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Gothic literature and culture
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Gothic literature has many dark factors, some of them are death and decay, haunted homes/ castles, some have family curses, powerful love/ romances, ghost and vampires. This type of genre became to be popular during the late 18th century. There are many gothic lit novels like Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. These two books have a lot of in common thing. Both of these books have many gothic elements. These elements consists of atmosphere, characters being isolated, emotions and supernatural atmospheres. The book Frankenstein has many gothic elements. It has a very dark setting where a monster was created by a paranoid scientist. As the monster was being created Frankenstein was expecting something
Classical gothic literature, developed in the late eighteenth century, was most likely first concepted by Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto. Dark, dreary settings and frightening monsters often characterize the style of this category of literature. Mary Shelley, a classical gothic writer, has used these characteristics in her novel Frankenstein. In her novel Victor Frankenstein composes a creature that has all the potentialities of a child because it knows nothing. But this creature is far from looking anything like a child. The monster, created from different body parts, is grotesque, he has yellow skin that barely covers his muscles, long black hair and is very large. However, just as a child, he begins to learn, through experiences and especially by reading several books. This new knowledge he has learned has a harmful ...
Gothic elements are used to show suspense, symbolism, and drama, while also setting dark and twisted tones about the story and its characters. In the passage "The Fall of the House of Usher" the author uses Gothic elements to entice the reader with details of ominous character persona and setting.
Another example of gothic novels would be the creation of supernatural or inexplicable events, such as ghost and giants. But, in this case it is when Victor Frankenstein first created the monster out of dead body parts, and the monster came to life.
Gothic literature was developed during the eighteenth and nineteenth century of the Gothic era when war and controversy was too common. It received its name after the Gothic architecture that was becoming a popular trend in the construction of buildings. As the buildings of daunting castles and labyrinths began, so did the beginning foundation of Gothic literature. The construction of these buildings will later become an obsession with Gothic authors. For about 300 years before the Renaissance period, the construction of these castles and labyrinths continued, not only in England, but also in Gothic stories (Landau 2014). Many wars and controversies, such as the Industrial Revolution and Revolutionary War, were happening at this time, causing the Gothic literature to thrive (“Gothic Literature” 2011). People were looking for an escape from the real world and the thrill that Gothic literature offered was exactly what they needed. Gothic literature focuses on the horrors and the dark sides to the human brain, such as in Mary Shelley’s book Frankenstein. Gothic literature today, as well as in the past, has been able to separate itself apart from other types of literature with its unique literary devices used to create fear and terror within the reader.
Key Elements of Gothic Literature Jasmine Giles People enjoy reading gothic literature due to its heart rate exciting nature. Without having to engage with any real danger, it is common for the reader to feel anxiety and impaitence when reading gothic fiction. In order for the reader to feel these emotions, the author uses certain elements, such as a gloomy setting and old-fashioned dialoge. In the stories “The Black Cat” and “The Tell Tale Heart”, by elgar allen poe, and “The Landlady”, by Roland Dahl, there are many similarites that remanticize the idea of horror and mystery. Some elements, however, bring out the disbolical horror of gothic literature: the setting, characterization, and the motif of suspense.
Gothic encompasses many genres of expression. Gothic artists speak out through the forms of literature, architecture, film, sculptures, paintings, and music. Many times, one genre of Gothic inspires another, creating fusing parallels between the two. In this way, each genre of Gothic rises to a more universal level, coalescing into the much broader understanding of Gothic. Gothic writers, such as Mary Shelley, influence Gothic music, as one sees in stylistic devices including diction, setting, and tone.
Older Gothic literature was in castles and deserted buildings. Modern Gothic novels were written in more populated areas. Another text that can be classed as ‘Gothic’ is the novel ‘Frankenstein’. The reason for it being a ‘Gothic’ novel is the way it has a mutant character. Frankenstein is a mutant and is made by a crazy scientist ‘I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of.
Gothic Elements are vital to the foundation and development of Gothic Literature. These element provide a sense of realness and depth to a story. These Elements include death, entrapment, and fascination with the past.
As can be seen Frankenstein utilises many of the conventions of the gothic genre and can thus be considered a gothic novel. Its links to the Romantic movement are also evident. The stereotypical settings, characters and plots, interest in the sublime, emphasis on suspense, the production of excessive emotion in the reader ( particularly that of terror and horror), the presence of the supernatural and the notion of the ’double’ are all features of Frankenstein that illustrate this.
The term ‘Gothic’ has also been loosely used for those novels which do not have medieval setting, but generate a brooding atmosphere of gloom and terror. Among such novels are included William Godwin’s Caleb Williams, Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights, Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, Charles Dickens’s Bleak House, and of course Frankenstein. That the story of Frankenstein was designed to evoke terror, as it initially emerged from a ghost story contest in which Lord Byron, Percy Shelley, Polidori and Mary herself, had joined, was described by Mary Shelley in the Introduction to the 1831 edition of Frankenstein. In the Introduction Mary declared her desire to “curdle the blood and quicken the beatings of the heart,” and this declaration has been
Gothic writing was usually written in mysterious and ominous tine. Most Gothic novels were filled with death and terror. The authors of Gothic novels most commonly filled their books with omens and foreshadows, showing the dark side of mankind.
When one normally thinks of the word gothic, an emo kid sitting in his basement and hating society is what normally comes to mind. However, the true meaning of gothic is much more romantic, dark and mysterious than anything we experience in society today. It evokes the images of dark castles, monsters and the mad scientists who made them. Graveyards and death, but mountains, flowers and life as well. When a work is gothic it shows the beauty in life, but the ugliness in it as well. The author wishes for the reader to value life, but see its faults as well. The reader sees how they may undervalue life, and fear the loss of it. They see how uncontrollable some things are, and how one small mistake may lead to your destruction. In Frankenstein,
Gothic fiction literature touches on the aspects of horror, mystery, manipulation, superstition, and death. Many events in the story are a result of this writing style, many times involving a monster or paranormal being of some sort carrying out acts of terror on the innocent. The various murders in the story are a common occurrence when it comes to this literary time period, and this makes no exception. Family is also used in this as it is used in many other Gothic pieces of work, used in manipulative ways, based around the innocent.
There is one known very influential writing style called Gothic Literature. It is not only considered to involve the horror or gothic element but is combined with romance, superstition, women in distress, omens, portents, vision and supernatural events to name a few (Beesly). The history and beginning of this era is not well known. From a few writers came this writing style that has impacted the world. A famous artists known for this type of writing is a man named Edgar Allan Poe. He wrote many short stories and poems that include horror, gothic, and romance just mentioned.
The Gothic was born out of the romanticism genre in the late Eighteenth Century, combining romance and horror in an attempt to thrill and terrify the reader, yet in the Victorian era ceased to become a dominant literary genre. However, themes of the Gothic still survive, such as psychological and physical terror, mystery, supernatural and madness. The melancholy atmosphere and persistent melodrama in novels such as ‘Great Expectations’ by Charles Dickens are examples of Gothic elements in later novels as the ‘Victorian gothic’ moves away from traditional themes (ruined castles, helpless heroines, evil villains) and exchanges them for the supernatural and uncanny within a recognisable environment, bringing a sense of familiarity to the reader and thus making the text more disturbing. However, is this sense of disconcerting familiarity the only reason gothic novels are so widely read or are there other reasons? Gothic literature has several distinctive features.