Blog Response #8- Online Learning Session 6 (Fear Unit)
COMMENT INSTRUCTIONS - View and read the assigned pieces:
Why is it fun to be frightened?
Once Upon a Time
Then, respond to the following prompts in a clear and concise blog comment.
Please post BOTH Part 1 and Part 2 in ONE POST.
Part 1: Dr. Margee Kerr believes that humans like - perhaps even love - to be scared. What do you feel about this? Do you have any personal examples that you can share that either support or deny her opinion?
Part 2: “Once Upon a Time” is a type of literature called a fable, which provides a moral or lesson about life. After reading Gordimer “children’s story,” what do you think is the moral she was trying to convey? Cite a piece of evidence that makes you think this way in your response.
I agree that people enjoy being scared. I think it could have something to do with the sense of accomplishment once it's all over. “Experience of feeling like I accomplished something, feeling like I did endure, and pushed my boundaries, I learned about myself.” One personal experience I had that supports her opinion is when I went to Burial Chambers. I feel like I learned a little more about myself after I pushed myself, and I felt accomplished.
ReplyDeleteThe moral is there could be consequences to overthinking fear and going too far with protecting yourself from fear. “Next day a gang of workmen came and stretched the razor-bladed coils all round the walls of the house where the husband and wife and little boy and pet dog and cat were living happily ever after.”(5, Gordimer). In the story, the family were trying to be extremely cautious with protecting their house from all of the break ins reported and this quote shows how far they went to protect their home.
I agree with you, people like to push themselves to experience their limits when it comes to fear. After you know your limits to fear, you can think before you do something scary if you are ready for that activity or not.
DeleteI agree with you, pushing your limits when your afraid of something, like haunted houses, it really can be fun once you experience it and can get over your fear
DeleteI agree that the story and the idea of overthinking can be disastrous. Knock on wood but I never had anything seriously bad to me because of my over thinking. It only triggers my anxiety to the point where I mentally shut down.
DeleteI never thought about the fact that you can feel accomplished after being scared. It makes sense because being scared can feel like you are overcoming some fears you may have.
DeleteI would agree with you because when it comes to me after riding the same roller coaster or going to the same haunted house it tends to become more boring and i try new types of fears to re gain that Adrenalin feeling of fear.
DeleteI agree when you either do something so many times or ride the same roller coaster over and over you stop being scared and you have to try new things to get that adrenalin back.
DeletePeople like to be scared because it gives them adrenaline and in some cases, being scared can be really exciting because it triggers your fight or flight senses which again gives you adrenaline. Being scared can be a good thing because it gives you a chance to experience your limits regarding fear. A personal example is when I was had to do a presentation that I was not prepared for and when I was doing the presentation, it gave me adrenaline because I had to act professional in order to get a good grade.
ReplyDeleteThe part that she wants to convey to us is that we cannot just bring anyone off of the street to work for us unless they are trusted. Even though in the story, they reinforced their house, they still had intruders coming in trying to get a job. “Then the time came when many of the people who were not trusted housemaids and gardeners hung about the suburb because they were unemployed. Some importuned for a job: weeding or painting a roof; anything, baas, madam. But the man and his wife remembered the warning about taking on anyone off the street.” (Paragraph 13).
I agree with you, sometime people like that feeling of adrenaline while some people will break down or punch someone if they even scare them just a tiny bit, it really is a matter of preference
DeleteI agree with what you have to say and do find that fear gives you that sense of adrenaline and make you feel better in those types of situations, I on the other hand have a harder time with that because i usually only get scared of real life things like sickness and things that can kill you through your own body.
DeleteI also brought up adrenaline in my ideas, so I agree with your idea on how people enjoy being afraid because they enjoy feeling the adrenaline that may come from being afraid. I liked your thoughts on how fear can be a good thing because you can experience your limits. I feel as though we should always try to push ourselves to get better and work through our fears.
DeleteI agree that people like being scared because of adrenaline and I liked your idea about how being scared gives you a chance to experience your limits.
DeleteI agree with you, I think that some people enjoy testing their limits with scary things/activities and that way they know what they can handle and what they can't handle.
