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Christina Dinh Vu

Professor McClure

Writing 39B

14 December 2018

Final Reflection Essay

Throughout the course of Writing 39B and through the creation of the RA essay and the

RIP project, there are several things that I have learned in my progression as a writer, such as

deeper knowledge upon rhetorical analysis and the horror genre. I was able to understand more

about the rhetorical situation of each text that I read and was able to incorporate my

understanding of rhetoric and the horror genre into my own creations. Two assignments that

helped me gain more insight on horror elements and assisted me in my process of creating the

RA and RIP is “​My Own Monstrosity​” and the “​McCarthy Imitation​.” In “My Own

Monstrosity,” I created my own monster based on my strengths and weaknesses from my

understanding and comprehension of horror elements and conventions such as a threatening and

physically gruesome monster and an eerie and dark setting. In the “McCarthy Imitation”

assignment, I wrote a scene that included the monster created in “My Own Monstrosity” in the

writing style of Cormac McCarthy. Through my understanding of the texts that I read,

specifically “The Nature of Horror” by Noel Carroll and ​The Road​ by Cormac McCarthy, I was

able to incorporate the elements that I analyzed in those texts into my own story, such as the

nature of the monster, setting, mood, word choice, etc. In ​The Road​, a major story element is the

setting of the novel itself. The novel takes place in a post-apocalyptic world where abandoned
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buildings and ruined structures are prevalent. I tried to illustrate an abandoned, dark setting for

my monster as shown in the following excerpt of “​McCarthy Imitation​”:

It put its clawed hand on the door to the building and pushed and stepped in. It looked

around. Crates stacked in the middle of the room. Metal cabinets along a wall. The

concrete floor slippery with rainwater. There were holes in the ceilings. Shelves filled

with stains and cobwebs. Rusted tools littered the room. Every surface layered with mud

and dust. The monster walked further in and heard soft whispers in the corner of the

warehouse. It froze. Everything suddenly became too quiet.

Through the portrayal of a building with “holes in the ceilings” and “shelves filled with stains

and cobwebs,” I tried to encapture the sense of uncertainty and the possibility of imminent

danger. Hearing “soft whispers in the corner” shows that the protagonist is in a setting that is

unbeknownst to it, and thus creates a sense of uneasiness and apprehension. In horror, the

monster itself plays a large role in the plotline. In “The Nature of Horror,” written by Noel

Carroll who is an American philosopher and a distinguished professor at CUNY, a monster in

art-horror has to be “threatening ​and ​impure” (55). Thus, I created a monster that was abnormal

in psychique and was threatening to those around it. The following is an excerpt from “​My Own

Monstrosity​”:

Its long, unnaturally black, greasy hair hangs from its head, covering its face and

obscuring its eyes. Despite looking feminine, its skin has an unhealthy glow to it, as if

almost transparent. Its bony hands, with claw-like nails, fades from something physical to

ghost-like every few seconds. Its figure is delicate, yet its shoulders are slumped as if

defeated. Its face, most noticeably around its mouth, is always stained with dried-up
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blood...Out of starvation and disorientation, this silent yet dangerous creature would

approach a random victim from behind, its soft voice calling out to them. It lunges from

behind its victim without thinking and without feeling, reaching its translucent hand

within them and grabbing their beating hearts from their bodies.

In order to create a monster that was ​threatening​ to those around it,​ I​ thought of having my

monster rip its victims’ hearts from their body and eating it. For a creature to be ​impure​,

according to Carroll, it has to be either “categorically interstitial, categorically contradictory,

categorically incomplete, or formless” (55). My monster was specifically “categorically

contradictory” since it is a creature that is living yet also dead. It lives in the world with humans

yet is physically translucent, as if a ghost: its skin “has an unhealthy glow to it, as if almost

transparent.” Overall, these assignments and my comprehension of various texts assisted me in

my understanding of rhetoric in the horror genre. These assignments also pushed me to use my

knowledge on what I’ve previously learned in order to create something that depicted horror.

The “McCarthy Imitation” assignment was especially difficult for me since McCarthy’s writing

style is so different from my writing style; however, that assignment taught me a lot of the

significance specific word choice and sentence structure and the effects and impacts they have on

my writing overall.

