"Fear Itself" as a Progenitive and Progressive Text

Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto combines romanticism and modernisms to capture the complex gothic imagination of the eighteenth century. This text breaks free from the status quo and attempts to propose alternative avenues of thought that stray from the conventional realms of philosophy and religion. Similarly, Whedon’s Buffy marries modernism, postmodernism, and antiquity to make a new gothic landscape of interpretation. Buffy captures the twenty-first century struggle of seeking alternative explanations that deviate from the all too static rational and scientific means of understanding. “Fear Itself” exemplifies this union of genres as well as the intent to use the supernatural as a mode of enlightenment.

Many of the characters have fears that they are unable to grasp and face through rational processes. For example, Joyce fears making new friends and trusting people, Buffy fears that she is inadequate of Parker’s attention and that she won’t be able to protect her friends, and Xander fears that he no longer has a place in the Scooby Gang. While not by choice, these characters find understanding of these doubts through supernatural circumstances in the haunted house. These aforementioned characters’ fears are “classical” in nature, and therefore ground the text in antiquated tradition that creates an acceptable foundation for the supernatural to flourish from.

With that being said, some of the characters have supernatural fears, such as Willow who is afraid of being a weak witch and Oz who is afraid of transforming into his werewolf state. Not surprisingly, they too learn through a supernatural avenue that fear is in the mind and should not be given unbridled control. The fact that these fears are not classical speaks to the following step in the progression of using the supernatural as an accepted channel for gaining understanding. That is to say, in Sunnydale, and arguably modern society, the supernatural no longer needs classical ties to assert validity. Still, it should be noted that Willow does use classical motifs in other ways in this episode. For example, she dresses as Joan of Arc for Halloween and playfully calls her werewolf boyfriend Brutus.

Thus, Buffy and The Castle of Otranto combine multiple genres and advocate for the supernatural as an alternative method of understanding complex issues within individuals and society. Both texts come at respective times in history when common ideology is too restricting for comfort. Moreover, “Fear Itself,” through its commonplace acceptance of the supernatural, not only seeks to build off classical traditions but also works hard to establish the supernatural in its own right as a distinct channel of thought.

Does size really matter?

So, to continue from my comment on Amelia's post...

I think it is interesting to note how there is a strong distinction made between mental strengths and weaknesses and physical strengths and weaknesses in the latest episodes we have watched. The children in Gingerbread have more power over the masses, but like Cordelia says, she likes "the two little ones better than the one big one," because Buffy's strength lies in overpowering her opponents physically. In Fear Itself, Buffy is Red Riding hood (going along with the parallels Annelise already made), weak and in need of the huntsman Giles to save her, because her mental strength is no match for her fears and paranoia of trying to protect her friends. However, she is able to defeat Gachnar because her physical strength and size make him no match for her...or her tennis shoe.

Both of these episodes collide in "Normal Again" where in the one reality, Buffy's parents urge her to summon mental strength to defeat her insanity and to find her way home, meanwhile, in the more familiar realm, Buffy the Vampire Slayer uses strength and force to gather and conquer her friends. In both Fear Itself and Gingerbread, we see Buffy triumph with physical strength, but things get more confusing in Normal Again. She attacks her friends with strength in our realm, but they backfire with talking, emotional soothing, and mental strength. Because her mentality is not as strong here, her friends triumph. We see that this weakness is carried over into the asylum realm, as her mental strength is not great enough to save her. However, we also see that the writers of Buffy value mental strengths and weaknesses over physical ones. In our realm, she fights with force (which usually brings her to victory) but even with her force, her weakness of mind helps her friends overcome her attack, therefore making her mental weakness too great to be saved by her physical strength.

This is parallel to the demon in Gingerbread, who could have defeated Buffy by controlling the minds of the masses, and even Buffy's slayer strength was no match for the thrall the demon put the town under. However, once the demon loses his strength of the mind, even though he gains physical strength and size, he is defeated.

This all goes back to what Kim was saying about the significance of size in Castle of Otranto. It makes us wonder how much size actually matters when things like emotion, love, prophecy, anger and hate, etc. etc, are brought into a battle. Though there was a great giant in Otranto, the leading cause of conflict in the novel, or so it seemed to me, was the mental torture on the lovesick characters, not the "demon" that seemed to befall the castle.

The Power of Persuasion

Everyone has already elaborated on the unifying theme of ambiguity in “Gingerbread”, “Normal Again”, and “The Turn of the Screw” so I would like to diverge and move towards the topic of following someone blindly due to the power of persuasion and suggestion and also the theme of role reversal. In both of these episodes and the story, one or more characters is prone to being influenced by others and swayed in their opinions and actions. Furthermore, due to outside factors and the power of persuasion, sometimes the parent or adult becomes the child and vice versa.

