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Kevin Pham

Professor McClure

Writing 39B

15 December 2018

Understanding the Art of Horror

After ten long weeks, my experience with Writing 39B has come to an end. Throughout

my journey I have learned what truly defines the art-horror genre with its metaphorical monster

and overused tropes. I have read many essays and articles and watch many short horror films to

grasp how others have used their knowledge of horror to control audience reception. I have done

multiple creative and analytical writing assignments to apply what I have learned while also

improving my metacognitive skills. I have collaborated with group members to create several

live presentations to improve both my knowledge and public speaking skills. And finally, I have

written two essays and collaboratively produced a short horror film to apply everything I have

learned during these ten weeks regarding rhetoric and the art-horror genre, all to be bundled here

on this portfolio for others to see how far I’ve come on this journey. When I first came into this

class, I believed that I would be unable to adapt to the new environment or that I would fall

behind the other students. I was afraid that my lackluster writing and weak voice would drag me

down and hinder my improvement. However, it seems like I shouldn’t have been so worried as

not only was I able to persevere through the course, I came out a better writer with access to

more skills and techniques. This is due to the two major assignments of the course, which will

now be discussed in greater detail: writing the rhetorical analysis essay and creating the rhetoric

in practice project.
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The first seven weeks of the course were strictly focused on preparing students for the

rhetorical analysis essay, or the RA. More specifically, it was designed to have us stray away

from our old way of writing which focused on how a particular text tells its story through key

events and character development and adjust our focus to writing about why a particular text tells

the story it does and what specific details the author left in in regards to the story and its

characters through the use of literary devices and techniques. This would be a massive change

for most of us who were so accustomed to high school writing, including me. Nevertheless, we

were quick to adapt due to practice with analyzing other short stories like “The Other Place” and

short films like “No Way Out” and finding the secret hidden messages embedded in their

respective formats such as looking out for strange details or a repeated theme. Understanding

rhetoric and being able to prove one’s claims through the use of evidence became a central part

of the class and proved to be an important skill to have once we encounter more difficult texts in

the future. What was equally important was being able to analyze texts with respect to the horror

genre, more specifically to find the monster and what idea it's meant to represent. My

understanding of the art-horror genre was heavily influenced by Noël Carroll, a renowned

American philosopher, and his essay “The Nature of Horror” where he describes everything

makes up the art-horror genre. The key ideas that I took from this essay were the importance of a

metaphorical monster and the impact the protagonist has on audience reception. The ability to

master the horror genre would be important as it would not only influence our reception of future

horror texts, but also make the transition in mastering other genres much easier. Being able to

rhetorically analyze a text and understanding every aspect of the horror genre would be my two

greatest barriers before taking on the RA.

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The RA’s purpose was to analyze a text (for me, I read Cormac McCarthy’s ​The Road​)

and argue how necessary the horror genre was to tell the text’s hidden message. The claims I

would make in my essay would also have to be supported by outside scholarly sources,

something that I never had to do for an English paper. Despite being a new concept, it would still

be a skill I will need in the future, so it’s best to struggle with it early. In the early stages of the

RA, I pushed myself to prove that I had mastered both rhetoric and the horror genre by choosing

an unpopular topic to discuss. This was due to how class discussions on the novel mainly

revolved around the idea of an undying love and compassion shown through the characters,

meaning it was likely that several students would use that idea as their main claim. For my

rhetorical analysis, I wanted to focus on the important aspects of the horror genre, specifically

the idea that “our emotions are supposed to mirror those of the positive human characters,”

(Carroll 53) so I chose to analyze how the two main characters interacted with one another. After

spending hours researching the novel, I came across the essay “Hell On Earth: A Modern Day

Inferno in Cormac McCarthy 's The Road” by Emily Lane which went into detail how the events

of 9/11 played a huge role in influencing McCarthy’s novel. This would become the basic

foundation for my essay as I expanded on the idea to argue that ​The Road​ was McCarthy’s way

of expressing his opinions on American xenophobia, interpreting the use of the horror genre as a

way to express his disgust with society. It would be a challenge to support my claim, but I

accepted it since I could only improve.

The challenge was more difficult than I had anticipated and my first draft was a lot

messier than I had hoped for with unfinished ideas spread throughout. I had made a lot of claims

that were very loosely connected to one another which would degrade the quality of my essay.
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Most of my problems came from the lack of outside support as not many essays would tackle the

same claim as I did, forcing me to make any connection possible between two seemingly

unrelated ideas. Another issue that arose was that I was reverting back to my old style of writing

where I resorted to summarization. It was being less of an analytical essay the further it went.

After having my paper reviewed by my professor and fellow classmates, I had learned that my

ideas were too rushed and that more time needed to be spent on each idea. With that, most of the

revision process was spent researching for more essays to use as support and split more of my

claims and end up with an overall longer essay. Although it would be a much longer read, my

claims would be a lot more concrete and connected as each step had a lot more detail. At the

time, I considered dropping the entire idea altogether and starting over just to make my life

easier. Instead, I chose to stay persistent with my claim and carry it out through the end which I

believe to be the most important thing I learned from writing this RA. Had I given up, my

writing wouldn’t have improved as much if I were to return to square one. These same lessons in

understanding rhetoric and persistence would carry over in the process of creating the RIP

project.

The RIP project was our way to use everything we had learned the past eight weeks and

apply it by creating a short horror film. With our group, we would have to create a monster

which represented a specific fear held by UCI students. The goal of the project was to ultimately

learn how to control audience reception through rhetoric like the authors we studied, a skill that

could be applied in a multitude of ways in other fields and purposes. In addition, the project

would not only need us to be creative, but to be collaboratively creative with others and not

disruptive. With everything set, our group set out to make our film discuss several themes at
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once, all regarding around the dangers of academic stress. The idea was chosen as it felt as an

almost universal fear that could arise from many different causes such as parental or societal

pressures. The process of creating the film felt simple at first since the audience would be the

same group as the filmmakers. If we, the filmmakers, could clearly see the message without

being biased, then our primary audience would also be able to appreciate the work. That was

what we believed when the initial script was being written.

When the actual filmmaking process began however, some ideas did not get portrayed in

the way as we had hoped. It was difficult to visualize our rhetoric in the way we wanted due to

several reasons that could not be controlled. As a result, our group had to learn to adapt to the

situation and make do with what we can to get a proper reception. A lot of ideas changed so that

they would be more plausible to accomplish without necessarily changing the film’s message.

We were able to discuss the dangers of sleep deprivation through a monster that, on the surface

did not appear scary but had the potential to be very threatening, much like how it can be a threat

in real life.

In my introduction, I had claimed to have ended this course as a better writer. In reality, I

had left as a better student overall. This course has taught me many valuable lessons which will

enhance my college experience. Whether it be analyzing texts or writing my own research

proposals, many of the skills obtained my first quarter will likely carry over and allow me to

accomplish more than what I initially planned. With that, here’s hoping that none of the

techniques and experiences I had gained will wear off too quickly and I can continue to build

upon them whether in another group environment or a solo environment.

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Works Cited

Carroll, Noël. “The Nature of Horror.” ​The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism,​ Vol. 46, No.
1 (Autumn, 1987), pp. 51-59.

Lane, Emily. "Hell On Earth: A Modern Day Inferno in Cormac McCarthy's The Road" (2010).
University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations.​ 1127.

McCarthy, Cormac. ​The Road.​ New York: Vintage International, 2006. Print.