EnCrypted Episode 10: 'Seaton's Aunt' by Walter de la Mare
Although often anthologised as a such, it is questionable whether Seaton's Aunt even qualifies as a ghost story at all. Indeed, it is entirely possible to read Walter de la Mare's chronicle of the luckless Arthur Seaton and his domineering aunt as being simply a character study of a grotesque harridan and the catastrophic effect on those in her thrall. It would hold no less horror.
Nevertheless, something isn't quite... right...in this story - one of de la Mare's best-known, and one which, in many ways anticipates the "strange stories" Robert Aickman (a de la Mare admirer) would be penning some forty years later. Another fan, H.P. Lovecraft saw Seaton's Aunt as a tale of vampirism, even if its author eschews traditional blood-sucking in favour of either financial parasitism (the aunt exploiting Seaton for his inheritance) or, worse, the aunt as ghoul, feasting on poor Arthur's psychological discomfort.
In short, there may not be supernatural menace at the heart of the story, but Seaton's Aunt is certainly a monster. There may, or may not be, ghosts, but the characters are most certainly haunted.
It is possible, then, that some readers/listeners may be disappointed that de la Mare isn't more explicit. Others will find sufficient horror in the dysfunctional power dynamic between aunt and nephew, and the pathos in de la Mare's portrayal of a bullied outsider and his doomed life.
I, for one, am reminded of the following speech from another memorable outsider in the annals of horror:
"You know what I think? I think that we're all in our private traps, clamped in them, and none of us can ever get out. We scratch and we claw, but only at the air, only at each other, and for all of it, we never budge an inch."
- Norman Bates, Psycho (1960) (screenplay: John Stefano)
Your friend,
Jasper
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https://linktr.ee/encryptedpodAbout the episode:
"Seaton's Aunt" by Walter de la Mare was first published in The Riddle, and Other Stories (Selwyn & Blount Ltd, 1923).
Theme music: The Black Waltz by Scott Buckley | www.scottbuckley.com.au Music promoted by https://www.chosic.com Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Incidental music:
Piano Sad 2 (Piano & Strings Version) by PeriTune | http://peritune.com
Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Music promoted by https://www.chosic.com/
Giant Wyrm by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3807-giant-wyrm
License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Piano Sonata no. 14 in C-sharp minor 'Moonlight Sonata', Op. 27 no. 2
https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/
Sound effect attributions:
https://freesound.org/people/MeijstroAudio/sounds/372869/*
https://freesound.org/people/Cell31_Sound_Productions/sounds/376248/*
https://freesound.org/people/tosha73/sounds/530920/*
https://freesound.org/people/InspectorJ/sounds/411576/*
https://freesound.org/people/daveincamas/sounds/44102/*
https://freesound.org/people/HerbertBoland/sounds/31960/*
https://freesound.org/people/SoundMarnus/sounds/491773/*
*All used under the following Creative Commons license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
All other public domain sound effects sourced at: https://freesound.org/
The recording was created using Audacity and BandLab. Podcast hosted by Anchor.
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