In “Gingerbread”, Mrs. Summers is incredibly susceptible to the evil influence of the two ghost children, Hansel and Gretel. Joyce easily succumbs to their persuasion and eventually agrees with them that Buffy, because she is the slayer, must be burned at the stake, along with the other students accused of witchcraft. The power of suggestion is incredibly strong in this episode because under the circumstances that the dead children are found, it is implied that magic and supernatural beings were the cause of their demise. Therefore, it is not a stretch for Joyce, who is already uncomfortable with the idea of her daughter killing vampires, to suddenly turn against all manifestations of the supernatural, including her daughter, thanks to the creepy and “innocent” advice given by the little kids. Also, I saw an interesting parallel between Joyce and Miles and Flora in “The Turn of the Screw”. Joyce becomes like the children in the story firstly, because she sees ghosts like the kids presumably do, and secondly, Joyce is easily influenced by the thoughts of the ghost children, in a way similar to which Miles and Flora accept whatever the governess says, that the ghosts exist, even if there are truly no real ghosts.

On a similar note, in “Normal Again”, we also witness the power of persuasion and people telling others what to believe and what is real or not. In the episode, while Buffy is in the mental hospital, her parents and the doctor both pound it into her head that Sunnydale and her slaying lifestyle is a figment of her imagination. The power of suggestion from them makes Buffy question whether they are right or not and whether her supposed life is all a lie. In “The Turn of the Screw”, the children are made to believe they see the ghosts simply because the governess implies as much. We don’t know for sure whether the children are interacting with the ghosts or not but because the governess makes them feel like they should be seeing the ghosts, this causes them to think that they are. Furthermore, Buffy experiences a role reversal from always being the hero and saving the day to needing the support and help of her friends to overcome what are hopefully hallucinations. In all three circumstances, the power of persuasion and suggestion alter their known realities.

Fear Itself

"Fear Itself" is definitely one of my favorite episodes. Sometimes when people watch shows like Buffy, they forget that the main character/hero/heroine is afraid of things too... but this episode reminds us that Buffy is afraid that she won't always succeed.

I thought the costumes people wore also played an important part in mirroring the character and the character's fears. Willow, while dressed as Joan of Arc, should have been strong and powerful. She should have stood up for what she believed in... so she did. But, just as Joan of Arc's stand backfired on her (aka, she was burned at the stake,) Willow's spell backfires. Usually when people wear tux's they draw attention. They look sharp and noticeable. James bond is always dressed to the 't', but he often has to avoid being seen. This plays into his becoming invisible. As God, Oz is definitely the person who handles the scary things that the outside world has to offer... he's afraid of himself, and his own power. Finally, Buffy, as Little Red Riding Hood, who had to be saved by the huntsman. The idea that Buffy will fail is similar to being eaten by the wolf... then, like the huntsman, Giles comes in with a chainsaw to save them all.

Just because it was Joss Whedon, I'm sure it was intentional.

The Hollywood Height Bias

Let me begin with a statement: this may sound crazy, but this is what I took from the episode “Fear Itself” and “Gingerbread” mixed my reading of Kim’s post. When I first watched “Fear Itself”, I did not really think about the size of Gachnar. He was small, which automatically meant he was not scary and that the fears they had experienced were simply tricks. We see this same kind of height bias in “Gingerbread”, when the two innocent children meld together to form a huge, muscled demon. As the giant demon, he is supposed to be far scarier. This may sound crazy, but as an RA who is small and has to confront people on a regular basis, I have to say short people should not be so blatantly discounted. When I watched this episode again, I immediately thought of the differences between the original Mr. Hyde and the modern Mr. Hyde. We watched the different clips of how people want to see Mr. Hyde now and the new portrayals are consistently hulking giants. Apparently in order to be scary to modern-day audiences, Mr. Hyde can no longer be short; he needs to be a least twice the size of an ordinary person. I disagree because I think the original Hyde is plenty terrifying. It is more suspenseful to imagine Hyde’s twisted frame slowly stalking the streets, than to deal with Hyde on steroids. He is so different from the tall, dignified Dr. Jekyll that if Utterson had not read the letter left to him by Jekyll, he would have never been able to fully accept the idea of such an extreme transformation.

In all these instances, however, it is as the short character that the demons have the greatest affect. In “Gingerbread”, the demon is actually more powerful as the two children. The children wreak havoc on the town because they seem so innocent. If it hadn’t been for Giles (Giles appreciation!) revealing the demon’s true form with a spell, Buffy’s and Willow’s mother would have remained under the spell and both Buffy and Willow would have died. The demon loses all his power when he is shown to be a giant, scary looking creature. In fact, as the children, he has lasted for hundreds of years, but as soon as his true form is revealed, he dies. As Kim mentions in “Fear Itself”, Gachnar is incredibly strong. Most of the episode is spent watching the Scooby gang run around trying different remedies and failing at them. They, as big people, cannot win against Gachnar, a tiny demon, until they see his true form and lose all fear of him. Some posts mentioned that their authors took away the idea of controlling fear, instead of letting fear control the mind, but all I could think of was how unfair it was for poor Gachnar to be squished while Hyde was allowed to be terrifying.

Which World is the Escape?