DeleteEven broader, I think the moral she wants to convey to us is to keep ourselves and our loved ones safe. Even when fears stand in our way, we must take the most cautious route to keep ourselves and those we care about from harm. That point was made when the family with a little boy and pets chose the most dangerous trap to put around the house, in hopes of keeping people from breaking in: “ a continuous coil of stiff and shining metal serrated into jagged blades, so that there would be no way of climbing over it and no way through its tunnel without getting entangled in its fangs. There would be no way out, only a struggle getting bloodier and bloodier, a deeper and sharper hooking and tearing of flesh.” When the little boy climbed into the trap, it was made clear to the reader that the fear of break ins caused the family to lose sight of what really matters: a safe home.
DeleteI feel like she is right, people do like or love to be scared but it is really a toss up when it comes to being scared. Some love it and some hate it. For example, one of my friends loves horror movies and being scared while my own mother hates being scared to the point where her fight or flight response kicks in. My brother scared her once and let me tell you, he learned never to do that again. I personally do not like being scared but, during a haunted house, I use humor to cope with being scared. After that, i’ll enjoy myself
ReplyDeleteI believe the moral or lesson that was learned in the children’s story is if you are too paranoid about the things around you, you will either hurt yourself or others around you. As the mother and father became paranoid with the people on the other side of the wall, the boy watched his parents become paranoid and became scared himself. But, he wanted to be brave for his parents, so he tried to climb the wall but got himself hurt. “Placed the length of walls, it consisted of a continuous coil of stiff and shining metal serrated into jagged blades, so that there would be no way of climbing over it and no way through its tunnel without getting entangled in its fangs. There would be no way out, only a struggle getting bloodier and bloodier, a deeper and sharper hooking and tearing of flesh. The wife shuddered to look at it. You’re right, said the husband, anyone would think twice... And they took heed of the advice on a small board fixed to the wall: Consult DRAGON’S TEETH The People For Total Security. [...] he dragged a ladder to the wall, the shining coiled tunnel was just wide enough for his little body to creep in, and with the first fixing of its razor-teeth in his knees and hands and head he screamed and struggled deeper into its tangle.”
I agree with you, getting scared can feel exciting and gets your adrenaline going. If you are paranoid about something, it will make you more scared because you are bracing for the imaginative fear and the possibility of real fear.
DeleteI like to say that making horror funny is the best way to ease the anxiety and stress about the possible jump scares, gore, violence and all the possible things horror can throw to you. Also the paranoia piece about the story's moral adds to this story's fear factor.
DeleteI agree wholeheartedly on your statement because it matters on who you are and if you like being scared me as a person I am indifferent I do not get scared but i can see the appeal and understand the concept of fear as a whole.
DeleteI agree with your idea that people love to be scared, I had the same thought. I liked that you brought up that in fact some people love it and others hate it. I think that people also enjoy being afraid of things. There are many ways to learn to cope with some fears, but people are afraid of this as well. I think it is kind of interesting how this could be interpreted as a sort of loop in some ways. And your ideas on paranoia were also very interesting.
DeleteI totally agree with your thoughts on the moral of the story. Being paranoid can lead to other bad things happening other than the thing you are so worried about. The family in the story let fear take control of their lives and made them not think of how unsafe some of their security techniques may be.
DeleteI agree with you because it depends on the person. Some people love being scared while others hate it.
DeleteI agree with you. I don't enjoy being scared, like when someone purposely tries to scare me at home for fun but yet, i pay money at haunted houses to get scared by random people and for some weird reason, I enjoy it.
DeleteI agree with you because i like to be scared because i believe it makes me stronger yet my sister hate being scared and i think it makes her weaker.
DeletePart A: I feel like more people dislike to be scared because it can cause them to have traumatic memories about what they viewed/witnessed. I may be wrong because people do enjoy having some sort of anxiety attack and adrenaline rush but all the times I’ve gotten scared I didn’t enjoy. But to support Dr. Margee Kerr’s claim of people enjoying being scared with a story that involves me in it. When I was around the age of five I always watched my dad play violent video games like Doom, Serious Sam, F.E.A.R and Half Life. I always got scared and really thrilled when my dad got into sticky situations with demons and all the other baddies in those games. (This is off topic but I disagree with the idea that violent video games causes violence.)
ReplyDeletePart B: The reason why we can call “Once Upon a Time” a fable is because it explores the moral in the story.
The moral being that life is unforgiving and tragedy can happen to anyone. Even can happen to the wealthiest and most powerful people. One piece of evidence is at the end of the story when the little boy got caught and brutally cut up by the barbed wire that's placed all along the wall of the character’s property.
I agree that you could have traumatic memories if you were in a scary situation, but being in a scary situation where there's no chance of you getting hurt can make you feel better afterwards.