The drafting of the RA essay and RIP incorporated ideas from texts and assignments I

have done throughout the quarter, which have assisted in my understanding of the horror genre

and their rhetorical situation. In addition to the readings of ​The Road​ and “The Nature of Horror”

and the creative writing pieces that I previously discussed, there were also several rhetorical

analysis responses I have completed that assisted me in understanding the rhetorical devices and
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style elements present in horror text. One example is my rhetorical analysis to the music video

“Hurt,” originally sung by Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails and famously covered by Johnny

Cash (​Link to the response​). Although the music videos depict a series of images which may

seem random and unrelated at first, upon further inspection, the music videos between Reznor

and Cash had various underlying and distinct themes and ideas that were crucial to their overall

messages. Despite the song being the same, the audience reception and the purpose of each

individual video very distinct. Reznor’s music video’s main idea centralized on life and death

while Cash’s performance focused more on his personal failures. Another example is my

response to the short film “No Way Out” by Kristoffer Aaron Morgan (​Link to response​).

Similar to “Hurt,” the message in this film was not entirely straightforward and require more

critical thinking. Although the monster is not shown and the protagonist goes through a series of

events that seemed uncorrelated at first, I was able to discern that the metaphorical meaning of

the monster is mental illnesses. There were specific scenes in this film that led to this conclusion

such as the protagonist is running away from a creature that could not be seen by the audience

and the protagonist gruesomely taking his brain out from his head. These writing assignments

helped build my understanding of the horror genre and the process of actively reading through

them helped me gain insight into the types of story elements and rhetoric was used in order to

create horror texts. In the process of drafting my RA essay, I decided to organize it by discussing

different rhetorical devices that were evident in ​The Road​ and contributed to the author’s

message. In my thesis, I described what I was going to discuss in the essay and what McCarthy’s

overall message was:

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The novel touches upon the general aspects of the horror genre as portrayed through the

setting, characters, mood and tone, as well as the journey and events themselves. By both

meeting the expectations of the genre as well as diverting from it, McCarthy emphasizes

his overall message in writing the novel, which is the inherent good of humanity despite

living in a desolate world.

This created a structure for my overall essay; I discussed the rhetorical devices I mentioned and

tried to connect it to my interpretation of the author’s message. This knowledge of the horror

genre, tropes, story elements, and rhetoric helped me in the process of creating the RIP film and

the RIP essay as well. In the preliminary draft of the RIP essay, I followed that structure outline

that was provided, helping me in presenting my ideas and topcis much more clearly. For the

script, I was also focused on including these elements and portraying horror through the visual

and auditory aspects of the filmmaking process.

During the revision process, I gained a lot of insight through the feedback from Professor

McClure and my peers and was able to improve my RA and RIP essay accordingly. In the

revising process of the RA essay, according to the professor, “the introduction should be an

overview of the entire essay” and should make a connection to the horror genre. Not to mention,

my interpretation of the author’s overall message was not entirely true since, according to my

professor, “[a] lot happens in the story that's very human, but not inherently good.” These

comments gave me a lot of insight on what my essay was missing and what I could improve to

make clearer connections of ​The Road​ to the conventions and elements of the horror genre. Thus,

I revised my thesis to incorporate these ideas. The following is an excerpt:

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...the real monster is the loss of inherent goodness, a darkness that immerses itself within

these characters. This monster symbolizes the darkness in our society, the moral conflict

within each individual. Each individual makes decisions based on their moral compass;

however, there are oftentimes complications that come with those decisions that prevent

those individuals to not be totally righteous. McCarthy relays the message from his novel

to his readers: although each individual within our society may be inherently “good,”

there are complications within those decisions.

By following the outline that was provided, I was able to present a clearer thesis that structured

the rest of my RA essay. I was able to make connections between the message of the novel and

the conventions of the horror genre much more easily since it was something that I struggled

with the first draft. As a result, for the RIP essay, I primarily focused on organizing my content

and making sure it flowed in a logical manner. I was able to critically write about specific

moments that were purposefully incorporated in the film to contribute to an overall message.

Overall, I learned a lot in the process of reading scholarly texts about horror and

rhetorical analysis. One thing that would be most relevant to my future university career is the

writing process overall and the ability to reflect on my work and see what needs to be changed

and improved. The process of looking at scholarly articles to back up my evidence, as well as the

process of drafting, critiquing, and revisions helped me a lot in the process of the RA essay and

RIP.
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Works Cited

Carroll, Noël. “The Nature of Horror.” ​The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism,​ vol. 46, no.

1, 1987, pp. 51–59. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/431308.

​ intage International, 2006.

McCarthy, Cormac. ​The Road. V