Franki Colett RCAD Lit of Horror

The 1930’s children’s book, The Hobbit is a perfect example of a hero’s journey tale. It starts off with Bilbo Baggins living his normal hobbit life when he meets a wizard called Gandalf and receives his call to adventure. At first, Bilbo refuses his call to adventure when 13 dwarfs show up to his home in Shire ready to fight and kill a dragon. Gandalf acts as Bilbo’s mentor and leads him across the threshold when he leaves shire and decides to join the group on the journey. As the story continues it fits perfectly into each step of the hero’s journey diagram. This was my first time reading anything that was this type of fantasy and comparing it to the hero’s journey setup. In the past, I’ve used historical fiction in previous English classes but this was the first time the hero’s journey truly fit into the plot the story with such ease without having to force any of the steps. I thought that the story was okay, I didn’t mind it but it wasn’t my favorite book type we’ve read this seme

This week I watched the 90’s movie The Witches by Nicolas Roeg. This was the first time I’d seen this movie since I was a small child because I remember how it would give me the worst nightmares every time my older brothers would put it on. The witches in this movie can easily disguise themselves as normal looking women by wearing masks, gloves, and wigs to cover their warts and bald heads. However, you can always spot them by their purple eyes and the sensible shoes they wear since they don’t have toes and can’t wear pretty shoes. These witches attack children and will either kill them, trap them in paintings, or turn them into mice. There is one grand head witch who is considered godlike to all the other witches since she provides orders to all other witches on how to kill children. Without giving too much information away- the film is heavily based on female witch archetypes and how a little boy and his grandmother is able to take down these powerful witches. There is also a “good”

This week I read the children’s book Black Maria and it was my first time I’d ever read a book that was about witches before. The narrator of this book is a little girl named Mig, who’s brother Chris and mother go to visit their Aunt Maria after their father died on his way to go see her in Cranbury- on -Sea. Aunt Maria fits many of the stereotypical archetypes of witches that we see in other movies and novels. She’s an old lady with magical powers and is extremely controlling and will do anything to get her way. She even goes as far to turn Chris into a wolf when he accuses her of killing their father. While witches are often depicted as ugly creatures, covered in warts and pointed noses, all of the cover artwork I’ve seen depicting Aunt Maria shows her looking like a sweet old woman with the qualities of a grandmother with walking sticks and all. Aunt Maria is only related to Mig because she married into her father’s side of the family which is similar to the ste