ER:

It’s a crazy story *strumming his electric guitar playfully* It was when I was a boy *strummed a couple more chords* I was a little 7 years old… it was me and my friend Avery. Ah no, so basically what happened was, it was my dad he had this big barbeque and there’s a lot of my… family friends. Hey, do you want to record this one? With the guitar?

Me:

Yea *chuckles* go ahead.

ER:

Alright okay cool. Um so basically what happened was um, we had this huge barbeque and um… it was a big celebration and we had like this creepy basement in my old house. And it was, it’s, it was not finished and like you can see the concrete bridge through the wall it was like…… from the 1920s. So what happened was me and my friend Avery we’re both scared but we decided to like to go down and explore together. So I remember we get, we grabbed one of those flood flashlight those big ones, and we like tracked down there and we’re going through – we are halfway through the basement, and when like – I don’t know, we saw like a blue dog like laying down and it looked up at us. And like we looked at each other for a second, we looked back and like we both, like we confirmed with each other in our eyes that we saw the same thing. We looked back, and I don’t remember if it disappears or not, but like we both freaked the heck out and we just – we booked it. We ran out of the basement. And like, yea, I don’t know, it was pretty freaky and like we don’t know how to explain it until later um my mom told me when I told her about the story, she said that actually when they first, when we first moved into the house um………. Uh they were cleaning the basement out and they find a lot of, like, dog skulls in the basement, and it turns out um, the owner that lived there, I don’t know, not…not before us maybe, I don’t remember, but um, one of the previous owner actually abused dogs and like… like I guess tortured them or something, so it really freaked me out. That’s my story, thank you.

ER’s Interpretation:

It seems like ER believed that the ghost does exist. The fact that both he and his friend both freaked out by the dog moved shows that even children are being exposed to the idea of ghosts early in their lives. If one does not understand the concept of ghost, one would only be confused as of why a dog is in the basement rather than acknowledging it as a ghost. Although we don’t know if it was only his imagination or if it’s real, he is one-hundred percent sure that it happened. He even supported his sighting with some history of the house. He also believes that animal possesses souls since the dog ghost is the main part of the story. He thinks that the reason the dog ghost is there is to wait for the owner to come back and seek its vengeance.

Analysis:

Based on ER’s words, we can see how he described the place a lot before telling what actually happened. It seems like the setting plays an important role in the story. From the “creepy basement” and that the house looks like “from the 1920s”, we can assume that the past haunts the house. In America, the haunting of a specific place because of the past is very widespread, especially in the Southern Gothic literature, where mansions are usually haunted by former slaves. In this ER’s story, we can see a hint of Southern Gothic literature theme being incorporated into the story, as the house is being haunted by what happened in the past.

The ghost of the dog also implies that American family believes that animals have souls. Although most of the families tend to acknowledge that animals have souls, as told by stories of dead pet coming back to visit the owner, this story is a little bit different. Since ER had no prior knowledge of the dog, based on contemporary American ghost believe, he would not see the dog ghost and that wouldn’t exist.

In the last part of ER’s story, he seems to be uncertain about what actually happened in the past, as he said that he doesn’t really remember which owner abused the dogs, but he knows for sure that one of the owners used to abuse dogs. This uncertainty of what happened in the past can leave a sense of horror or rather, a sense of freakiness to the current inhabitant of the house. ER didn’t describe how his mom reacted when he told her the story, but based on his tone, it seems like his mom is very much calm, and had known about this all along. It also seems like his mom is trying to hide the dark history of the house away from ER so that he could live a normal life and not knowing he is living in some weird place. This shows that his parents believe the sighting of ghost may lead to ER not be able to live in the house and feel normal and that the ghost is harmful only when it is discovered.

The story also takes place in a basement. In this case, the basement again serves as a liminal space. It is between the underground and the ground. The house is built on the ground, but the basement is placed under the ground. It is a place where it is attached to a place that is above the ground, but it is placed under the ground, serving as a liminal space.