DeleteI feel that yes this is a fact that can be scientifically proven because adrenaline rushes through you in these instances causing you to feel energized and sometimes even happy. People like amusement parks because they feel a happy and alive state of being like when you are sitting at home watching a movie you feel better than if you are sitting and doing nothing because you feel that emotion and how it affects how you feel in that specific moment in time.
ReplyDeleteI think that the moral of the story is to not let fear run your life, the entire story they just kept adding more and more defenses because they were afraid of the possible outcome that could come out of it if they did keep fortifying their home from the dangers of the real world. “I have no burglar bars, no gun under the pillow, but I have the same fears as people who do take these precautions” ( Paragraph 5). Nadine Gordimer said this because she wanted to show that she has the same fears but she does not let it over take her and consume her.
I agree that some people like to be scared because of the happy feeling afterwards. I especially like when you described it as “feeling alive”, as I made a connection right away that this is probably similar to the feeling Kerr described: “feeling like I accomplished something, Feeling like I actually did endure, I pushed my boundaries, I Learned about myself in ways that I never thought I could”.
DeleteI think that we do enjoy being scared because it is thrilling. Being scared can lead to adrenaline and enjoyment and people enjoy feeling those things. Fear can bring people closer together, as she talked about. When other people feel things, the people around them are more likely to feel those things too. People want to fit in, so we adapt to the people around us. I enjoy being scared from time to time, watching scary movies, going to haunted houses with my friends, all of these things are thrilling but so much fun at the same time.
ReplyDeleteI think the moral she was trying to convey is that if we act rashly about what we are afraid of, the things that are actually there to fear can be overlooked. In the story, the grandmother kept convincing them that they needed to do more to protect themselves, against things that were happening, but not that scary. She instilled a fear in them that was irrational and caused them to feel irrationally about even going outside of their own house. They built walls to protect themselves, and these walls are the things that actually hurt them. People are so quick to be afraid of something simply because someone says they should be, and this can be their downfall sometimes. The grandmother filled them with fairytales, so they tried to protect themselves, and these same fairytales are what caused the boy to die.
I agree that we do need fear, fear is what makes me have more fun than I ever have the adrenaline rush you get from fear is what I like.
DeleteI agree that people like to be scared because it gives them an adrenaline rush and it shows them how well they can handle being scared. After being scared, they look back and feel good about the experience as long as the experience was a safe one. A personal example that I have is when one time I was playing a horror video game and got scared by a couple jump scares. After the fact, I laughed at myself because of how much I had jumped.
ReplyDeleteI think the moral of the story was that too much paranoia can lead you to hurt yourself or others. The family in the story let fear guide their lives as they were scared of being robbed or hurt by bad people. The mother and father in the story started to do everything to protect their household and the son began to have fear too but eventually their own security was responsible for their son’s death. “...the alarm set up wailing against the screams while the bleeding mass of the little boy was hacked out of the security coil with saws, wire-cutters, choppers, and they carried it — the man, the wife, the hysterical trusted housemaid and the weeping gardener — into the house.”
i feel we should emphasis that to they only wanna look back at it as fun if they walked out ok and unharmed because it true why would you look back at something as fun if you got hurt and it wasn't fun
DeleteI can agree wit you on some parts of what you said Devin but I also have to disagree, McKenzie was saying that it's fun to get scared when you walk through a haunted house or play a scary game but when it comes to real life everything is a million times worse.
DeleteI don't thing i would go as far as a love to be scared for myself but i do feel there are those people who do. I feel its more the accomplishment after doing it then the love of walking into like a haunted cemetery or something. I like to use red granet as a thought because of the high rocks its scary to jump the first time but after you get the thrill and know nothing will happen then you go again and again.
ReplyDeleteThe part she was trying to make was trust is earned not given. We cant just let a random person in our house without the thought he or she wont harm us or try to kill us. In this instance its because people wanted a job
I agree I enjoy being scared when I choose to be because of the adrenaline rush. I feel more awake and alert after I've been scared. I think after someones been scared they feel a sense of accomplishment because they faced a fear they had and everything turned out alright. I also experienced this at red granite jumping off the high cliffs. At first it was a little scary but once I did it once I had to do it again because it was fun.
ReplyDeleteI think the moral of the story was don't let yourself be run by fear. In the story they were over paranoid and scared of what went beyond their house which led to their son getting hurt. This was also said in paragraph 5 “I have no burglar bars, no gun under the pillow, but I have the same fears as people who do take these precautions”
I agree with you on part A because when I was younger I always hated going off of the high dive at the Menasha pool but once I jumped off, landed in the water I wanted to do it again.
