I recently released a YouTube video entitled Terror vs. Horror. In it, I discussed the differences between the two and when, as a writer, you would want to use one or the other. For this post, I thought I’d take a related but somewhat different look at the lasting allure of terror in literature.
Keep in mind that I’m not talking about the horror of chainsaw movies or the known threats within every thriller novel and movie you’ve ever seen, although those have enduring appeal as well. For this post, I’m going to stick exclusively to terror – that unseen dread that speaks of more than what manifests on the surface.
Because in the end, the two – terror vs. horror – appeal to us for very different reasons.
As a reminder, terror is defined as the dread your character feels in response to something that strikes a very individual chord with the character. If your character comes home from work to find a silk scarf on the kitchen table, that’s not necessarily frightening to any other character. But if the scarf was her mother’s and was buried with her thirteen years prior, the sight of it will certainly strike a sense of dread and unease in the character (and in the readers who also understand this association).
Gothic novels have used terror since day one because terror parallels Gothic themes so closely – themes that delve into the spiritual and/or psychological depths of the characters.
But why do we – the readers – love terror so much? Why do we seek out and gleefully anticipate the effect that the terror will have on us? I can think of three possible reasons.
Terror Confirms That the Unseen is Real
Terror almost always introduces some element of the supernatural. By that I don’t necessarily mean demons or angels or other unseen beings that we associate with our religions. It may just be a sense, a pervasive thread throughout the work, that there is more that exists than what can be seen. And that that truth lies beyond the surface of the tangible world.
Just writing that reminds me of the Upside Down in Stranger Things. If you love Gothic TV shows (and the 80s), check out Stranger Things on Netflix. In the show, the Upside Down is an alternate dimension that appears identical to, albeit darker than, the real world except that the evil is visible. In the real world this evil is hidden beneath the sunlight and schedules of everyday life. It’s easy to ignore, or overtly denounce its existence. But places like the Upside Down don’t allow for that. The evil is too apparent to dismiss.
This mirrors many spiritual beliefs, including Judeo-Christian ones, that teach that there is a spiritual world beyond what our senses perceive. And that the spiritual world is vastly larger and more complex than ours is. Regardless of what beliefs you hold, most people believe that there is something more to this world.
Terror points to that and declares that it is true by consistently focusing on the unseen and reflecting that, whether it’s a spiritual or a psychological phenomenon, it is a real and influential factor in our lives.
Terror Speaks to the Depths of the Human Soul
Often these factors focus us inward. In the Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson, the author delves into the depths of the human soul and examines the two sides to a person – the one that longs for goodness and the other that longs for evil. He puts forth the idea that both sides can’t coexist and that the evil side will always win out.
Shirley Jackson examines a slightly different scenario in her writing. For example, consider her novella We Have Always Lived in The Castle, in which she explores the role of the community against the individual. We could think about this from a sociological standpoint, but I believe that it boils down to a psychological matter. What happens to a person’s capacity for evil when he or she is part of the collective? Does one’s identity within a group enhance each individual’s tendency to ostracize and persecute those who aren’t in the group?
The terror that these authors use points to the fact that the human soul is something more than merely our personality or the shell of our material bodies.
Terror Forces Us to Examine Ourselves
All of this has a tendency to focus our attention on ourselves. Hopefully not in a self-centered way. But in the sense that it forces us to consider the things about ourselves that we might otherwise want to overlook or deny.
If you’ve ever read Edgar Allan Poe’s story The Tell-Tale Heart, Poe uses the reference of a murder victim’s purportedly beating heart to point to the true problem: the main character’s heart. It’s his guilty conscience that’s really calling to him, reminding him of what he has done and who he is. Forcing him to confront the things he’s attempted to bury.
To illustrate this, consider if, in contrast, the authors were to use horror. In the presence of an external, tangible threat, how much easier would it be to overlook all of the things we’ve just mentioned? It would be natural. But terror, by focusing on the unseen and the dread that certain associations cause within us, forces to face those things that lie beneath the surface.
It does this by asking why? Why is Dr. Jekyll unable to escape from Mr. Hyde? Why is Merricat (in We Have Always Lived in The Castle) constantly at odds with the villagers? And why is the unnamed narrator in The Tell-Tale Heart haunted by the beating of the heart?
Terror focuses the readers beyond the terror itself to the source of the terror: the characters themselves. And by extension, ourselves.
That quality will always make terror relevant because it speaks to the depths of our human condition. Who we are and why we act the way we do.