In “Gingerbread,” there is no doubt that Buffy is right, and Sunnydale’s citizens are wrong during the rise of “M.O.O.” While this dynamic is familiar and easy for Buffy viewers to understand, it still represents a reversal of real world expectations. The ragtag group of teenagers (plus Giles) are equipped to solve the world’s problems, while their parents and community members are useless, and in this case, impeding their progress by antagonizing them. While this does seem like a rebellious teenager’s self-pitying fantasy of the world (“My parents are out to get me and they have NO IDEA what’s really going on…”), that’s exactly what makes Buffy’s world so interesting. Because these tensions are so dramatically externalized and the heroes are so unlikely, we are forced to re-evaluate our notions of what the world is like.

“Normal Again” halts this process of re-evaluation by making us wonder if we should return to our pre-Buffy expectations (I can’t help but say that they’re just being meta here by making us re-evaluate our re-evaluations). Of course a teenager and her friends aren’t battling demons and constantly saving the world. That would be ridiculous, she must be imagining all of it. We are given a free pass to explain away all of Buffy’s world and any lessons we may have learned there. We’re given a similar choice in The Turn of the Screw, as we can choose to believe that the governess is crazy. In both cases, however, the ambiguity forces us decide which version of the world we think is real rather than giving us the answer.

So which is actually better and braver, believing the rational, or the fantastical world? When Buffy has to make a choice which world she belongs to, which is the braver choice? If there is no way for her to know which world is actually the real one, I think this question is incredibly difficult to answer. On the one hand, we are taught to live in an empirical world, and to look for rational explanations for everything, which would indicate that Buffy should accept the fact that she has been making up her life as the Slayer. On the other hand, we have seen texts that refute the ability of empiricism to explain the whole world, such as Dracula, where the characters have to take a leap of faith in order to truly understand and defeat their enemies. In such a case, Buffy obviously needs to go with her gut and continue being the Slayer (which she eventually does).

But which world is actually the cop-out—the one in which everything can be rationally explained and anything inexplicable can be dismissed, or the messy, supernatural world of demons and slayers? The fact that both of these worlds seem equally plausible as escapes from the other is unsettling, and this is why I’ve never enjoyed “Normal Again,” although I applaud its brilliance. Once again, “Buffy” has proved to be self-aware enough to show us an important thing that Gothic texts do. They offer us either an escape from the difficulties of reality or a key to expand our horizons and understand the world more clearly, but we can never be sure which. In Dostoevsky’s Notes from the Underground, he sums up this problem really nicely: “Granted that man does nothing but seek that mathematical certainty, he traverses oceans, sacrifices his life in the quest, but to succeed, really to find it, dreads, I assure you. He feels that when he has found it there will be nothing for him to look for” (Dostoevsky). Gothic literature gives us the opportunity to play with and test out our own theories of reality, but any conclusions we draw have to come from ourselves. Ultimately, I think that the best Gothic works serve both purposes of escape and key, and I think that “Buffy” definitely falls into that group.

Works Cited:

Dostoevsky, Fyodor. Notes from the Underground. N.p.: n.p., 2008. Project

Gutenberg. Web. 11 Nov. 2011.

Normal Again

I'm just going to start off by saying... I can't stand books, movies, or shows that involve any sort of insanity/padded rooms. It freaks me out. I think it's because one of my biggest fears is that one day I'll wake up in a white room, and find out that my whole life has been imagined. (I had this fear before I saw this Buffy episode...) So needless to say, I despise this episode with a burning passion.

Anyways... onwards with the insanity theme.

I was in the group that was supposed to argue that the Governess was insane. (Given that she smothered the little boy at the end... I actually believe she was insane.)

Both Buffy and the governess fight to stay in their make believe worlds... however, in Buffy's case, the make believe world is the world that seems more sane. The governess fights to stay believing in the ghosts, and Buffy fights to stay at the insane asylum. They differ, however, in the choices they make at the end. While Buffy finally decides to go back to the real world, and help her friends, the Governess tries to maintain the false world, and cling to it by writing a diary of the events that occurred.

So in the end... it appears that Buffy remains sane while the Governess never fully recovers.

... I guess.

Gingerbread

Witch trials, parent/child bonding, blind trust/ignorance, Nazi Germany

When I looked back at the notes I had taken for this episode, the first thing I had written was "Nazi Germany." I don't think I really need to go into detail on that specifically... but the theme of hunting, imprisoning, and executing is very poignant in this episode.

On another subject... I wanted to point out the story of "The Gingerbread Man." When we read the word "Gingerbread" we assumed that the story involved Hansel and Gretel and the gingerbread house (which it obviously did) but what about "Run, run, run, as fast as you can. You can't catch me! I'm the gingerbread man!" To me, it seems as though the parents are viewing their own children as ignorant, rude little gingerbread boys and girls, who don't appreciate anything that their parents have done for them, so the parents act as the wolf that tricks the gingerbread man. The relationship between parents and children is obviously super emphasized in this episode because in real life, parents have to be the disciplinarian and the protector, but in this episode, they lose the roll of protector (or transfer their "protection" to a demon instead of their children) and only discipline their offspring.

There are also a lot of really interesting parallels that can be drawn between "Gingerbread" and "The Turn of the Screw"... but I think I'll save them for "Normal Again."

