Transcription
Welcome to Gothic at a Glance, a look at the origins and key characteristics of the Gothic fiction genre.
What comes to mind when you hear the word Gothic? Do you think of crumbling castles, the candit corridors haunted by unhappy ghosts? Or do you picture creatures of macabra face and form, like Frankenstein's ill-fated monster? The Gothic comprises all these and many more.
Horace Walpole's *The Castle of Otranto*, published in 1764, is largely credited with kickstarting the English Gothic phenomenon. Full of lengthy, adjective-written descriptions that arguably diffuse rather than develop a feeling of horror, nevertheless, the novel had an electrifying effect on its audience. The tale of the doomed lovers, plagued by ancient curses, gave rise to a surge of interest in stories featuring unnatural beings, extravagant violence, and intensely passionate protagonists, as well as other elements that have come to define the genre.
In the rash of imitations that followed, enduring classics such as Mary Shelley's *Frankenstein* and Emily Brontë's *Wuthering Heights* emerged, with Bram Stoker's *Dracula* appearing almost a century after Walpole's trailblazing text. By the time the genre's popularity had begun to wane in the late 19th century, it had already carved out a place in readers' affections and would witness a resurgence in the years to come. Thanks to its compelling blend of the fascinating and frightening, the Gothic genre continues to inspire artists and consumers of culture alike. If the ongoing reinvention of its themes and motifs by filmmakers to fashion designers is anything to go by, the Gothic will be terrifying and titillating us for years to come.
Whatever their state of disrepair, castles are one of the Gothic's most recognizable and enduring features. Their imposing exteriors, candit corridors, and haunted hallways provide the ideal backdrop for constructing the mood of unease that permeates the plots of so many Gothic texts, from Shakespeare to Stoker. Ancestral abodes have been used to great effect, and though modern writers may choose less historic homes in which to house their characters, an imposing building of some description is there in any Gothic text.
Another one of the Gothic's most recognizable features, the supernatural, refers to beings or events that do not fit within the accepted confines of nature. Examples of supernatural beings include ghosts, spirits, and phantoms, as well as witches, goblins, and poltergeists, and may refer to any other occurrences that defy easy explanation or classification. Some writers seem to require readers to believe wholeheartedly in ghosts or spirits, whereas others, such as English Gothic novelist Ann Radcliffe, offer logical explanations for seemingly supernatural events. Of course, the thrilling thrill of the supernatural has been exploited for centuries. For example, pre-Gothic texts such as *Macbeth* included witches, and Christopher Marlowe's *Doctor Faustus* the Devil himself.
Gothic fiction often features remote and rugged landscapes, from imposing icebergs to thickly wooded forests in faraway lands like Transylvania in Bram Stoker's *Dracula*. As well as highlighting nature's strength and savagery, these landscapes allow writers to explore the excitement and strangely pleasurable fear of the dangerous and unfamiliar. Examples from literature include the moors in *Wuthering Heights*, the Blasted Heath in *Macbeth*, and the Antarctic wastes in *Frankenstein*. Often, Gothic texts feature unconventional, dangerous, and unstable natural settings. For example, the moors and inhospitable weather of *Wuthering Heights*, interacting with nature and weather at its wildest, permits characters to go outside themselves and experience Sublimity—new and extraordinary emotions. The sublime also allows writers to explore the nature and boundaries of pleasure itself, challenging previously uncontested definitions of enjoyment and how it is derived.
Metonymy, whereby one thing is used to stand in for another, extreme or poor weather is a typical use of metonymy. Novels' traumatic weather conditions, such as rain and thunderstorms, blizzards, and wind, are used to exaggerate and highlight the emotional intensity of characters, as well as lending tension to the plot. Other instances of metonymy can include clanking chains, howling dogs, the scraping of knives, and locked doors, all of which create and communicate an atmosphere of suspense and foreboding in the reader.
Gothic texts are very much concerned with extremes, including emotional and psychological. Gothic protagonists frequently experience and give rise to excessive feelings such as rage, passion, terror, madness, lust, and sorrow. Writers will utilize language techniques such as vivid and disturbing similes and metaphors, powerful verbs and adjectives, as well as alliteration and sibilance to augment the impact of the emotions being described. This overblown emotional lexicon also serves to create a volatile and unsettling mood that helps to build tension and anxiety in the reader.
