Word: dreadfulness
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...sense, all this should be reassuring to the incoming U.S. technicians. Between sandstorms and flash floods, bouts of dehydration and nausea and attacks by insects and vipers, they should find little time to lapse into the dread Bedouinism...
Dylan has flirted with both of these (listen to "Dirge" on Planet Waves: "I went out all along Broadway/And I felt that place within/That hollow place where martyrs weep/And angels play with sin"). In this light, all these songs about "nothing" constitute a portrait of Dylan confronting his dread in a number of ways--defying it, cajoling it, and finally, in "Down the Flood" taking the bravest step of all, that is, assuming responsibility for it, because...
...change from man to bat to wolf to fog. The human characters who have been hunting Dracula in the light now lie abed, weak with doubt, receptive to phantoms. A winged shape flutters at the casement-ludicrous as a plot device, but classically suggestive as an embodiment of dread...
Psychic Energy. There are also the author's ritual mentions of the liver as if it were a window on the soul, psychosomatic illness, and plenty of vigorous metaphors on the uses of terror, dread and psychic energy. He even parodies Rojack of An American Dream by playing around on the terrace ledge of his hotel room, high above the streets of Kinshasa. As always, Mailer is keenly aware of his own celebrity when mixing with other celebrities. As always, no one can cut the competition as well as he does. Zaire's President Mobutu reminds Mailer...
...immediacy of illusion and the safety it provides. The menace so cunningly created and enlarged comes close enough to have caused loud screams and small tremors of terror at pre-release screenings. Yet Jaws is vicarious, not vicious, a fantasy far more than an assault. It is a dread dream that weds the viewer's own apprehensions with the survival of the heroes. It puts everyone in harm's way and brings the audience back alive. And in Jaws, the only thing you have to fear is fear itself...