“We're all ghosts. We all carry, inside us, people who came before us.”
― Liam Callanan, The Cloud Atlas
Why do we tell scary stories? Folk and fairy tales are a way to teach us warnings and lessons; don't be mean to that traveling old man, be wary of wolves in the woods, don’t take that deal that seems too good to be true. Are horror films/stories the same thing, or is there more to it? And more specifically does the monster we chose to chase our hero/heroine portray more about us as storytellers than we think? This is something that has been bouncing around in my head for a couple years but I really started thinking about this one time when I was arguing with a friend about why watching a horror film is still “worth it” if the film itself isn’t scary. In that conversation I went into how scary stories and horror films are just the modern day adaptation of greek tragedies or folk/fairy tales. They are fantasized versions of things that we as a people struggle with on a regular basis. So I want to talk about some of these basic “genres” in horror and how they could be addressed to real world problems we face. I was going to do all of these in one article, but it ends up I have a LOT to say about some of these so I’m gonna break them up into a few articles. Now these are largely based on my own perceptions, and thusly they might not address many potential applications these stories could have. But please, I would love to hear from you, what do you think?
So first and foremost let’s talk about ghosts. This is probably one of the oldest versions of using fantasy to cope with daily strife. Everyone wants to believe they still have a chance to talk to loved ones after they move on, or they want to believe that if they die before they finish business that perhaps their spirit will remain on after to finish it up. But those are obvious, I want to talk about stress, inherited disorders or diseases and family drama. The FUN stuff. So let's talk about the key points that most ghost stories hit on.
First lets address location, whether its a brand new home on an old burial ground, an old family estate, or you're just moving into an old manor home. The location always has an long history attached to it, and own story to tell. You might be a new performer in its already long running dark tragedy. But these stories always have a location that is brimming with its own history and dark twisted secrets, or even widely known tragedies. This is much like your own family, they have been surviving long before you and will be going long after you as well, and whether you know it yet or not, your family has just as many dark secrets, genealogical disorders/diseases, and so very much drama. So a lot of these stories relate to you when you may have that dark revelation that your family isn’t as sweet a beautiful as you always thought. Just like in the stories when that too good to be true house, becomes just that. Too good to be true.
Secondly I would like to talk about the ghosts themselves. Who are they, and how does our depiction of them indicate what is really bothering us as a storyteller? In order to figure this out I had to ask myself, What is a ghost? Is it not just the essence of suffering that lingers on after it’s forebear has passed? So if you have an abusive partner or parent, that leaves or dies. The physical threat is gone, but your mental anguish lives on. You become haunted by the one who hurt you all those times, even though you know, they will never hurt you again. This is the same for hereditary illnesses. You go about your life never knowing that perhaps there is something in your family bloodline that can attack you. Mental or physical it is as if the ghost of a past relative has come back and is attacking your livelihood and happiness. Or maybe it skipped you and is attacking a child or another family member. This is the same for stories about family curses, you did nothing wrong, but all of a sudden because of who your parents or grandparents were or something they did, now you are suffering for it.
The last point I would like to talk about when it comes ghosties is the sense of being a lone in this problem. This is almost ALWAYS the case in ghost stories, either you are actually by yourself or no one believes you that there is a problem. Either way you feel like it’s just you dealing with this problem. This directly correlates to dealing with family issues. This could be because you inherited some sort of illness from your family that you are dealing with, mental or physical. Even when friends or family are sympathetic to you, because they aren’t experiencing it with you, it still feels like you are alone on this. They aren’t there for the times you mind starts slipping, or your heart starts skipping beats, they don’t feel the terror, anxiety, fear and depression that follows, so no matter how sympathetic they might be toward your plight, they aren’t there with you. You are in this alone, only you can handle it, and only you can fix it. This is the same thing you see in ghost stories and movies. There might be other people around the events but it usually fixates on one person, dealing with this trauma. Even in the instances where it is the whole family experiencing this, it’s usually just one person the ghost or entity is focusing on, and that one person is making life harder on the rest of the family. Much like mental/physical illnesses feel like they are doing. And stress is another issue people deal with alone, that could be interpreted in these ghostly tales. You usually have that story where someone is biting off more than they can chew, like buying a beautiful old mansion they can’t really afford in the hopes of fixing it up and flipping it, but the ghosts keep messing with all their attempts and the world just comes crashing down on the main character as they slowly break under the financial and spiritual stress. The correlation here would be that person in your family who thinks they can help everyone, and can fix all their problems. But they can’t, and it eventually eats them up inside and breaks them. Either way, all these situations you feel you are alone during this endeavor, and the horrors you face while not visible to others are very real to you and very deadly.
