The Gothic Story Of A Gothic Story

As the carriage stopped beneath the archway, Elizabeth Cockles jumped out and looked around her. Above her head was a tall archway of trees that edged the pathway to the house. As she got closer, Elizabeth realised that “mansion” was a more correct way to describe it.

Poe and Byron are masterful at using vivid, descriptive language to develop the elements of Gothic literature and instill a sense of fear in the reader.

The Gothic genre is easily misconcepted in today’s society but, there is a way to rule out if a novel is Gothic or not. In order for a book to be qualified as a Gothic novel, the novel has to contain six specific tropes. These tropes include wild and desolate landscapes, a distinct villain, mysterious deaths, the supernatural, violent emotions, and cultural anxieties. In the novel, Dracula by Bram Stoker all six Gothic tropes are present which qualifies it as a solid Gothic novel.

The mouldy, rotting, brown house stood in front of Emily, only fear keeping her feet planted to the ground. Moaning and creaking noises being projected from the house. The grass was damp from the evening fog and every time she took a step the mud squelched. The bottom step squeaked as she applied pressure with her foot, she let out a sigh of relief as the old structure hadn’t swallowed her up. The door, slightly off colour from the rest of the house, loomed over her like a giant as he reached for the brass door handle. A shiver ran through her body like an electric current, the musty smell of a house that had been long abandoned filled Emily’s nose. It was dim and uninviting. The furniture dusty and old, looking as if it would crumble to dust if she was to touch it. Mould ate away at

The burning began at the earliest hour. His majesty, king of Otranto watched unsatisfied as the roaring flames licked over what was once the purest of white roses. All composure lost at but a petal unlit, he left no rose in his entire kingdom with even the dignity of coal before dismantling to ash, until alas, they were sealed to their fiery fate. The winds were still now, not even the tweak of a tree for encouragement nor the bravery of a whisper of the surrounding men as they watched in due apprehension to break the stillness. All that remained were the plumes of billowing exhaust tracing upwards into the air, and King Warner, as he watched from his throne until the smog faded into the midst. By dawn the white roses, together with any

The Gothic genre often reproduces a conservative paranoid structure when it comes to homophobia and other moral panics over sex (Hanson, Pg. 176). Eve Sedgwick depicts this in her work, ‘Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosexual Desire’ as she discusses how these ideas (paranoia) are represented within the Gothic, in what she describes as the ‘homosocial’ in reference to male bonds (Sedgwick, Pg. 86). She also discusses how bonds between men exist as the backbone of social form and forms (Sedgwick, Pg. 86). Thus, a consequence of said structure is the ability to define, control, and manipulate male bonds, which in turn becomes an inexplicably powerful instrument of social control (Sedgwick, Pg. 86). Thus, homosexuality is represented as the ‘unspeakable’ within the Gothic, as it has been defined, controlled, and manipulated to be such though social control. Therefore, this paper will discuss how ‘homosocial’ bonds between men, are used as a tool in social control and used as a way to produce paranoia and moral panic, thus in reference to the Gothic, these forms epitomize homosexuality as the ‘unspeakable,’ especially through homosexual representations within the contexts of ghosts and haunted houses.

chest as if it were a newborn child in danger. I'd been following her for

Inside the small house it was pitch black and completely silent. So dark, in fact, that one could not see their own hand in front of their face. The deeper into the house, the darker it became. Now into the family room and up the stairs.A distinct sound of scratching emanated from the door at the end of the hall. Inside, the room seemed to belong to a young girl, but only because the little girl nestled in bed deemed it so.

Oates short stories usually follow young characters through their struggles in life. There are many family imperfections in Oates stories that mostly tend to have a disturbing image in the readers head. While it seemed that Joyce Carol Oates experienced dark childhood experiences, she seems to explore her thoughts according to similar events that had happened in her life. Written by Joyce Carol Oates, “Spider Boy” is an example that highly defines gothic horror. Many of her works deal with violence, rape, death, or a character that has gone completely mad. “Naked” has many dark and nightmare like scenes, Oates writes on how a normal day can be your worst; it is that Oates puts a woman in a scene that would be worse than an average

Throughout time we have all seen through the study of the history of the western world that there has been multiple occasions of corruption, chaos, and reformation in one way or another. What I thought was interesting about the process of change that Rome underwent is that in general the people occupying the land did not seem to be humble as a whole. There were many people who wanted a name for themselves and wanted some sort of authority in the land. “All of them sought a lasting presence and a measure of authority within the changing Roman world.” (The Slow Turn) With a part of the community seeking an authoritative position, a certain image was painted in my mind of the people as an upright and structured group. When I read of the anarchy

Stephen King's The Boogeyman was my favorite piece of gothic literature that we read. I was trying to figure the story out all the way until the end and had to re-read some of it to fully understand. It was suspenseful, scary, but also had a good story to listen to. The Boogeyman was full of gloomy settings, monsters, characters in distress, and intense emotions. These 4 things are just a couple elements that make up gothic literature.

'The Tell Tale Heart' is located in a house that is probably old as a

The Gothic genre does suppress vulnerable women. They are exploited in order to please the tyrannical male and feed his desires. When the women is no longer of use, she is then discarded. The Gothic genre is described as ‘formulaic” and one of the key features is a tyrannical male who abuses his power to assert his dominance over a perceived futile women. Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’ was written in time where women started to want more equal rights and opportunities. For example, in the same year Dracula was published (1897), Millicent Fawcett founded ‘The National Union of Women’s Suffrage’. Bram Stoker feared the decline of the patriarchal figure and could have created ‘Dracula’ as an attempt to scaremonger the public into thinking what would

‘Remixing Gothic Contradictions’ at first seemed as a seemingly obscure topic when I first entered my English 1102 class this semester, however, I worked through all the Artifacts through the semester, I realized how ubiquitously the themes in Gothic literature are present in life. For example, in Dracula, the motif of the Christian symbols in Transylvania resembles those I encounter in day-to-day life here in the Southern United States. In large cities, such as Atlanta, I see less emphasis on religion placed in society, but when I travel towards the more rural areas, I see more churches and people involved in the religion in general, just as Johnathan Harker noticed in the contrast between England and Transylvania. This was what I believe was the lifeblood of the course, these themes are what makes literature so interesting and relatable, and is what made me come to class everyday yearning to learn and make more connections.

It’s strange trying to think about these original film properties—Frankenstein and Dracula, respectively—as serious pictures, void of camp and cheese. However, most of this comes from age. It’s interesting then, watching the Hammond-era films, and trying to view them as anything remotely serious. They aren’t. However, they do, at times, manage to disguise themselves as such. In reality, these movies are no Rosemary’s Baby, but rather the birth of a new brand of gothic horror—the gore filled, B-movie, spin-off franchise films; a weird series of twisted exploitation reboots, upping the ante and upping the ridiculous names. The two things that immediately came to mind when watching these films is the obvious influence they had on the work of Mexican director Guillermo Del Toro, and Kate Bush’s song “Hammer Horror” — I admire both artists greatly, so I went in the Hammerverse with my eyes wide open.