DeleteI feel like more people dislike to be scared because it can cause them to have traumatic memories about what they viewed/witnessed. I may be wrong because people do enjoy having some sort of anxiety attack and adrenaline rush but all the times I’ve gotten scared I didn’t enjoy. People want to fit in, so we adapt to the people around us. I enjoy being scared from time to time, watching scary movies, going to haunted houses with my friends, all of these things are thrilling but so much fun at the same time.I think the moral of the story was that too much paranoia can lead you to hurt yourself or others. The family in the story let fear guide their lives as they were scared of being robbed or hurt by bad people.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the moral of the story was too much paranoia can cause you to hurt yourself or others. The parents were so scared of being robbed and in the end their own son died they were controlled by their fear.
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ReplyDeleteI agree with what she has to say, my own personal opinion, I love being scared just because of the adrenaline it gives me. I feel that it's natural to be scared but also fun at the same time. My own experience being scared was way back in sixth grade. My buddy slept over at my house for the weekend and he told me he had gotten a new game. Late at night we decided to play it and it was the scariest game I have ever played. It scared me so much that I tipped everything over on my desk and fell onto the ground.
ReplyDeleteI think the moral of the story is fear what’s closer to you than what’s going on outside of where you are because the boy listened to a story and he wanted to be like the guy in the story. He decided to try and be like him by climbing around on the reinforcements that his parents put up to keep “bad guys” out. For example, in the story when he climbed into the wires the story says, “the first fixing of its razor-teeth in his knees and hands and head he screamed and struggled deeper into its tangle.” This shows that even though the parents were trying to protect their family they went overboard and ended up being their own problem.
I agree that sometimes it's natural that you should be scared and that it can be fun being scared.
DeleteI agree with you on part B when you said at the end that “they went overboard and ended up being their own problem. I agree with on on that because it’s true that they did go overboard with the reinforcements, but they also didn’t have to follow what everybody else was doing they could have just done what they wanted to do.
DeleteI agree that it's natural to be scared and can be fun at times depending on how scared you are of something.
DeleteI think that in the right situations fear can be good for you. Fear gives you a rush of adrenaline and it gives you a release from the stress and the anxiety that you might be feeling at the time. Personally, I don’t have any examples of being scared because I don’t really get scared a whole lot, and I don’t really go looking for things that could make me scared.
ReplyDeleteThe moral of the story is that if you let fear control you too much, then you could inadvertently end up hurting yourself or someone else in the process. In the last paragraph of the story it showed how the parents' fear had taken control of them and in the process their son died because of barbed wire they put all around the walls of their house.
I disagree with her opinion. I do not like being scared. I have anxiety so I feel like it makes being scared worse.
ReplyDeleteI have no idea what the moral could be.
PART: A I personally believe that she is wrong because I personally would not use the word love. I do believe that people like the adrenaline rush especially when they are younger because I notice that my grandparent and my parents and aunt and uncles don't really like being scared. I feel like the older you get the less you like being scared.
ReplyDeletePART B The moral of the story is that overthinking fear can bring yourself and your loved ones serious problems. The family was trying to protect all of their belongings and themselves from the riots and they put up some barb wire. “he dragged a ladder to the wall, the shining coiled tunnel was just wide enough for his little body to creep in” the Little boy got wrapped up and stuck in the wire because of the story the witch told him. Now the little boy was hurt because his parents were being overprotective and scared about their things.
I personally am in the middle from my experience that I have come upon, I like to be scared but I also don’t like to be scared.
ReplyDeleteThe moral of the story is that the family inside the wall has fear of the “other color” will climb the wall and invade their home. The family got so scared when the cat jump the wall and set off the alarms that they thought someone of the “other color” was breaking in their home.
I agree that people do enjoy being scared. I personally think that fear can be good sometimes and in certain situations. It can give you a resale of stress because you are thinking of other things then what you are going through and you just get this adrenaline rush through you inter body that some people enjoy feeling.
ReplyDeleteI think the moral of the story is that if you don't know how to control fear, you will end up hurting yourself more then confronting your fear. By knowing that you know how to control that fear you have you are letting yourself know that fear can't control you. In paragraph 5 “I have no burglar bars, no gun under the pillow, but I have the same fears as people who do take these precautions” it is stating that even though he doesn't have a weapon near him he still has that sense of fear.