Normal Again

"Normal Again" reminded me of our Turn of the Screw debate in that it makes you rethink everything that you are so sure of. I had read Turn of the Screw before and had read it as a story of maternal hysteria, but when we had our debate, the idea that it was a murder mystery with Mrs. Grose at its helm was terribly intriguing to me. In "Normal Again," Joss asks the viewer to reevaluate everything that we had believed up until that point. He had sculpted this fantastic world for us, but now was providing an explanation that made a lot of sense, though we never thought of it before.

"Normal Again" has always left me unsettled as a die hard Buffy fanatic. Even though it is just one episode in the grand scheme of a fabulous show, every time I watch an episode, no matter what season, in the back of my head is, but it's all just some concoction in a mad girl's mind. None of this is real, that is why she always wins, that is why she was in heaven that time, it sounds so right, and yet I have trained my mind to believe that the world of vampire slaying is so right. Because my mind grew so accustomed to believing in the abnormal, it becomes abnormal to believe in something that more closely resembles the world that we as viewers live in.

Turn of the Screw similarly has something in the back of our minds: the entire tale of the governess is told through a third party voice listening to a man reading the memoir of the governess. We as readers are so disconnected from the story, but strangely, because the characters in the opening scene treat the story as if it is real to them, it so becomes real to us. To be more clear, I mean that even though there are ghosts and such in the story, it does not seem as supernatural as some of the other things we are reading or nearly as far fetched. Perhaps this is because a great majority of us read this book as if we were watching Normal Again from the other lens, where we interpreted the Governess as insane from the start, and when it is suggested that she isn't, it strikes up a curiousity within us.

Colliding Worlds - "Normal Again" and "Gingerbread"

I have to say that “Normal Again” was my favorite episode so far, besides “Hush.” I thought the way it dealt with colliding worlds – which, I want to point out, reminded me of “Gingerbread” – was actually brilliant, and of course, Sarah Michelle Gellar did a fantastic job portraying Buffy in her very lost, vagabond state.

What I noticed in both “Normal Again” and “Gingerbread” is that each episode deals with two multilayered views of reality; furthermore, in both cases, the demon is explicitly affecting the character’s ability to negotiate these viewpoints, let alone differentiate between them. In “Normal Again,” we are provided with an alternative understanding of the entire series; what’s more is that the vamp world Buffy has inhabited 24/7 up until this point actually communicates with this alternate world when Angel tells Buffy to “stop with the bloody hero trip! Let yourself live already!” The world of the mental institution also communicates with the vamp world; when Joyce reminds Buffy of the strength she has in her heart, Buffy uses those words to help her re-enter the vamp world (and thus thwarting Joyce’s intentions).

The situation is similar in “Gingerbread” in that it also deals with differing perspectives on Sunnydale – especially from the mother’s point of view (although in “Normal Again,” both of Buffy’s parents occupy the alternate world). What is it with these parental figures and their distorted – or more accurate (?) – vision? It ties into Turn of the Screw that way, and asks questions about origin, guidance, protection, safety, and homecoming. If Joyce is the source of Buffy’s struggles in these episodes, what does it say about the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of communication between parent and child? What does it say about our capacity to be swayed by different explanations of our lives and of the mysterious and ineffable things that we encounter in them? It’s as if the generational difference is posing as more than just that – and what do we do with that? I’m definitely not saying that’s what these two episodes were fundamentally about, but I am saying that I think an important crossover lies there.

Self-Unity and Doubles in "Transformation," "Doppelgangland" and "The Replacement"

The beginning of Mary Shelley’s “Transformation” seems to bring out an element of “Doppelgangland” and “The Replacement” that adds to what we’ve talked about already in class. Specifically, the first sentence of “Transformation” makes the reader into the recipient of information and also renders the story a direct result of something sinister and of the mind: “I have heard it said that when any strange, supernatural, and necromantic adventure has occurred to a human being, that being, however desirous he may be to conceal the same, feels at certain periods torn up as it were by an intellectual earthquake, and is forced to bare the inner depths of his spirit to another.” We’re aware that “Transformation” bears overtones of Romeo and Juliet; using that knowledge, I would argue that doppelgangers in Gothic literature are not merely representations of magnified character traits, but that they also help us understand this vexing phenomenon Shelley describes – the drive to communicate, whether with oneself (i.e., interacting freely with an aspect of the self) or with others. Furthermore, I think that the Shakespearean inflection in Shelley’s story asks us to think about things like distinguishability and unity amongst (and within) people, and what those things really mean.

