The Origins of the Species by Charles Darwin

Instead of conforming to this perception, people were only led to believe the word to mean “dark and ominous”. Gothic architecture, with the foreboding atmosphere posed around it, correlates with the Gothic novel because it has been a prevalent backdrop to gothic novels in the 19th century, such as Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. These Gothic horror stories were some of the first examples of the horror genre, and are therefore vital for the understanding this field. In its historical context, the gothic horror genre is believed to have emerged as a response to a time of rational thought, the Enlightenment or the Age of Reason. This intellectual movement a... ... middle of paper ... ...tablished in the modern horror genre, thus it is practical to observe the archetypes of the Gothic novel as well.

Finally, if Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto is the true beginning of gothic fiction, did the story influence all works after The Castle of Otranto was published? Gothic fiction can be summarized as a mixture of horror fiction and romance fiction. Horror fiction evokes intense fear, dread, or dismay inside the reader. Romantic fiction also influences gothic fiction by the use of specific characters, emotional connections, and love. The supernatural taking a pivotal role in horror fiction, and the character Pennywise creates an intense connection with the reader using appearance and the emotional reaction to childhood memories.

Gothic novels have many different characteristics: they evoke terror both physical and psychological, they have character that keep themselves isolated in time or space from contemporary l... ... middle of paper ... ... Shelley’s Frankenstein truly displays the true essence of what a Gothic novel should represent through the many different characteristics of a Gothic novel. Mary Shelley takes these few basic characteristic and transforms them into a true representation of a Gothic novel. The transformations of these basic Gothic characteristics are what allowed Mary Shelley to create her outstanding and prominent Gothic novel, Frankenstein. Works Cited “Gothic Novels.” The World Book Encyclopedia. Ed.

This mode of literature appears to have sprung out from Gothic architecture... ... middle of paper ... ...th possess conventions commonly demonstrated in gothic fiction surrounding setting, atmosphere and theme. Although there are significant differences between the two, it is the execution of collectively recognized themes of gothic literature that enhances their effects on the readers, the most important being the element of the supernatural as well as madness. In both stories, the characters are haunted by paranormal activity that begins to slowly consume them. Throughout the stories they then begin to deteriorate mentally which leads to their demise. The journey in which the reader is taken by observing the slow paced unraveling of their mental state is significantly defining in the overall effect of the gothic fictions.

Authors such as Edgar Allan Poe, Emily Bronte and Bram Stoker have different styles of writing to accomplish each story they compose. Each novel uses similar gothic elements to create a tale that generates a love and horror story combined.

The language used in a novel creates the tone and mood for the audience to grasp what the writer solely wants to achieve. The Lexical choices of the writer configure critics to establish a range of motifs and thematic presentations that are evident in the book. A conventional Gothic Literature book establishes the typical Gothic architecture type creating a sinister and eerie atmosphere, which also combines with the supernatural creating the classical Gothic Literature five key books. However, what is most interesting is that most contemporary novels, especially Jane Eyre and Rebecca, have such clear comparisons with their Gothic elements. Whereas, with the contemporary novel of The woman in Black, the idea of the supernatural is evidently strong rather than architecture, arguably establishing that the focus now for writers is to focus the supernatural more so rather than what it used to be with architecture.

Powerful emotions are often an element of gothic literature as it was a genre that took Romanticism to excessive extents. While Austen used this gothic element to satirize the gothic novel, Shelley used it to display a deeper point about the evils of ambition. Both authors exhibited characters severe emotions to show the importance of rationality instead of extremes, but ultimately had a different purpose in presenting this view.

In the late 18th and early 19th century, gothic ways of living were very common in the Eastern part of Europe, especially in the medieval times. A convention can be described as a standard feature or an ingredient of a particular sort of writing and in Dracula Bram stoker uses many Gothic conventions to excite the reader. Bram Stoker uses many Gothic conventions throughout his novel in forms of journeys and quests, the use of diaries, letters and journals, sinister buildings and most importantly strange creatures. Stoker also relies heavily on the conventions of Gothic fiction, a genre that was extremely popular in the early nineteenth century. Gothic fiction traditionally includes elements such as gloomy castles, sublime landscapes, and innocent maidens threatened by indescribable evil.

Bram Stoker’s fiction novel Dracula is an iconic literary work that still greatly influences the portrayal of vampirism in modern television. For example, aspects of the CW’s drama TV series, The Vampire Diaries, are loosely based on Dracula’s plotline and character constructs. The show is an adapted interpretation of L.J. Smith’s young adult novels, The Vampire Diaries. Both the TV show and the book series feature renditions of original ideas in Dracula that have become popularized, such as the concept of a supernatural, vampiric love triangle.

The term ‘gothic’ was originally used to describe both type of Art and Architecture. Gothic novels were given a genre of their own primarily because of their emotional extremes and their dark themes and because it’s most natural settings were things like castles and monasteries which were part of the typical gothic architecture. Some of the first gothic novels included ‘The Castle of Otranto’ and ‘Byronic Hero’. By about 1840, the gothic genre had played itself out and this was partly due to writers who were developing the genre into the horror fiction that it later morphed into. The gothic genre did, however, have a long lasting effect and it led to a Victorian craze for ghost stories and it also had an influence on Charles Dickens who read gothic novels when he was younger and he later put the gothic melodrama and gloomy atmosphere into his own books.