Gothic Short Stories

Gothic Short Stories

Gothic stories are usually dark and mysterious, set mostly at night,

and frequently have the appearance of bad weather. Gothic stories hit

a peak in Victorian times, when Jack the Ripper and other famous

lawbreakers struck fear into peoples hearts.

This grim time was not helped by the very inefficient police force,

this left people wanting to hear of more heroes in their world. I have

read 3 famous gothic short stories, and in my essay I am going to

explore them in detail to decide how suspense has been created, and

how effective this is.

The three stories are:

The Body-Snatcher

The Red Room

The Adventure of the Speckled Band.

All of these titles start with "The"; this is to show it is a more

definite article. All of these titles give away as little about the

story as possible, adding mystery to the stories. The Red Room

conjures up lots of different images, for example, blood, danger, evil

and pain. But then again, it could just be about a room painted red!

This makes the reader want to continue to find out how the title

actually relates to the story. The Body-Snatcher immediately gives

images of mystery, graveyards, bodies and moonlight. This gives the

title a spooky and mysterious touch, which is vital for a gothic story

as it gets the reader interested in what the story is about so they

want to read more and more. This is a very effective gothic story

title. The Adventure of the Speckled Band's title sets up what the

story is about, although the use of "Adventure" is very uncommon in

gothic short story titles, "the Speckled Band" links in with the key

clue given to Sherlock Holmes (...

... middle of paper ...

... surprise, and can

successfully inject an amount of excitement or fear into the story.

Setting the stories in dark places can also be used to particularly

good effect, especially if bad weather or the night is used. In my

opinion, I believe The Body-snatcher is the best short story, as it

seems far better at creating tension and suspense than the others, and

fits the image of a typical gothic short story perfectly. It also used

a cliff-hanger ending to great effect, revealing a character from

earlier on in the story as the body they had just dug up. "Bearing

with it, the sole occupant of the gig; the body of the dead and

long-dissected Gray." I also enjoy how the story starts with the two

men aged, meeting in a pub many years after the events, which then

sets about telling the reader as if from one of the men's memory.