Okay so I was looking over the short stories and I think the one that left me with the most questions was "Ligeia" by Edgar Allen Poe. For one, I was wondering what that verse she read before she died actually means. I'm sure it has some sort of foreshadowing for how she was brought back to life or at least that it was going to happen, but I did not really understand it. Also, I was wondering why he married Rowena if he hated her so much. Maybe it's just me but if you don't like someone, how about you don't marry them? That was just one of those less pressing questions. One of the bigger questions I had was what the red fluid in the wine was. I feel like it's connected to how Ligeia came back or maybe he was just hallucinating since he was so high on opium.  The part that really tripped me up was how Rowena kept dying and then coming back to life. Why not just die and have Ligeia come back? It was just sort of confusing. I also wanted to talk about how unreliable the narrator is. He's on opium! Even he says "I was wild with the excitement of an immoderate dose of opium." I mean what if he imagined the whole thing and then he comes down from his high and neither Ligeia and Rowene were real and he's just an old cat-lady? or cat-man I guess. Regardless, this story was the one that confused me the most, but it was still just as interesting as the rest perhaps because it was so confusing.

Best Short Story EVER! (that I've read in the last week)

Out of the six short stories we had to read this last week, I think I liked The Werewolf the best. As I was reading it I felt like it was just a strange twist on the little red riding hood story, but much more intense. The whole idea about a young female trying to walk to her grandmothers house is similar to the other story. Also, the fact that she was approached by a wolf while she is on a trail is a common trait between the two stories. One way that this story differs from The Little Red Riding Hood is that the young woman fought back against the wolf and in all honesty, she kicked butt. The whole grandma aspect also resembled The Little Red Riding Hood, but in this case the woman gets stoned to death. It's sort of upsetting at the end how they say that the girl prospers living in her grandmothers house. Regardless of being a werewolf, it's still kind of frustrating that she's happy living in the house of her grandmother whose death she basically caused. Another difference that I can think of between this girl and red riding hood is their preparedness to what happens. In red riding hoods case, she doesn't really know what's going on so she doesn't really have a way to fight back with the werewolf. In this story however, she is prepared by all the superstitions she grew up listening to so she knows that dangerous creatures reside in that forest. In the end I think I liked this story better than Red Riding Hood. Hooray for creepy stories about old people's limbs being cut off!

Buffy: The Vampire Slayer


This is the topic that me and my group had to do our final girl presentations on. When I started this I had no idea how interested I would become. I am now a Buffy fanatic to say the least. I wanted to talk about her as a final girl although we are presenting on this just to voice my own opinions. For one, she completely breaks the final girl stereotype. Final girls are supposed to be braver than their male companions. This is one aspect in which she fits the stereotype. Xander is her male friend who, let's not kid ourselves, is kind of a dweeb in the first couple episodes. She is definitely braver than him and he senses it which makes him nervous in a couple episodes because while she's off fighting crime, he's just sort of sitting there..being Xander.

Another aspect of the final girl is that they are supposed to not be sexually active. She breaks this boundary because in one of the episodes she has sex with Angel (a dreamy vampire who was given his soul back because of a curse some gypsies gave him). Although this is so, she is a sort of exception because in the first couple episodes, although she is lonely she rejects male attention. One example of this is Xander and how he is in completely love with her but she blows him off. Also this is seen by how Owen (a random human) wants to keep dating her for a life of adventure, she blows him off too. She knows that she can't be in a relationship while also being a dedicated slayer (of course this all goes out the window when she meets angel).

Another trait of a final girl is their boyish or unisex name. (Sam..I think I'd make a great final girl, no?) Buffy on the other hand is practically the girliest name out there..other than like Madeline or something. Not only this, but she's a cheerleader. I get the feeling that final girls are supposed to be tom-boyish but she's not. In fact she's quite the opposite. In the early episodes she's really just an average teenager(apart from having burned down a school gym full of vampires) who wants to date(even though she knows she shouldn't , worries about her appearance, and deals with things like "do these pants make me look fat?".

One other way that she does fit the stereotype is that she utilizes the gaze. Not only does she herself look for vampires, but she looks at them as she kills them. She is the one that reduces them to nothing.

Passing. This is a big thing in this series because it happens so often. Buffy looks like an ordinary girl which means that vampires have no idea that shes the chosen one. One vampire who is fighting her even says that he expected her to be bigger. It always works to the vampires advantage because they can have a normal face but when their vampire side emerges, their faces contort to show who they are. This works for them because they can walk around looking like normal humans while really they are looking for prey. This is shown by when a vampire leads willow away towards a graveyard and only when his face changes does she realize she's in danger. In one specific episode this is shown by way of the anointed. The anointed is supposed to be someone who will help Master escape from underground and will defeat the slayer. Instead of being a big, buff guy, the anointed ends up being an innocent looking little boy. No one will ever suspect him of being the one to help bring about the end of the world.

Colonialism is also portrayed in this series but not on Buffy's side. Master, a vampire who is trapped underground, wants to escape so he can basically take over the world.

And that, my friends, is the awesomeness of Buffy.