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Essays on gothic literature
Gothic literature and culture
Essays on gothic literature
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More handpicked essays just for you.
Essays on gothic literature
Gothic literature and culture
Essays on gothic literature
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
In the 19th century, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Edgar Allan Poe were known for their use of gothic elements in their types of writing. The plot of gothic literature novels typically involves people who become involved in complex and oftentimes evil paranormal schemes, usually against an innocent and helpless heroine. Poe used gothic dimensions to explore the human mind in extreme situations. Hawthorne examined the human heart under conditions of fear, vanity, mistrust, and betrayal. Even though Hawthorne and Poe used the gothic elements, they still used different types of darkness to portray their writing to the reader.
The term Gothic was originally used as an architectural term and it refers to medieval buildings, such as castles and cathedral. Its an style of writing that is characterized by elements of fear, horror, death and gloom. Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Fall of the house of Usher” is an good example of Gothic Literature because it has a gloomy mood. “ The storm had been a welcome diversion.
The two American Literature Gothics,“Young Goodman and Brown” and “The Man in the Black Suit” are interesting stories. Young Goodman Brown is a young man who just got married and he leaves his wife Faith to go on a journey. On his way he meets a mysterious man. The road he took is darkened by all the gloomiest trees of the forest and that is where Brown comes in contact with the devil as his guide. Brown sees all of the evil of the town such as the minister whipping girls and he also sees the woman who taught him Bible lessons as evil.
Lightning strikes the iron rods that surround the scientist's latest creation, and it awakens to life. This image is the essence of Gothic literature, a genre of literature that employs the writing of different sorts of dark picturesque scenery, dramatic plots, different literary devices, and other themes to exemplify the gothic aspect of the plot or story. Many well-known books employ different techniques to make a book a type of Gothic literature. Almost all of them have medieval structures, gloomy or dark settings, and themes such as horror, mystery, or some sort of romance within those gothic stories. A prime example of this is Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein.
The Tell- Tale heart by Edgar Allen Poe, Don’t Ask Jack written by Neil Gaiman and The sandman created by Paul Barry are all examples of gothic fiction. The purpose of Gothic fiction is to scare and intimidate the readers and it is characterised by dark themes and emotions. The Sandman is an animated film about a boy that loses his eyes to a supernatural creature called the Sandman. The Tell-tale heart is about the narrator who kills an old man but eventually confesses to the police. Don’t ask Jack is about a Jack in a box that tells children terrifying secrets.
Gothic Setting Dracula by Bram Stoker, is the exact definition of a well written Gothic novel. The elements that Stoker uses in his novel are everything that gothic writers want. The gothic nature of Dracula is portrayed in the setting using landscape, weather and buildings. First of all, the landscape sets off a creepy atmosphere throughout the book.
The Gothic Influence Although the word “Gothic” is often associated with supernatural creatures or haunted, abandoned places, the word actually originates from an elaborate style of architecture. The reason that the word “Gothic” has become associated with these ideas of horror and death is because the architecture was thought of the ideal place for mysterious, suspenseful, and dark stories to occur. These types of stories became known as the Gothic genre. The Gothic literary genre often includes elements of fear, death, and strong emotions, and is set in set in a dark or mysterious place.
Gothic Literature Essay In short stories and novels there are many gothic elements that are either very nasty or violent. In Riggs novel “Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children” there’s multiple different types of gothic elements. That goes the same for the two short stories by Poe, “Black Cat” and “Masque of the Red Death”, as well as the story “Feather Pillow” by Horacio Quiroga. Through all these short stories, one gothic element stands out more than the others.
Traditionally a Gothic genre has vampires, ghosts, moody setting or maybe even a wealthy family with a dark past, mostly anything with dark elements. Thriller has a specific role in an gothic genre leaving the reader at the edge of the seat. For the most part, the name Frankenstein automatically listed as the monster, not many know the real truth behind Frankenstein. As a whole, feminism literature represents Gothic Romance the same in Jane Eyre. Despite the character’s different fates; a mad scientist featuring an emotional monster rejected by society and an orphan who turns her life around for the better, both Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre have many romantic elements that question human nature.
Nonetheless, they are often put in to the same category as supernatural and thrillers. Gothic novels first emerged in the late eighteenth century. During that era , many changes were under going in the social , economic, and political branch. Many scientific achievements had spawned such as the creation of electricity, telegraphs, rail roads,etc. The improvement of the middle-income beliefs was also marked.
Gothic fiction refers to a style of writing that is characterized by elements of fear, horror, death, and gloom. Mary Shelley had an interest in writing elements of gothic horror themes to show fear and suspense in her stories. In Mary Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein, she uses a mad scientist, Victor Frankenstein to create gothic horror story. Victor, who loved science, had an ambition to create the “perfect human” in his eyes but as you will see stuff doesn't always go as planned. Although he had good intentions Victor Frankenstein becomes distressed and deranged and as a result of this he forgets and leaves behind his creation.
Gothic literature is a style of literature that takes place in the past, most of the time it has someone who dies and it has a creepy vibe/tone behind it . Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher,” is a good example of Gothic literature because it shows how a man goes to visit an old friend and see how his friend and his friends twin sister die. “The whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day. ”(13)
Gothic Literature is a genre that was popular between 18th to 19th centuries in North Germany. It is always being associated with Dark Romanticism which the emphasize was more on nature, terror and death, horror and many more. It involves dark and gloomy setting and also unexplainable things that are beyond human senses and reason such as ghosts and monsters. The main characters, on the other hand, are always ineffectual which they do not give much effect on the story plot. This can be seen through Washington Irving’s “Rip van Winkle” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” which can be considered as American gothic work in terms of its description of setting, the involvement of supernatural element in the story and also the characteristics of the main character.
Gothic Elements in the “The Tell Tale Heart” The classic short story of “The Tell-Tale Heart”, written by one of the all time masters of horror, Edgar Allen Poe, has always been used as an excellent example of Gothic fiction. Edgar Allen Poe specialized in the art of gothic writing and wrote many stories that portrayed disturbing events and delved deeply into the minds of its characters. In "The Tell-Tale Heart," Poe revolves the plot around a raving individual who, insisting that he is sane, murders an old man because of his` “vulture eye”. The three main gothic elements that are evident in this story are the unique setting, the theme of death and decay, and the presence of madness.
In the early 18th century a new genre of fiction prose, named "Gothic Novel" was introduced. The term ”Gothic” used to refer to the German tribe of the Goths. The Gothic novel spread over the 19th century and had the popular theme of haunted places such as castles, crypts, gloomy monasteries; supernatural elements having the role to intensify the atmosphere. The characteristic motifs of the gothic genre were the strange places, the supernatural, magic objects, monsters, demons, science used for bad purposes. And many of them appear also in "The Picture of Dorian Gray".