Kay Drew's Views

Mars is the main setting in A Princess of Mars by Burroughs and The Marian Chronicles by Bradbury. The ability to spot the red planet without a telescope, all the while unable to visit, makes this exotic. Is Mars life like ours? Do aliens have the same hopes and dreams? Through storytelling, Bradbury and Burroughs solidify these musings. Carl Sagan famously stated, "Mars has become a kind of mythic arena onto which we have projected our Earthly hopes and fears.”    Burroughs’s book paints a rugged, barbaric picture. His martins are inhuman; both in appearance (some are green and have 4 arms) and personality (the beings are cold, cruel, and unloving). Even the technology presented is rudimentary. This Mars is an archaic, ignorant society which hyperbole mirrors Burroughs fears for Earth. Without further evolution and inventions, civilization won’t rise to its potential.      Mars, in The Martian Chronicles , is similar to Earth. Some of the areas actu...

We are not Gods, nor should we play the role. When attempted, it can lead to a disaster of monstrous proportions. It can be the undoing of the man. This is the point Mary Shelly is attempting to make in her novel, Frankenstein . Shelley introduces Dr. Victor Frankenstein as a heartsick fellow suffering from malaise and depression. Frankenstein feels he's "lost everything, and cannot begin life anew" (Shelley 42). Although hesitant to disclose the reasons for his state of mind, the doctor’s story unfolds. Due to his background as a physician, he is fascinated with how the human body works and the secret to longevity. He becomes obsessed with creating life. This fixation leads Frankenstein to experiment with reanimation where ultimately, he builds his own humanoid being. The doctor isn’t prepared for the consequences. Dr. Frankenstein has created a twisted, cruel parody of humanity that is hideous in appearance as well as a menace to society. Alarmed and driven...

Death and insanity are two focal points in Edgar Allan Poe’s stories. Like the beating heart beneath the floorboards in The Tell-Tale Heart those themes are prominent. Poe is a master storyteller, but was his focus on the morbid because he loved horror stories or did certain circumstances influence his tales? Poe astutely defined his mental status by stating, “I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.” On the surface, he seems to embrace his madness. However, there are many events in his life that could drive any soul into mental instability. By the time he is 5-years-old, Poe is orphaned (par 5-79). Unofficially adopted by the Allan’s, he’s separated from his brother to live with this family. Soon after that move, he’s whisked away to several boarding schools all the while his adoptive family moves to England. Then in the late 1820’s and early 1830’s his biological brother and adoptive family dies.   To put the final nail in Poe’s proverbial coffin, his wif...