Major Response Paper

by Krystle Hadley, June 2014

900 words

3 pages

essay

There are a lot of things in our life that can bring us joy, make us feel glad and happy. Some of us find happiness in everyday trifles of life, some feel glad when bringing joy to their close ones, for others being happy means being part of something great. This list can be endless as we all identify happiness in our own manner. Being happy has nothing to do with human vices, at least that is what it seems at first sight. However, in some cases the border between joy and vice becomes blurred. This thin line has been crossed by many people and after it happens it is not that easy to wake up from oblivion.

Fantastic stories to be further analyzed certainly describe some situations that are hardly to occur in real world, but still the issues touched upon in them have much in common with our life. Both stories, Francis Marion Crawford`s For the Blood is the Life and Catherine L. Moore`s Shambleau, while depicting different monsters, aim at drawing the theme of human vices and the impact they have on each person`s life.

In Crawford`s story we deal with two friends in one of the distant places in Italy. It all starts pretty normal and true to life until it comes up to the unidentified shadow on the mound. “The thing”, as the narrator calls it, seems to be not just a shadow, “an effect of the moonlight” (Crawford 189), it does not depend on the position of the moonlight, “If there's any moonlight at all, from east or west or overhead, so long as it shines on the grave you can see the outline of the body on top” (Crawford 190). Thus, it makes this story more and more mysterious with each step. So, the narrator decides to tell a story that is, probably, set to shed some light on the nature of that “thing”.

We do not know for sure, whether that vampire story really happened, maybe some part of it really took place. One thing is for sure, before Cristina died and became a blood-sucking creature, Angelo did not even notice the girl. Nevertheless, Cristina managed to seduce him after she turned into vampire. One of the reasons this became possible is, I suppose, that Angelo became morally weaker than before. He had lost his father, his inheritance and, together with it, his right to marry a rich girl and live a careless life he supposed he would have after that marriage. Now Angelo had nothing to live on, he had to earn his own living; he was so much disappointed and dissatisfied with his life that he easily gave up to the vampire`s evil charms. Angelo was standing on the sharpest edge of death or life, but he could not resist the temptation of visiting Cristina. He understood it would not do him any good, but “it was in vain … it was all in vain …” (Crawford 199) as the temptation …

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