In both “Doppelgangland” and “The Replacement,” Willow’s and Xander’s doppelgangers (respectively) are different enough from their more recognizable selves that they are almost entirely different people. In the latter case, Xander’s double is a positive reincarnation of his slightly awkward, less confident self. In the former, vamp Willow is obviously a negative expression of her usual friendly side. However, in both cases, the doubles get a bit chummy with their partners (whether or not it’s always reciprocated). Why does this happen? I don’t think it’s just that we like ourselves, or that we especially comfortable with ourselves. On the contrary, I suspect that it has something to do with both the opening passage of “Transformation” and with the presence of Romeo and Juliet in it. There’s a sense, I think, that doppelgangers force us to confide in or be in touch with one of our many selves – and that this can be a good thing. But the question arises: do we feel a connection with this other being because he or she is actually just a replica of ourselves? Or do we determine that something is our doppelganger because we feel that connection? It’s a chicken-and-egg question, but I think it brings up some important questions about interpersonal intimacy (as well as compassion for the self), whether or not other people can function has our own doppelgangers in the process of becoming closer to us, and the dangers of being too close with someone (i.e., like in Romeo and Juliet – do they effectively become the same person?) And what would that mean?). I guess this doesn’t directly compare “Transformation” to these two episodes, but in a way it sort of does because it address points that are implicit because of these Shakespearean allusions.

Horror vs. Terror

“Fear, Itself,” while using gothic elements—blood drops, disembodied parts (eyes, at least)—originating from The Castle of Otranto, is not particularly the same vein of Gothic as its horror-based predecessor. Though Oz even says in the episode, “Let the horrors begin,” the episode uses much more terror than horror.

In Otranto, life is normal and then boom, a helmet falls from the sky and kills someone. For the most part there is no suspense of the supernatural elements—no expectation that some scary supernatural thing will happen—no terror. We even know how it will end from the prophecy given us in the first chapter. (Most of the suspense came from the interpersonal relationships—will Isabella marry Manfred, how will Isabella and Matilda settle their mutual feelings for Theodore, etc. ) The supernatural stuff just happened, in the moment—and that’s where the horror came from.

Dracula too, had little suspense—we could tell most of what was about to happen, even if some of the time we were waiting for it to occur. But “Fear, Itself” is very much about the suspense and waiting for something horrifying to appear: from early on, when Giles tells Buffy that there is no expectation of something supernatural going on, we the audience who know that the Buffy formula has her facing something supernatural have expectation that something will happen—and we wonder “What’s going to happen?”

Usually, in Buffy, as in Otranto and Dracula, Giles says: this is what’s happening—there’s the horror. So this episode is different. From the outset, too, we are told about the party in such a way that we feel suspense for it: we are not just shown the party, we have to wait for several scenes before we even see the house it’s going to be at several more scenes later. And even at the very end, when Giles says “Bloody Hell, the inscription,” we the audience assume something bad is afoot (is the demon not really gone?). But it turns out rather to be something that, if it had been read early, instead of adding terror, would have dissipated it—it harmlessly read “Actual size.”

Is Whedon showing us how far the Gothic can go? That it isn’t reliant on more horror than terror? Or is he showing the interchangeability and close relationship between the Gothic, scary stories, and other supernatural tales? Being on Halloween, in which people are dressed up in scary costumes—not an element of the gothic, which these costumes do not always intend to bring to mind—the episode relates our culture to the gothic. It could be viewed as showing the close differences between certain aspects of horror culture and the gothic, or how the gothic reflects culture and has changed to keep up with it. Perhaps these two viewpoints are really expressing the same thing….

(Also, just as the man in the costume wasn’t a scary demon, the real demon is tiny and not too scary, and the inscription at the end is humorous, not scary… these aren’t aspects of horror, but rather the terror that they might be.)

Fear Not

This episode is a psychological study of characters’ insecurities. The heated argument between Buffy and Willow at the hunted house revealed their own fears. Buffy wished the gang to leave the hunted house at once and used Giles as an excuse. She then admitted that her true reason was that she doesn’t think she could protect everyone. Thus, the fear demon separated the gang. Willow wanted to use her magic to help Buffy, but got scorned by Buffy for her inconsistent magic. Thus, when Willow summoned a guidance light, it backed fire. Oz, trying hard to fit in with other people, worried most about the wolf inside him overpowering him and come out. Xander felt out of the loop, when his friends were going to a party that he didn’t hear about. This translated to him becoming invisible. At the end, when everyone prepared for the worst for the entrance of the fear demon, they were surprised at how small fear demon was. This was commenting on the source of the fear being small, but people magnify it out of proportion, which was what the governess did in The Turn of The Screw. One of the central enigmas in the novel was what got Miles expelled from the school. The answer to this is simple. Had the governess asked the school, she would learn the truth. However, she didn’t ask that question until the very last chapter, and before hand she allowed her speculation keep on growing, such as the possible relation between Peter Quint’s Ghost and Miles.

"Fear, Itself"

This episode seemed like a reprisal of “Nightmares.” Only now the fears of the characters have grown more complicated and less tangible. We are no longer dealing only with spiders and walking into class naked. In “Fear, Itself” Xander becomes invisible to the other characters, a fear that, in a less literal sense, is preyed upon by Anya earlier in the episode: “I mean, they go to college, you don’t. They no longer live at home, you do.” Xander is afraid that he will be left behind now that his friends have moved onto college.
I think much the same dynamic is at work in “Normal Again.” Buffy’s world was certainly much simpler before she found out she was the Slayer. She had both of her parents and she didn’t have to worry about being attacked by vampires at every turn. However, as much as Buffy might miss her old life, “slaying” has certainly become an integral part of her identity. Through it, she has gained Giles and the rest of the Scooby Gang and a sense of power and agency that few people have. So, while slaying is dangerous, Buffy would likely be worse off without it. Buffy’s fear of losing her power is part of what fuels her delusions of being in the hospital, if they are delusions at all. I haven’t seen all the Buffy episodes, and so, for me at least, it’s possible to imagine the series culminating in the revelation that Sunnydale is nothing more than Buffy’s delusion. In this way, Buffy is just as “awash in ambiguity” as The Turn of the Screw was.

