Varieties of The Fantastic in Fiction

Carmen Maria Machado’s “Inventory” was the least fantastical story we read this week but it is maybe one of the more powerful ones to me. In the story, the protagonist is making a list of all the people she has slept with. The people she has slept with is not the main story though. As […]

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Reading “The Husband Stitch” brought lots of insight to mind for me. The short story sheds light on a still ongoing issue that many women face, most men not respecting boundaries. This was most definitely graphic and kind of pornographic…but I feel like that was needed to provide a connection.

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“Mothers” is written from a first person point of view, and is set in the present. The narrator shifts from present to past (as well as the possible future, or the one she dreams about) multiple times throughout the story, seeming to reflect the back-and-forth feelings that the narrator experiences throughout the story. The name […]

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I read “Husband Stich” by Carmen Maria Machado. It was a story within a story and to me it was like a romance/porn book. It tells the reader when and how the narrator meets her husband and on their sexual journey before marriage and during marriage. The narrator has a green ribbon around her neck and […]

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As a writer:  The writing style of this story was very different from the others we have read so far. The skipping back and forth between present, past, and a hypothetical future created a disorienting and confusing impression that reflected the way the narrator was feeling. In the end, the reader is left wondering what […]

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“Mother” is fantastic in a simple way: two women had biological children. In today’s society, it’s seemingly impossible. Yet the fantastic doesn’t just reside in the seemingly impossible. When I was first told what motherhood entailed – caring and loving for a child for your lifetime and everything in between – I resolved to never […]

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This weeks stories consisted of many things that will make readers squirm in their seats uncomfortably, but also find voice and relatability in the text as well. Out of all the stories that we read “The Husband Stitch” was my favorite. The amount of detail that the author gave about the woman’s life throughout all […]

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I found “The Husband Stitch” and “Inventory,” both by Carmen Maria Machadoz, to be compelling in their own ways. I started “The Husband Stitch” with an air of caution, having heard the title before, only used in different contexts. I was surprised to find its protagonist to be such a bold woman for the time […]

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The “Room in the Attic” is a story about a teenager named David who is excelling in his high school classes, when during the schoolyear; he befriends a young boy named John “Wolf” & gets to know Wolf’s sister. Wolf’s sister, Isabel is a mysterious girl with an illness that is not explained. Throughout the […]

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This weeks reading were interesting to say the least. The most interesting and chaotic one to me is “Dangerous Laughter”. During the boredom of the summer kids are forced to make up their own fun and this leads to them doing a lot of weird stuff. The idea of having laughing competitions is normal and […]

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“The Room in the Attic” by Steven Millhauser has the theme of turning a blind eye to something. The main character and narrator David meets a girl who lives in a pitch-black room in her attic. As David grows closer with this girl, Isabel, he wonders constantly about her appearance. He even starts dreaming about […]

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I read “The Room in The Attic” and “Dangerous Laughter” by Steven Millhauser. In both of these stories, being restless and wanting more was a common theme. In “The Room in The Attic” a boy in high school is living a secret life. In school he acts normal and hangs out with his friends but […]

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At some point, a fair assumption can be made that we –collectively– have all idealized a person to the extent that the way we have crafted them in our heads does not correlate with the person they are in real life. We create an image of this person in our minds, oftentimes with unreachable standards. The […]

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In The Room in the Attic, David, the protagonist, is infatuated with his friend’s little sister. David befriends a guy named Wolf, who spends most of his time reading or contemplating the nature of people. Over time David and Wolf become close friends. Wolf invites David over to meet Isabel, Wolf’s sister who lives in the dark. On David’s first visit to Wolf‘s, Wolf introduces David to […]

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“The Room In The Attic” is told by the main character David, who becomes obsessed with his friend’s sister. His friend, Wolf, is already an interesting character that does not care for the things school has to offer. After his initial encounter with David, Wolf introduces him to Isabel. David never sees her due to […]

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There were two stories to read for class, “The Room in the Attic” and “Dangerous Laughter.” The Room in the Attic In “The Room in the Attic,” it starts the story by introducing Wolf, who isn’t even the main protagonist. However, we learn that Wolf befriends a boy named David, and the story follows him […]

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This week we were given another round on stories to analyze and dissect. “Cat N Mouse”, “The Disappearance of Elaine Coleman”, “The Room In The Attic”, and “Dangerous Laughter”. The story that stood out the most to me was “The Room In The Attic”. This story had me hanging onto every word and I found […]

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The Room in the Attic The short story “The Room in the Attic” is about a teenage boy who becomes infatuated with the sister of his friend, who he only ever interacts with in her darkened bedroom in the attic. At first he is understandably curious about what she looks like and plans to reveal […]

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The short story of “The Room in the Attic” by Steven Millhauser was extremely interesting and engaging. The story revolves around a young kid, named David, that seems to become obsessed with his friends sister, who he meets but does not see. As he gets to know more about Isabel he starts to imagine what she […]

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“No, far better to have turned away, to have understood that, for me, Isabel existed only in the dark.” (74). Millhauser does an interesting concept in “The Room in the Attic” on not confirming or denying if Isabel is real. Even at the very end of the story, David still isn’t 100% on if Isabel […]

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Steven Millhauser’s “The Room in The Attic” immediately led me down a train of thought of how literature itself is a representation of the fantastic, and acts as a fantastical object in day-to-day life. The introduction of Wolf, and his opinion that “books weren’t made of themes, which you could write essays about, but of […]

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This week’s reading we read “The Metamorphosis” by Frank Kurtz, “Mantis” by Julia Armfield, “Fatso” by Etgar Keret, and “Beast” by Samantha Hunt. This stories are about physical change, but also about the messages that lie underneath. While reading”The Metamorphosis”, many metaphors became apparent about self realization and realizing what components make a human being. After Gregor transformation, his […]

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  I read the three stories assigned for today: ”Mantis,” “Beast,” and ”Fatso.” Beast is about a woman who turns into a deer at night. Fatso is about a girlfriend who turns into a fat man at night. Mantis is about a girl who is experiencing odd changes in her appearance.   The first story I read was Mantis by Julia Armfield. The first […]

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All through modern literature there has been several stories and folktales about people walking around as humans during the day and being someone or something completely different by night.To name a few there are: Werewolves, Skinwalkers, and Vampires. These are still some of the most common creatures that we hear of today because they are […]

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