In this classic story by H. Lovecraft, three robbers visit an old man and learn a terrifying secret. Art and design by Tom Baker. There are no reviews yet. Be the first one to write a review. He then sets out to put his theory into practice and as a consequence murders an old woman. The story gyrates around this murder. Through raskolnikoff Dostoevsky provides an in-depth exploration of the psychology of a criminal.
The inner world of Raskolnikoff, with all of its doubts, deleria, second-guessing, fear, and despair, is the heart of the story. Dostoevsky does not lay emphasis on the actual repercussions of the murder but the way the murder forces Raskolnikoff to deal with tormenting guilt. Life is meaningful only for people who have hope and love. The hope helps us live better and heals our body and spirit.
Hope is the foundation of our personal futures; each of us would probably suicide without hope. It is the virtue that helps us overcome obstacles. Without hope, we seem to give up easily like Johnsy in the story. Without hope, there is nothing. Another important thing in life is love. Henry, through the story, advices us should love ourselves and other people. The love between three persons, Johnsy, Sue and old Behrman makes a moving story. Johnsy had sometimes forgotten loving herself and cause the worry for Sue, but the biggest love is the love of the old Behrman for Johnsy.
He was self - sacrifice to save the life of Johnsy. Despite being a old man, he didn't hesitate to go out in a cold weather, climb up the ladder and paint the last leaf, because he know that it is the leaf of hope, a hope for a life that is giving up.
In addition, I never see that life and death seem to be close like that. The fate is It would not be an exaggeration to say that I have been fascinated by Elizabeth Wright ever since I became aware of her many years ago, when Issues and Views was still a paper publication.
I discovered that Elizabeth had a piercingly clear understanding of race, and wrote in an uncompromising style. We corresponded, and AR posted several of her essays—and yet I never really knew her. Elizabeth wanted it that way. We spoke on the phone only a few times, and she spoke as she wrote—clearly and vigorously.
And yet she kept me at a distance. The last time we spoke I was in New York City, where she lived, and I practically begged her to let me meet her. She declined. There was a great deal I wanted to know about Elizabeth Wright. How did a black woman arrive at a view of race so similar to my own? There is usually a story about how whites become dissenters. There must be a whole book about her. And who were her friends? Frequently he consulted his watch, and wondered at the delay.
Had the old man died before revealing where his treasure was hidden, and had a thorough search become necessary? Czanek did not like to wait so long in the dark in such a place.
Then he sensed a soft tread or tapping on the walk inside the gate, heard a gentle fumbling at the rusty latch, and saw the narrow, heavy door swing inward. And in the pallid glow of the single dim street-lamp he strained his eyes to see what his colleagues had brought out of that sinister house which loomed so close behind.
But when he looked, he did not see what he had expected; for his colleagues were not there at all, but only the Terrible Old Man leaning quietly on his knotted cane and smiling hideously. Little things make considerable excitement in little towns, which is the reason that Kingsport people talked all that spring and summer about the three unidentifiable bodies, horribly slashed as with many cutlasses, and horribly mangled as by the tread of many cruel boot-heels, which the tide washed in.
And some people even spoke of things as trivial as the deserted motor-car found in Ship Street, or certain especially inhuman cries, probably of a stray animal or migratory bird, heard in the night by wakeful citizens. But in this idle village gossip the Terrible Old Man took no interest at all. Besides, so ancient a sea-captain must have witnessed scores of things much more stirring in the far-off days of his unremembered youth. His Life. His Writings. Return to the H. Lovecraft Home Page, or.
Read the next short story; The Thing on the Doorstep. It was written on January 28, , and first published in the Tryout , an amateur press publication, in July It is notable as the first story to make use of Lovecraft's imaginary New England setting, introducing the fictional town of Kingsport.
The story, about the fate of three would-be robbers of the titular old man's house, has been criticized by Peter Cannon for being an openly xenophobic polemic against immigration. A strange old man, 'so old that no one can remember when he was young, and so taciturn that few know his real name,' lives alone in an ancient house on Water Street in the town of Kingsport. Even among the locals, few know the details of the old man's life, but it is believed that he once captained East Indianclipper ships in his youth and accumulated great riches throughout his life.
Those who had visited the property had seen bizarre collections of stones in the front yard and observed the old man carrying on conversations with mysterious bottles on his table, which make 'certain definite vibrations as if in answer. Angelo Ricci, Joe Czanek and Manuel Silva, three robbers, learn about the old man's supposed hoard of treasure and resolve to take it.
Ricci and Silva go inside to 'interview' the old man about the treasure, while Czanek waits outside in the getaway car. After waiting impatiently for a long time, Czanek is startled by an outburst of horrific screaming from the house but assumes that his colleagues have been too rough with the old man during their interrogation.
However, the gate of the house opens, revealing the old man 'smiling hideously' at him. For the first time, Czanek takes note of the man's unsettling yellow eyes. The mutilated bodies of the three robbers are later found by the seaside, 'horribly slashed as with many cutlasses, and horribly mangled as by the tread of many cruel boot-heels.
He further elaborates on the origin of the Strange High House, mentioning that the house was old when his own grandfather had been a boy. Given the Old Man's own implied longevity, the house must date to the very early days of colonial America. He has a number of similarities with later characters created by Lovecraft, in particular Joseph Curwen, the villain of The Case of Charles Dexter Ward : Both were improbably old, such that no one remembered when they were young; possessed vaguely defined but powerful abilities oriented around storing the dead in peculiar objects and calling them forth to serve them; and had access to ancient coinage of precious metals as do the Whateleys in 'The Dunwich Horror'.
Lovecraft scholar Peter Cannon dismissively describes the story as 'little more than a polemic against the intrusion of people Lovecraft regarded as 'foreigners', that is, the non-English immigrants who arrived in the nineteenth century as cheap labor to fill the factories of an increasingly industrialized America.
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