Gothic Novels In Gothic Literature

The occult belongs to Gothic literature. It began with a novel from Horace Walpole, The Castle of Otranto. The Gothic literature is a mixture between horror, full of terror story and romance. The Gothic novel tries to awake fear and terror upon the reader through supernatural and inexplicable events. The prevalent atmosphere is a doom and gloomy one, in order for incomprehensible situations to take place. Some of the most known Gothic novels are Frankenstein, Dracula, Wuthering Heights, stories written by Edgar Allen Poe.
According to Crystal B. Lake, the Gothic literature expose and play with the unknown, hidden parts of society or of ourselves hence what makes it so terrifying is the fact that it brings into the light, it gives a voice to

The setting is always a macabre place, defined by darkness, bleak and dreary atmosphere. For instance, in The Fall of House of Usher, the action takes place in The House of Usher, a desolate place that soon will collapse; in Dracula, the setting is set in Dracula`s Castle in Transylvania. The characters in Gothic novels are always at loss wither physical or psychological. A good example is Frankenstein. It is a creature who got its life from a human being and not from God. The plot regularly contains violence. An illustration of violence is Wuthering Heights. here, the violence is not only among the adults, but it is also present among the children. Another characteristic of Gothic is the supernatural in all its forms: zombies, vampires, ghosts, witches, omens, dreams. For example, the character in Dracula is a vampire
In this essay, I will try to discuss the occult elements in Jane Eyre. Jane Eyre appeared in 1847. It is a Victorian novel, a Bildungsroman, which has Gothic elements throughout it, it is a novel about a plain and simple woman who tries to find her place in society and her way is cluttered with mysterious episodes. I intend to provide in the following pages the characteristics of the Gothic novel and to apply them on the novel Jane

The atmosphere that dominated the school was that of coldness, darkness, `semi-starvation and neglected colds` (Bronte, 75). They long for fire and light, but the accommodations from that house were not suitable for the little girls. The only thing that brought a light and warm to Lowood School were the girls, but that was not for long, because the feeling of death flow over their home. The fever made many victims: `When the typhus fever had fulfilled its mission of devastation at Lowood, it gradually disappeared from thence; but not till its virulence and number of its victims had drawn public attention on school`. (Bronte, 82).
Another essential gothic setting in Jane Eyre is Thornfield Hall. Everything in here appear to be old, almost forgotten `a shrine of memory`. Jane thought of it to be a stagnant place and she, as a young woman of only eighteen years old, was right. The Thornfield Hall presents itself to be the most gothic setting from all mentioned above: it has long, dark and mysterious halls, strange, enigmatic goblin like laughs and most important of all, it had the mad woman in the attic that set Rochester`s bed in fire, who came and rent Jane`s veil, who bit and cut Mason with her own