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Gothic Trope The Role Of Women In Gothic Literature

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Instead of using her name, calling her the princess sets up this damsel in distress trope we’ve seen countless times in gothic horror.

The Gothic trope of an innocent damsel in distress threatened by dark supernatural evil. The dangers of female sexuality.
The ideal damsel in distress, a common female archetype character that regularly appears in great epics.

Mina and Lucy are one dimensional in their characterization, to convey how gender roles that were strict and relevant, that which reflected Victorian society’s moral agenda.

To embody both traits belonging to ‘the pure woman’ and ‘the fallen woman’ categories were considered uncommon, hence why Lucy challenges the ideologies in place within a male dominated patriarchal realm. …show more content…

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Two fears dominate this Gothic world, the fear of terrible separateness and the fear of unity with some terrible Other. They are embodied in two classic formulas of the ghost story: the heroine’s terrifying discovery that she is all alone and her subsequent discovery that -horror of horrors! - she is not alone.

Perils of the Night: A Feminist Study of Nineteenth-Century Gothic; Eugenia C. Delamotte

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I think that when you are thinking of the role of women in Gothic fiction, I suggest that that is the phrase you keep in mind – to what extent are these women agents in their own right? Are they able to produce their own story as well as being victims within a story?


David Punter

Various omens, portents, visions, and supernatural occurrences. Sometimes a likeness of somebody will fall over and portend their death. Sometimes Our Heroine will have a dream about what’s to come. Sometimes a ghost will appear and rattle some chains and give her a good scare – right into the secret back room where there’s a coffin. Ghosts are usually symbolic of buried impulses or memories, or they could represent the id if they hang around the house a lot making noise and destroying

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