Picking and choose

“Normal Again” portrayed the scenario where the governess is insane. In the governess’ journal, the governess claimed that she saw ghosts, Peter Quint and Miss Jessel. She was tormented by the ghosts and believed that they were influencing the children’s behavior. Wishing to protect the children from the ghosts, the governess was tearing herself and the family apart. The governess was getting more and more anxious about seeing the ghost, doubting her own sanity. Due to her visions, the governess interrogated the children and constantly consulting with Mrs. Grose about her visions. The governess literally tear the family apart by sending Flora away with Mrs. Grose, while having Miles staying at Bly with her. The most intense interrogation was the confrontation with Miles. After Miles admitted that he did steal the letter, this validation towards one of the governess’ speculations served as the foundation of her confidence and the jumping point towards her speculation about Miles able to see the ghost of Peter Quint. All of this was due to her vision, or hallucination, of the ghosts.

After getting stabbed by a demon, Buffy started to hallucinate. The difference between the two situations is that, we know that Buffy in the mental asylum is a hallucination, while in the governess’ case, we don’t know. Similar to governess, Buffy’s hallucination seemed really and she chose to believe in her visions. If her visions were true, then the reason for Buffy still trapped in the Buffy world was her friends whom she goes to for comfort and safety. Thus, in order to go back to the “reality”, Buffy must get rid off everything that is holding her back in the Buffy world. To accomplish this goal, Buffy trapped all her friends down in the basement and unleashed the demon to kill her friends. Buffy’s hallucination was tear herself and her family apart.

"Fear Itself"

I wish we had watched “Fear Itself” right before Halloween so I could have gotten some costume ideas. However, the theme of fear can be discussed year-round. We all have fears, a lot of which we hide from other people. By doing this, we actually hurt ourselves more by isolating ourselves from people who care and could help us conquer our sometimes irrational worries. In this episode, everyone’s greatest fear becomes reality. Buffy thinks she is alone in the world and unworthy of love or friendship, which makes her turn inward, away from her friends who want to be there for her. Therefore, she gets separated from those who can help her defeat the Big Bad in this episode. In the frat house turned house of horror, Xander’s worst fear portrays itself in the guise of him being invisible to everyone around him. As all of his friends move on to college and bigger and better things, Xander feels lesser than them and worries that he will simply be left behind and forgotten. This fear is manifested in him being invisible and useless in helping his friends escape the terrifying house. Willow’s greatest fear is that she is not a powerful or successful witch. She also doubts that her friends have faith in her ability and don’t take it seriously. Following the guideline that what one fears is manifested in the frat house, when she attempts a simple spell, Willow is chased by her haywire tracking spell. Finally, Oz is terrified of losing control of the werewolf inside of him and hurting someone he cares about, especially Willow. Therefore, he secludes himself inside a bathroom to try and regain his humanity. Each character, not other characters or external forces, gives power to their own fears and makes them into reality in the frat house. Because we worry so much about something internally, we create a self-fulfilling prophecy, which is ultimately our downfall in which we succumb to our fears. Everyone in this episode is so afraid of how their friends see them that they don’t realize that they are obviously friends for a reason and it is completely normal for everyone to be afraid of something. The only thing that matters is how much power we give to our fears. For example, Catherine in “Northanger Abbey” lets her imagination and fear get away from her and allows her worries to create a much more sinister abbey. In Buffy, the characters’ fears make the fake plastic spiders and skeletons come to life until they are faced with a demon that is mere inches tall. Once faced with a not so scary monster, they can put their fears into perspective, conquer them, and move on.

Hansel and Gretel Trilogy

One of Brothers Grimm’s famous fairy tales was the gingerbread of the Hansel and Gretel. They were two children, brother and sister, wandering in the forest looking for food. They stumbled on a house made out of gingerbread and started eating it. The owner of the gingerbread house was a wicked witch. She lured the kids in and trapped them inside her house. The little boy and the little girl, Hansel and Gretel, became the victim of the wicked witch.

Buffy episodes used a lot of fairy tales, changing them, twisting them, or even turning them upside down as in the case of the “Gingerbread” episode. The story started with two children, a little boy and a little girl, found dead on the merry-go-around with occult symbol drawn on their hands. The only lead in this case was the occult symbol, which happened to be the symbol that Willow is using in her rituals. Unlike the Gingerbread story told by Brothers Grimm, this time Hansel and Gretel, the little boy and the little girl, were hunting the witch. Willow, the witch, only wanted to perform a protection spell for Buffy’s birthday, now became victimized.

