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Gothic Fiction: General Themes
In the mid 1700s, a new genre of novel was just starting to emerge. Today we call it gothic fiction, or gothic horror. Its first appearance is in Horace Walpole's "The Castle of Otranto: A Gothic Story." Gothic fiction was hugely popular in its genre-bending quality of combining romance and horror. But outside of the general definition of the genre, gothic fiction stereotypically generally has a lot of the same specific traits. For example: the horror of the gothic fiction genre is always very similar in that it involves something unknown or shadowy. Alternatively, keeping the theme of romance, the portrayal of women is very consistent and highly predictable. But perhaps the most intriguing common theme of the genre is the image of madness. The line between mad and sane is blurred into shades of grey, meaning very rarely is there a character that is either definitely sane or definitely mad.
When you think "gothic fiction" the first image that comes to mind is most likely something eerie or spooky. Gothic fiction is stereotypically scary, but what gives it that quality? There are many literary devices an author can use to change the feel of a piece of literature and turn it into something off-putting or creepy. For example, in Bram Stoker's "Dracula," Stoker does not even begin to shy away from taboo topics. In horror today, we probably wouldn't see things like children being harmed, but from the beginning of "Dracula," we see that with Stoker this is not the case. In the very first chapters when Jonathan Harker is trapped in the castle, we see Dracula bring home a baby in a bag to the three women who live in his castle. Much later in the novel, children are the victims of the newly-turned Lucy Westenra.
Perhaps the scariest part of any gothic fiction piece is the presence of the unknown. This could be anything from a shadowy figure to a scientific study that is not widely understood.
For example, in a huge percentage of gothic fiction pieces, there is an unknown evil that is hard for the main characters to understand. Carmilla from Le Fanu's "Carmilla" is a prime example of this. She seems sweet and comes off as fragile and innocent but there is an aspect of her that the readers and the characters in the story don't understand. She sneaks around, shows up in Lucy's room at night, and is generally a creepy character. Another obvious example would be Count Dracula from Stoker's "Dracula." From the beginning, the count is mysterious and becomes more and more detached from the story as it progresses, making him seem more and more threatening.
Along with the classic monster, many gothic fiction stories incorporate the supernatural into the plot. Sometimes it is obvious, like in Poe's "Fall of the House of Usher" or James's "Turn of the Screw," but sometimes it is less prominent, like in Hardy's "The Withered Arm."
In Poe's "Fall of the House of Usher," the main character is a nameless narrator observing a man whose sister dies during the beginning of the story. As they are reading a story, the noises they hear correspond with what is happening in their story, and a glowing green mist starts to form outside the window. Suddenly the dead sister bursts into the room and kills her brother. The narrator flees and watches the house fall to the ground. If that isn't considered supernatural, I don't know what is.
Perhaps even more obvious are the happenings in James's "The Turn of the Screw." This story is the quintissential ghost story: a governess sees a mysterious figure outside, the same figure appears in the window, she finds out he's a servant who has died recently, and the story goes on with her seeing more ghosts around the property, etc. Classic. But this story was told in a manner that made each character a master of suspense. For example, when Grose is informing the narrator of Mr. Quint's death, she draws it out by first saying, "He went," and following it after being asked where with "God knows where! He died." Next, "She seemed squarely to plant herself, plant herself more firmly to utter the word of it. 'Yes. Mr. Quint is dead.'" This scene could have been exponentially less dramatic, but James stuck true to his genre by providing the audience with much more suspense than necessary.
Along with the obvious element of unknown (the shadowy figure, mysterious entity, etc), occasionally you'll find an element of science. For example, in Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein," Frankenstein createst a "monster" out of dead bodies and brings it to life using electricity. Although today it seems ridiculous, at the time it seemed possible. When Shelley released this story, a new study by a scientist named Galvani was also being released. The premise of his study was this: electricity can power life. He conducted experiments starting by taking frog legs and running electricity through them to see what happened. When he saw that they twitched, he thought that he was bringing them back to life. He later conducted this experiment on a decapitated human head and supposedly, it started twitching and one eye opened. So at the time, Shelley's monster wasn't so far-fetched.
Another interesting aspect of gothic fiction is the portrayal of women. There seem to be two stereotypical female characters- both the damsel in distress and the opposite. Most stories seem to choose one or the other, with the occasional author opting for both.
For example, in Stoker’s “Dracula,” Mina Harker is an independent character who seems to be able to take care of herself and her husband Jonathan, even when she is questioning his sanity. Even when Mina had been bitten by Dracula, she didn't give in to evil and stayed as good and pure as she could, given the circumstances. Alternatively, Lucy Westenra’s character seems frail and innocent, and Lucy is the first to fall victim to Dracula. Lucy completely succumbs to Dracula and becomes a vampire herself, a stark contrast against Mina's fight.
Lastly, the portrayal of madness changes from story to story, but somehow stays the same. For example, if we compare Van Helsing and Renfield from Stoker’s “Dracula,” who is the mad one? One could argue that Renfield is simply under the control of the Count and that Van Helsing was the mad one in believing all of the superstition about vampires. Another interesting character to analyze is Frankenstein from Shelley’s story of the same name. We can choose to view Frankenstein as a brilliant or as a monster himself. Would a truly sane person become so obsessed with creating life that he couldn’t even take care of himself?