So in closing I would like to readdress my original question. Why do we tell ghost stories? I don’t believe it’s a warning how to avoid tragedy. Tragedy is all around us, we can’t choose our family, just as we can’t choose genes we are born with. I think we tell ghost stories to let others know, YOU ARE NOT ALONE. What ever you are going through, someone has been there before, that is why the history is so important in ghost stories. What you are going through right now, someone in that house went through the same thing. Or someone in your family had this same disease, someone has been there before, and they are here with you now again, maybe not physically but in spirit. They are here for you, and others want to help you. You just have to reach out and ask.
So first and foremost let’s talk about ghosts. This is probably one of the oldest versions of using fantasy to cope with daily strife. Everyone wants to believe they still have a chance to talk to loved ones after they move on, or they want to believe that if they die before they finish business that perhaps their spirit will remain on after to finish it up. But those are obvious, I want to talk about stress, inherited disorders or diseases and family drama. The FUN stuff. So let's talk about the key points that most ghost stories hit on.
First lets address location, whether its a brand new home on an old burial ground, an old family estate, or you're just moving into an old manor home. The location always has an long history attached to it, and own story to tell. You might be a new performer in its already long running dark tragedy. But these stories always have a location that is brimming with its own history and dark twisted secrets, or even widely known tragedies. This is much like your own family, they have been surviving long before you and will be going long after you as well, and whether you know it yet or not, your family has just as many dark secrets, genealogical disorders/diseases, and so very much drama. So a lot of these stories relate to you when you may have that dark revelation that your family isn’t as sweet a beautiful as you always thought. Just like in the stories when that too good to be true house, becomes just that. Too good to be true.
Secondly I would like to talk about the ghosts themselves. Who are they, and how does our depiction of them indicate what is really bothering us as a storyteller? In order to figure this out I had to ask myself, What is a ghost? Is it not just the essence of suffering that lingers on after it’s forebear has passed? So if you have an abusive partner or parent, that leaves or dies. The physical threat is gone, but your mental anguish lives on. You become haunted by the one who hurt you all those times, even though you know, they will never hurt you again. This is the same for hereditary illnesses. You go about your life never knowing that perhaps there is something in your family bloodline that can attack you. Mental or physical it is as if the ghost of a past relative has come back and is attacking your livelihood and happiness. Or maybe it skipped you and is attacking a child or another family member. This is the same for stories about family curses, you did nothing wrong, but all of a sudden because of who your parents or grandparents were or something they did, now you are suffering for it.
The last point I would like to talk about when it comes ghosties is the sense of being a lone in this problem. This is almost ALWAYS the case in ghost stories, either you are actually by yourself or no one believes you that there is a problem. Either way you feel like it’s just you dealing with this problem. This directly correlates to dealing with family issues. This could be because you inherited some sort of illness from your family that you are dealing with, mental or physical. Even when friends or family are sympathetic to you, because they aren’t experiencing it with you, it still feels like you are alone on this. They aren’t there for the times you mind starts slipping, or your heart starts skipping beats, they don’t feel the terror, anxiety, fear and depression that follows, so no matter how sympathetic they might be toward your plight, they aren’t there with you. You are in this alone, only you can handle it, and only you can fix it. This is the same thing you see in ghost stories and movies. There might be other people around the events but it usually fixates on one person, dealing with this trauma. Even in the instances where it is the whole family experiencing this, it’s usually just one person the ghost or entity is focusing on, and that one person is making life harder on the rest of the family. Much like mental/physical illnesses feel like they are doing. And stress is another issue people deal with alone, that could be interpreted in these ghostly tales. You usually have that story where someone is biting off more than they can chew, like buying a beautiful old mansion they can’t really afford in the hopes of fixing it up and flipping it, but the ghosts keep messing with all their attempts and the world just comes crashing down on the main character as they slowly break under the financial and spiritual stress. The correlation here would be that person in your family who thinks they can help everyone, and can fix all their problems. But they can’t, and it eventually eats them up inside and breaks them. Either way, all these situations you feel you are alone during this endeavor, and the horrors you face while not visible to others are very real to you and very deadly.
So in closing I would like to readdress my original question. Why do we tell ghost stories? I don’t believe it’s a warning how to avoid tragedy. Tragedy is all around us, we can’t choose our family, just as we can’t choose genes we are born with. I think we tell ghost stories to let others know, YOU ARE NOT ALONE. What ever you are going through, someone has been there before, that is why the history is so important in ghost stories. What you are going through right now, someone in that house went through the same thing. Or someone in your family had this same disease, someone has been there before, and they are here with you now again, maybe not physically but in spirit. They are here for you, and others want to help you. You just have to reach out and ask.
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