While Hansel and Gretel were victims in Brothers Grimm and predators in Buffy, they could be either the victims or the predators in The Turn of The Screw. The fate of Hansel and Gretel depended on the sanity of the governess. If the governess were sane, then the children were toying with the governess under the influence of the ghosts, Peter Quint and Miss Jessel. If the governess were insane, then the governess was torturing the children based on her hallucinations. So, is the governess insane?

Mommy Issues

When we were watching "Gingerbread" I kept thinking back to the role of the Governess in Turn of the Screw. Both evaluate what makes a good mother and when protection becomes over protection.

In "Gingerbread" we see Mrs. Summers, who, even before the children manipulate her, is trying too hard to get involved in every aspect of Buffy's life. We see her interfere in patrol, and then she shows up at school, and it seems invasive. However, Mrs. Summers only wants to protect her daughter, and so the smothering is with good intention. Mrs. Rosenburg, however, pays no attention to her daughter until Mrs. Summers serves as a model and forces Willow's mother to intervene in her life. Because Mrs. Rosenburg has never taken an interest in Willow before, she jumps right into criticizing and doesn't take the time to try and understand where Willow is coming from. Both girls are, in a not-so-supernatural sense, lashing out by playing with the forces of evil and such in response to this overbearing (and inattentive on Mrs. Rosenburg's part) mothering.

The governess is very overbearing, like Mrs. Summers. In the final scene, we might read the story as Miles is literally smothered to death by her love and affection. Similarly, Mrs. Summers tries to kill Buffy to help free her from the evils that follow her (not ghosts, but vampires are close enough). If we read Turn of the Screw to see the governess as well intentioned but overbearing, it makes sense that Miles would feel like no matter what he said to her, she wouldn't understand, and that she would be brainwashed in her own mothering, positively sure that she was doing what was best for her child. We can also tie her to Mrs. Rosenburg, in that she had so much attention to Flora in the beginning of the story (like Mrs. Rosenburg to her work) and once she became devoted to Miles (or Willow) everything was hyperbolized and she became too protective and loving for her or Miles' own good.

Evil Association

In The Replacement, Xander experienced the extreme version of the Jekyll and Hyde syndrome and immediately labeled the new Xander as evil. In this episode, Xander were split into two people: one carrying his stronger traits, and one carrying his weaker traits. Xander as his friends knows him was immature, quirky, lacks self-confidence. This was how the audience viewed Xander too. So when I saw the confident and mature replacement, I could not tight the two Xanders together. Together with Xander, I thought the new Xander was evil. The new Xander was labeled evil not because of his actions; on the contrary, all the actions the new Xander took were improving his or his friends life. However, because we already labeled him as the evil one, whatever the new Xander did made us speculate what his evil plan was.

This split personality was also showed in Dr. Jekyll who labeled Mr. Hyde as his evil counterpart. Dr. Jekyll had a very good reputation in the community that he lived in as an accomplished scientist. When he created a potion that could deform his body, Dr. Jekyll was thrilled. He didn’t view the person before and after drinking the potion as the same person; he called the deformed self as Mr. Hyde. Due to the extreme deformity, Mr. Hyde looked grotesque. In front of a mirror, Dr. Jekyll looked tall and accomplished, while Mr. Hyde was dwarfish and looked like a criminal. Due to the stark contrast between the two appearances, Dr. Jekyll pronounced that the dwarfish looking one possessed all his dark side. Again, like the new Xander, Mr. Hyde was labeled evil due to things that we relate evil with not of his action.

Evil Twin

Willow has an evil twin? Of course, if anyone were to have an evil twin, it would be Willow. Her character is extremely one dimensional, always the good girl. In Doppelgangland, Willow’s evil twin was brought to us from the alternate universe. The good Willow verses the bad new Willow, though not the evil new Willow. The new Willow is considered as an opposite to Willow due to her radically inverted moralities to that of Willow’s. Willow is the nice girl in school who always gets pushed around. Willow was intimated by the Principal to tutor Percy. Then, she was intimated by Percy to write his paper for him. It is inherited in Willow’s nature that she just does want other people tells her without raising objection. Right after Willow complained about how she’s always getting pushed around, Giles asked Willow to fetch something for him. To this Willow answered gladly, without realizing she was getting pushed around again.

The new Willow was a leader who intimidates people to get what she wants, not the other around. On her first day in the Buffy world, the new Willow was able to intimidate vampires that were sent to kill Willow to work for her. When Percy met the new Willow in the bar and demanded to know why she wasn’t writing his paper for him, she schooled him with a single hand. At the end, Willow was embracing her evil twin because she also realized that the new Willow was not evil.

