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Fear

Psychology
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

A fundamental emotional and physiological response to real or imagined threat, often manifesting in poetry through imagery of danger, flight, or paralysis.

Detailed Definition
Fear triggers fight-or-flight and shapes behavior. Poetry renders it through ominous imagery, abrupt line breaks, or sensory detail, exploring both primal terror and existential dread—of death, abandonment, or the unknown.
Example
Example in poetry:
In Sylvia Plath’s “Daddy,” fear manifests as terror of patriarchal authority; In Emily Dickinson’s “‘Twas like a Maelstrom, with a notch,” fear is oceanic and consuming; In W.H. Auden’s “Musée des Beaux Arts,” fear is ignored in the background of suffering; In Langston Hughes’ “Dream Deferred,” fear simmers beneath the question “Or does it explode?”; In Wilfred Owen’s “Dulce et Decorum Est,” fear chokes soldiers in gas masks; In Warsan Shire’s “Home,” fear drives flight from war-torn lands.
Additional Notes
Fear—a primal response to threat—ranges from phobic to existential in poetry; unlike anxiety, it has a (real or imagined) object; poets use visceral imagery, fragmented syntax, or sensory detail to evoke it; students should analyze how fear is gendered, racialized, or politicized (e.g., Shire’s refugee poems); note its creative potential: fear can sharpen perception or reveal vulnerability.
Also Known As
Terror Dread Apprehension Panic Fright Horror Trepidation
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