terror

      Terror. An emotion undesirable to most. A word that has a meaning so unpleasant, how did it come to be? I choose the word terror because of how powerful I know the word to be and the heavy and strong emotions that are triggered because of it, or related to it. I wondered if its origin's are exactly the same as its definition today. Or if there were events in the past that created it's meaning. Terror is a beautiful and monstrous word and I felt that it's history would have a dark and twisted past that would very much intrigue me. There are some words that relate to terror. this would be obscurity and horror. People are generally terrorized by the unknown and the obscure; the strange and the incomprehensible. Obscurity helps aid terror for when feeling terror the senses can be heightened and lets a human live at the height of emotion by awakening the body and mind. As seen in many gothic novels where terror is used so very often. For example when staying home alone and its dark outside and a person is in a old house creaks that come in moments of total silence tend to send a shiver down one's spine. Then after a person may wait for a while to hear another and when that person does an electrical shock goes through there body and they are paralyzed waiting. The person's ears are not alert and listening to everything; there listening ability will be better than normal because of the chemical in the brain that triggers the terrorized feeling. Adrenaline may pump through the body. There body may become more rigid then possible if they were comfortable. There eyes will be straining to see something in the dark. Terror was a trigger that turned them into a sort of super human. Though an annoying feeling has come to them terror has actually helped them. For without it we could not feel the heightening of our senses and awakening of our body.
      Horror comes hand and hand with terror for terror is the thing you feel before horror. for example in scary movies when the person hears footsteps they are terrorized by the sound and feel a type of dread or terror for what comes next. Then when they see Frankenstein walk through the door they are horrified. They see this horror show in front of them and experience shock or horror at what they see.
      Terror, the word, comes from old french terreur. Its simple definition is extreme fear or a thing that evokes extreme fear. it has been attributed to many events throughout history, probably the most famous uses being the reign of terror after the french revolution and the war in the middle east. The Terror, or The reign of terror after the french revolution was a periond of on going violence where different political factions would battle against each other for supremacy. The people got caught up in this and a feeling of terror, fear, and dread hovered over them like a plague, for they did not know when they would get hurt by this "war". (526)