Gothic texts frequently feature captivity, abduction, and characters being forcibly restrained against their will. Jonathan Harker is imprisoned by Count Dracula, and Lockwood, the narrator of *Wuthering Heights*, spent a harrowing night in a coffin-like casement. Likewise, weather can restrict characters' freedom in Gothic novels, as well as threatening or endangering their safety. Protagonists are also confined by confusing corridors, secret passageways, and hidden trap doors.
In Gothic texts, the past exerts a continuous, at times violent, influence on the present, frequently disrupting or unbalancing protagonists' lives. For example, the doorway to *Wuthering Heights* is engraved with the legend "Hareton Earnshaw 1500," reminding visitors and readers alike of the past's ongoing significance. Ghosts exemplify this ideal perfectly; they should not exist in the present, and the fact that they do creates confusion, fear, and horror for the living. Additional discomfort is created because often Gothic texts transport their modern protagonists and readers back to an archaic, often unsettling, place in time.
Critics have noted that in Gothic fiction, women are often portrayed as vulnerable and dominated by violent, powerful men. Some writers have used this dynamic to explore and criticize patriarchal society and the position of women in the 18th and 19th centuries. For example, Isabella Linton in *Wuthering Heights* is cruelly dominated, legally, emotionally, and physically, by Heathcliff. Nevertheless, some female protagonists do appear to exert power over male characters. Catherine Earnshaw, for example, holds sway over Heathcliff, both during their lives and after her death.
Gothic fiction shows interest in exploring unusual or socially unconventional sexual desires, such as incest, necrophilia, same-sex desire, and rape. Exploring these impulses may allow writers to delve into emotional and sexual realms not normally discussed in everyday life. Furthermore, female protagonists can be portrayed as sexually powerful and confident, a threat to male characters and the status quo they represent. This departure from society's norms and the boundaries of acceptability in literature no doubt provides the genre with illicit and therefore added appeal.
Gothic texts commonly appear during or are inspired by times of social upheaval. In the late 17th and 18th centuries, events such as the French Revolution in 1789 toppled accepted socio-religious norms. Horrific acts perpetrated during this upheaval fed into the often grotesque violence found in many Gothic novels. In addition, important scientific advances were being made, such as Galvani's early experiments into electricity. Mary Shelley, for instance, explored the ramifications of such discoveries in *Frankenstein*, in which a scientist brings to life a being comprised of different body parts.
Gothic novels tend to feature recurring themes, events, and characters. Emily Brontë's *Wuthering Heights*, for example, includes a mother and daughter with the same name, Catherine, who share, to some extent, parallel lives. It also features two distinct yet comparable houses, Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange, a device that serves to highlight both differences and similarities of their inhabitants. This doubling may be in part due to the Gothic's ongoing preoccupation with the past and the complex, often subtle, ways it continues to affect the present lives of its protagonists.
Coined by the father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, "The Uncanny" refers to something seemingly new that nevertheless transports us to an event or emotion in our own past or harks back to a bygone era. In Gothic texts, this is explored by including situations or characters that may appear unfamiliar at first but are soon revealed to be known or recognized by the characters, producing an uneasy or even frightening effect. Examples include waxworks, dolls, and vampires, and may include supernatural beings or events which are then revealed to not be supernatural at all.
As a subset of the Romantic genre, Gothic fiction often features male protagonists who resemble a typical romantic hero—often handsome, charming, and mysterious. Nevertheless, Gothic leading men are more villain than their romantic counterparts. Physically and emotionally threatening, Gothic hero-villains often cause rather than allay the heroine's anguish and do not conform readily to the rescuer role. Heathcliff in *Wuthering Heights* embodies the Gothic hero-villain perfectly. His passion for Catherine ultimately helps to destroy her, and his brutality towards his own wife, Isabella Linton, forces her to flee to London with a young son for their own protection.
Thank you for watching Gothic at a Glance. I hope you found this presentation useful. Please feel free to leave any comments or feedback on my page. Thank you.