Gothic fiction

For as much as it represents exploration, ingenuity, and freedom, the ship has secured a place for itself in the Gothic imagination as a space of claustrophobic terror and enslavement. As a Foucauldian heterotopia, the space of the ship is indeed “a place without a place”, which functions only in relation to the void that surrounds it. However, the asylum a ship provides is what also makes it a prison, trapping its crew with any hostile elements that may be aboard. Focusing on a select group of texts

Dr. Paul Dawson once states in the lecture, "Gothic fiction explores and dramatizes the contemporaneous to cultural anxieties, in effect to resonate readers. Stevenson symbolically exploits and sublimated fiction forms the board fears of the whole society." Abrams suggests that gothic fiction often refers to its setting in a catholic country, especially Italy or span. The locale was usually a gloomy castle furnished

The Development of the Gothic Heroine Although it is not uncommon for a protagonist to grow throughout the course of a novel, for them to develop to the degree where they wholly realize their potential, and then utilize it, is another thing all together. This type of development, while atypical, is often found within the heroines of gothic fiction, particularly the heroines of Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights by Charlotte and Emily Brontë respectively. While gothic fiction is typically remembered

getting him crazy. Gothic Stories are romantic tales of terror and the supernatural, which rely a great deal on scene and setting to convey a sense of horror to the reader. The American author Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) is just one master of the literary genre known as the Gothic story, and he makes great contribution to Gothic fiction. He inherits and develops the tradition Gothic fiction, and the American literature forms the background of his horror fictions and gives his fictions unique power and

The Gothic genre is a product of the Romantic era and is believed to have started with Horace Walpole’s ‘The Castle of Otranto’ in the late eighteenth century; the popularity of the genre continued throughout the nineteenth century and still has influence in modern times, as evident in Charlotte Brontë’s ‘Jane Eyre’ and the film adaptation of ‘The Turn of the Screw’: Jack Clayton’s 1961 ‘The Innocents’. Gothic literature and cinema are famously known for their staple elements present in almost every

The first gothic novels were called ‘gothic’ because of their medieval aesthetic, but further gothic fiction was recognizable for the use of other conventions: persecuted heroines, empowered villains, young heroes, ruined castles, labyrinths, convents… but mainly, because the aim of such stories was to shock and terror the readers. That aim is still present today in everything that falls under the label of ‘gothic’: the gothic has to shock and distress and its way to achieve that is by including

However, whilst being an obsession, it is also simultaneously something that culture dictates as a forbidden subject. This conflict society creates about our feelings towards death is largely responsible for the popularity of gothic fiction. After all, life in gothic fiction never frees itself from the presence or threat of

contributions to the Gothic literary element. Many of Poe’s stories contain more than one Gothic element. “The Fall of the House of Usher” is a prime example of this. In this story Poe presents the themes of death and the accompanying supernatural. Poe often uses his proficiency in Gothic to invoke deep reading. For many, this proficiency causes Poe’s stories to be difficult to fully understand at first glance. One of the many noticeable themes that entangle the Gothic fiction of Edgar Allan Poe is

Borrowing the plot details of various gothic novels, Catherine attempts to interpret the General's character to conform to the outlines of the evil and mysterious villain, a stock character in the Gothic novel. The general's worry over her well-being is misread as a threat to Catherine. His avoidance of a path favoured by his late wife is misconstrued as guilt. Even the

similarities with each other. All of which are of a bad feeling, showing how bad things are for the people and the house. These similarities are very well laid out in the story and are, I believe, meant to be something to be considered when reading it. The gothic imagery that fills "Usher" reflects a style of literature that had emerged during the late eighteenth century and was flourishing in the early decades of the nineteenth. The large mysterious castle filled with dark corners and