In a similar fashion, an evil twin of the protagonist was presented in Transformation from seemingly another world, though who was the evil one here? The protagonist, handsome and rich, squandered all his money living a luxury life. After he got broke and his plan to carry off Juliet failed, he wondered along the seashore, imagining a stark future for himself as a beggar. When his life seemed to be slipping away from him, he met a dwarf who had distorted features and deformed body. The sight of the dwarf was so repulsing that our protagonist his blood froze in his heart. The evil twin this time possessed the radically inverted physical appearance to that of the protagonist. After the protagonist switched his body with the dwarf, the dwarf, in protagonist’s body, was able to win Juliet back. After protagonist discovered dwarf’s success, he killed the dwarf to get married with Juliet. In both cases, the evil twin was the stronger character, where they appeared evil at first, but in the end helped their opposite to regain control over their lives. The new Willow tamed Percy for Willow, while the dwarf won Juliet back for the protagonist. Those were things that our original characters can’t do, due to their personalities.

The Ominous Silence

Hush presented to the viewer that intensity does not have to come from non-stop actions or naked sex scenes it can come from silence. Besides the introduction, the rest of the Hush episode was all filmed in silence, where people’s ability to speak was taken away. When the silence falls, the intensity of the film started to build up. The characters in the episode got tensed. If it was a badass Vampire, Buffy could find a way to stake the Vampire and be done with it. However, this was something that Buffy never experienced before. Unlike the usual, the goal of the bad guys in this episode, the Gentlemen, was not targeted at Buffy. Buffy was confused and worried. The audience was confused and anxious to find out what’s going on. Because all the characters were muted, audience could only hear the background music, which makes the audience to pay extra attention to the scenes to figure out what the sound cues meant, intensify the atmosphere. Silence gave the show an uneasy feeling. We don’t know when something might pop out like when Gile’s girlfriend lift up the blind and saw the face of the Gentlemen turning towards her. Or we can’t hear sounds of torture but forced to fill the gap with our worst imagination like when the Gentlemen were cutting open a student’s chest to take his heart.

In Dracula, silence was again causing uncomfortable feeling that intensified the atmosphere. At the beginning of the novel, when Jonathan was traveling towards the Count’s castle, he was muted due to his lack of knowledge of the local language. The audience, too, suffered with him. Since Jonathan couldn’t understand what the locals were quarreling about, he, like the audience watching Hush, must pay extra attention to people’s body language and speculate what they meant. Jonathan noticed people looked at him with sympathy and fright, which brought an ominous feeling, heightening the atmosphere. Although there wasn’t much talking between Jonathan and Dracula during his stay at Count’s castle, those were the most frightening times that Jonathan experienced due to the lack of communication. Dracula revealed very little about him and gave Jonathan strict and strange rules for his stay at the castle without giving any reason. After finding out the horrid truth about the Count, Jonathan was forbidden to write letters about his experience at the castle, silencing him from the outside world. The silence sentenced Jonathans ominous fate.

Storyteller must face the reality

Both Andrew and Catherine perceive the world in their own innocent eyes, then they were able to confront with the reality with the help from their friends. Andrew is the storyteller in his Buffy world. While the world is revolving and shenanigans are happening, Andrew is filming in real-time appending his rosy views on the footage. While Buffy is on her patrol, Andrew would tag along and film Buffy’s adventures. Doing so, he wants people to know what Buffy and her allies did to protect the humans from the demons. We get a taste of how Andrew perceives and manipulates the world of Buffy when he interviews various members of the household. While other slayers were given brief moments on the camera for their perspective on the issue, Andrew immediately turned the camera to Buffy when she enters the room. Rather than filling been rushed like interviews with the other slayers, Andrew slowed down the time and did a close up filming Buffy eating her cereal. This reveals Andrew’s idealistic and dependence in Buffy indicating that he does not want to face the demons and wishes to hide behind Buffy for safety. Andrew deals with the death of his friend Jonathan in a similar faction. In Andrew’s mind, he was possessed by a demon that made him kill Jonathan, rather than admitting that he himself chooses to kill Jonathan. Buffy knew that Andrew murdered Jonathan and didn’t want to face the truth. It was not until Buffy threatens to take Andrew’s life that Andrew admitted his crime. By acknowledging his mistake, Andrew not only gained a better understanding of himself, he also sealed the seal that is causing chaos in the school.

Similar to Andrew, Catherine was interpreting the world in her naïve eyes before Henry came to rescue. From the very start, Jane Austen hinted to the reader that there’s something fishy about Isabella. At the party, Catherine was unacquainted and Isabella was surrounded by people. Isabella was a stark contrast to Catherine and someone whom Catherine wishes to be. Usually people like Isabella would not make any contact with a loner like Catherine; however, Isabella strongly insists that they become friends, which makes the reader ponder on Isabella’s intention. To Catherine, Isabella’s unusual behavior was a windfall and gladly accepted her friendship without second thought. Catherine’s naivety romanticized her relationship with Isabella, like Andrew romanticizing the Buffy world. When Henry hinted at Isabella’s true nature, Catherine refused to accepted the reality, similar to Andrew refusing to admit that he committed a crime, because in their mind they have already conjured their own truth. Under Henry’s mentorship, Catherine slowly picked up the social cues and was confronted with Isabella’s true nature. Once Catherine adjusted her perspective, she was not only able to see Isabella’s fake friendship, she was also able to give support to her brother about his marriage.