Ghost Story of the Sacrament Dog Essay -- Ghost Stories Urban Legends

The Sacrament DogThe modern ghost story has extend a sort of rite of passage in American culture. At the youngest age, children argon scared by their older siblings renditions of a ghoulish tale. Teenagers nationally think it is their duty to investigate their towns local pertinacious at least once before graduating high school. Once these teens mutation into adulthood, they begin to scoff at the stories they once embraced, criticizing the irrational content and coition their children that they are silly for believing in such blasphemy. Finally, such mental rejection is somewhat removed when people reach an elderly state, and they begin to thunder in the joy of passing on ghostly stories to younger generations, non necessarily with the intention to scare, entirely with a desire to preserve a history and tradition unique to their personal life experience. Ghost stories are thus an integral part of the human life, not only reflecting the fancys, fears, and anxieties of sever al(a) societies and cultures (Brunvand 2), but also making up a great fraction of how humans define themselves and their lives.It is not surprising, then, that when I interviewed various members of the University of Maryland community, I was able to find many students with a ghost story (or two or three) on hand to share. One tale that I put in particularly interesting and in-depth, and which will be discussed here, was told to me on one ironically-appropriate fierce night in a dorm room full of college students. The bank clerk was a nineteen-year old, male freshman from Narstown, PA, majoring in English and Government and Politics. His sire is a nurse and his father is a telecommunications analyst. The story was about his Catholic college-preparatory high school in Penn... ...g the latter element, the anxiety of the Catholic trust to keep its young followers intact by instilling in them a fear of wondering astray or a hope for salvation is reflected in the storys pro-Cathol ic sentiment, unnecessary for the general spookiness of the story, but fitting in the Catholic school setting. Thus, ghost stories are notice intended to be merely spooky. Works CitedBrunvand, Jan Harold. The Vanishing Hitchhiker American Urban Legends & Their Meanings. radical York W.W. Norton, 1981.Maryland Ghost and Spirit Association. Ed. Beverly Litsinger. 2006. 8 April 2006 http//marylandghosts.com/.Shadowlands Haunted Places Index - Pennsylvania. Ed. Dave Juliano. 2005. 8 April 2006 http//theshadowlands.net/places/pennsylvania.htm.UMD Legends Index. Ed. David Schlossman. 2005. 7 April 2006 http//www.wam.umd.edu/dschloss/Legends/index.htm.