Characteristics of

Gothic Literature

Subgenre of Romanticism

1800-1860

Gothic Literature

The Beginnings… Gothic Literary tradition came to be in part from the Gothic architecture of the Middle Ages.

Gothic cathedrals with irregularly placed towers, and high stained-glass windows were intended to inspire awe and fear in religious worshipers.

•Gargoyles—carvings of small deformed creatures squatting at the corners and crevices of Gothic cathedrals—were supposed to ward off evil spirits, but they often look more like demonic spirits themselves.

•Think of the gargoyle as a mascot of Gothic, and you will get an idea of the kind of imaginative distortion of reality that Gothic represents.

Gothic Literature

It was an offshoot of Romantic Literature. Gothic Literature was the predecessor of modern horror

movies in both theme and style. Gothic Literature put a spin on the Romantic idea of nature

worship and nature imagery. Along with nature having the power of healing, Gothic writers gave nature the power of destruction. Frankenstein is full of the harsh reality of nature. Many storms arise in the novel, including storms the night the Creature comes to life.

The most common feature of Gothic Literature is the indication of mood through the weather.

Gothic vs. Romanticism

Romantic writers celebrated the beauties of nature.

Gothic writers were peering into the darkness at the supernatural.

Romanticism developed as a reaction against the rationalism of the Age of Reason. The romantics freed the

imagination from the hold of reason, so they could follow their imagination wherever it might lead.

For some Romantics, when they looked at the individual, they saw hope (think “A Psalm of Life”).

For some Romantic writers, the imagination led to the threshold of the unknown—the shadowy region where the fantastic, the demonic and the insane reside. When the Gothic's saw the

individual, they saw the potential of evil.

Gothic Movement in America

The Gothic Tradition was firmly established in Europe before American writers had made names for themselves.By the 19th century, Edgar Allan Poe, Nathanial Hawthorne, and to a lesser extent Washington Irving and Herman Melville were using the Gothic elements in their writing.

Edgar Allan Poe was the master of the Gothic form in the United States.

Characteristics

• Set in Medieval times• Dark, mysterious, evil

tone• Dark castles, palaces,

chambers, haunted mansions

• Isolated setting• All come together to

emphasize the sense of evil

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More characteristics

• Presence of ghosts, spirits, vampires, and other supernatural entities

• Mysterious disappearances and reappearances

• Supernatural or paranormal occurrences

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Characteristics -- cont’d.

• Religion, usually Christianity or at least spirituality, is confronted.

• A gothic “double” is used in which a character who seems to be good is linked with another who is evil

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More characteristics

• Blood, pain, death• Cruelty• Characters with

“aberrant psychological states”

• Events are uncanny or melodramatically violent bordering between reality and unreality

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Purpose

• To evoke “terror” versus “horror” in the reader because of situations bordering reality/unreality•Often used to teach a message

• May lack a Medieval setting but will develop an atmosphere of gloom and terror

Differentiating between the two

• Horror•“An awful

apprehension”•Described distinctly•Something grotesque•So appalling,

unrealistic•Depends on physical

characteristics

• Terror•“A sickening realization”•Suggestive of what will

happen•Depends on reader’s

imagination•Sense of uncertainty•Creates an “intangible

atmosphere of spiritual psychic dread”

Gothic Conventions

Murder Death Suicide Ghosts Demons

Gloomy settings

Family secrets

Dungeons Curses Torture

Vampires Spirits Castles Tombs Terror

A few more gothic conventions

Damsel in distress (frequently faints in horror)

Secret corridors, passageways, or rooms

Ancestral curses

Ruined castles with graveyards nearby

Priests and monks

Sleep, dream, death-like states

Metonymy of gloom and terror

Metonymy is a subtype of metaphor, in which something (like rain) is used to stand for something else (like sorrow). For example, the film industry likes to use metonymy as a quick shorthand, so we often notice that it is raining in funeral scenes.

Note the following metonymies that suggest mystery, danger, or the supernatural

wind, especially howling sighs, moans, howls, eerie sounds

rain, especially blowing clanking chains

doors grating on rusty hinges gusts of wind blowing out lights

footsteps approaching doors suddenly slamming shut

lights in abandoned rooms crazed laughter

characters trapped in a room baying of distant dogs (or wolves?)

ruins of buildings thunder and lightning

Importance of Setting

The setting is greatly influential in Gothic novels. It not only evokes the atmosphere of horror and dread, but also portrays the deterioration of its world. The decaying, ruined scenery implies that at one time there was a thriving world. At one time the abbey, castle, or landscape was something treasured and appreciated. Now, all that lasts is the decaying shell of a once thriving dwelling.

Basic Plot Structure for a Gothic Novel

Action in the Gothic novel tends to take place at night, or at least in a claustrophobic, sunless environment.

Ascent (up a mountain high staircase); Descent (into a dungeon, cave, underground chambers or

labyrinth) or falling off a precipice; secret passage; hidden doors;

Physical decay, skulls, cemeteries, and other images of death; ghosts; revenge; family curse; blood and gore; torture; the Doppelganger (evil twin or double), etc.

Gothic Writers

Anne Rice

Edgar Allan Poe

Joyce Carol Oates

Stephen King

Stephenie Meyer