danger. The illustration of the theme “the fear of the unknown” by Golding is not only prominent in the novel, the Lord of the Flies but is also illustrated in the film Inception and explained in the article The Psychology of Black and Why We’re Scared of the Dark.

 "Damn thing went out again," Minzy growls, slamming her hand against the air conditioner. I rub the back of my neck, sweat trickling down my body in a fit of heat overdose.

Mah brother and I wer walkin’ through the field of apple trees in the evening before the funereal—recalling this and that or that thing that had happened in this or that place, flippin’ over the memories after the fashion of the Apple family who gather again in the place where we wer all born—trying to make sense of the fillies we once wer and of the members who wer once with us.

Fear did not fall unknown to him, for he shared familiarity as one would with an age-old friend, sans camaraderie. Did it guide him? Perhaps, but within a world devoured by illness, where wolves lay with sheep, sometimes a touch of paranoia interwoven with persistent foreboding kept you from the yawning endless maw of death itself.

“Although I tried,” Ed said as he picked up the empty box. “I never learned how to use the thing myself.” “ I would try from time to time, but I finally just gave up, and put in this old box year’s ago.” “I would like for you to take it with you on your journey, who knows, maybe it will work for you.”

“That’s okay. I’m Dylan. Dylan Siro,” he said, nodding his head with a polite smile. “Oh and you’re going to need this.” He stuck his hand in his boot, pulled something shiny out, and placed it in my hand. The heavy object he gave me was a small plasma pistol. I didn’t know much about the weapons we brought with us, but one thing I did know was that the plasma guns were the most destructive.

Hearing these dark chanted verses you can practically sense the characters' fear. Your eyes are glued to the screen, your ears stuck to the intense dusky and gloomy sounds, while something deep within you wants to run away, but you can't, because you want to know what is going to happen next.