In summary, although gothic fiction can be defined by an infinite number of parameters. The broadest definition of gothic fiction is that is combines horror and romance. But to be more specific, not only is it generally scary in its constant aspect of the unknown, it combines aspects of religious superstition, and puts a twist on the general portrayal of women (at least at the time) and the definition of madness.
In the mid 1700s, a new genre of novel was just starting to emerge. Today we call it gothic fiction, or gothic horror. Its first appearance is in Horace Walpole's "The Castle of Otranto: A Gothic Story." Gothic fiction was hugely popular in its genre-bending quality of combining romance and horror. But outside of the general definition of the genre, gothic fiction stereotypically generally has a lot of the same specific traits. For example: the horror of the gothic fiction genre is always very similar in that it involves something unknown or shadowy. Alternatively, keeping the theme of romance, the portrayal of women is very consistent and highly predictable. But perhaps the most intriguing common theme of the genre is the image of madness. The line between mad and sane is blurred into shades of grey, meaning very rarely is there a character that is either definitely sane or definitely mad.
When you think "gothic fiction" the first image that comes to mind is most likely something eerie or spooky. Gothic fiction is stereotypically scary, but what gives it that quality? There are many literary devices an author can use to change the feel of a piece of literature and turn it into something off-putting or creepy. For example, in Bram Stoker's "Dracula," Stoker does not even begin to shy away from taboo topics. In horror today, we probably wouldn't see things like children being harmed, but from the beginning of "Dracula," we see that with Stoker this is not the case. In the very first chapters when Jonathan Harker is trapped in the castle, we see Dracula bring home a baby in a bag to the three women who live in his castle. Much later in the novel, children are the victims of the newly-turned Lucy Westenra.
Perhaps the scariest part of any gothic fiction piece is the presence of the unknown. This could be anything from a shadowy figure to a scientific study that is not widely understood.
For example, in a huge percentage of gothic fiction pieces, there is an unknown evil that is hard for the main characters to understand. Carmilla from Le Fanu's "Carmilla" is a prime example of this. She seems sweet and comes off as fragile and innocent but there is an aspect of her that the readers and the characters in the story don't understand. She sneaks around, shows up in Lucy's room at night, and is generally a creepy character. Another obvious example would be Count Dracula from Stoker's "Dracula." From the beginning, the count is mysterious and becomes more and more detached from the story as it progresses, making him seem more and more threatening.
Along with the classic monster, many gothic fiction stories incorporate the supernatural into the plot. Sometimes it is obvious, like in Poe's "Fall of the House of Usher" or James's "Turn of the Screw," but sometimes it is less prominent, like in Hardy's "The Withered Arm."
In Poe's "Fall of the House of Usher," the main character is a nameless narrator observing a man whose sister dies during the beginning of the story. As they are reading a story, the noises they hear correspond with what is happening in their story, and a glowing green mist starts to form outside the window. Suddenly the dead sister bursts into the room and kills her brother. The narrator flees and watches the house fall to the ground. If that isn't considered supernatural, I don't know what is.
Perhaps even more obvious are the happenings in James's "The Turn of the Screw." This story is the quintissential ghost story: a governess sees a mysterious figure outside, the same figure appears in the window, she finds out he's a servant who has died recently, and the story goes on with her seeing more ghosts around the property, etc. Classic. But this story was told in a manner that made each character a master of suspense. For example, when Grose is informing the narrator of Mr. Quint's death, she draws it out by first saying, "He went," and following it after being asked where with "God knows where! He died." Next, "She seemed squarely to plant herself, plant herself more firmly to utter the word of it. 'Yes. Mr. Quint is dead.'" This scene could have been exponentially less dramatic, but James stuck true to his genre by providing the audience with much more suspense than necessary.
Along with the obvious element of unknown (the shadowy figure, mysterious entity, etc), occasionally you'll find an element of science. For example, in Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein," Frankenstein createst a "monster" out of dead bodies and brings it to life using electricity. Although today it seems ridiculous, at the time it seemed possible. When Shelley released this story, a new study by a scientist named Galvani was also being released. The premise of his study was this: electricity can power life. He conducted experiments starting by taking frog legs and running electricity through them to see what happened. When he saw that they twitched, he thought that he was bringing them back to life. He later conducted this experiment on a decapitated human head and supposedly, it started twitching and one eye opened. So at the time, Shelley's monster wasn't so far-fetched.
Another interesting aspect of gothic fiction is the portrayal of women. There seem to be two stereotypical female characters- both the damsel in distress and the opposite. Most stories seem to choose one or the other, with the occasional author opting for both.
For example, in Stoker’s “Dracula,” Mina Harker is an independent character who seems to be able to take care of herself and her husband Jonathan, even when she is questioning his sanity. Even when Mina had been bitten by Dracula, she didn't give in to evil and stayed as good and pure as she could, given the circumstances. Alternatively, Lucy Westenra’s character seems frail and innocent, and Lucy is the first to fall victim to Dracula. Lucy completely succumbs to Dracula and becomes a vampire herself, a stark contrast against Mina's fight.
Lastly, the portrayal of madness changes from story to story, but somehow stays the same. For example, if we compare Van Helsing and Renfield from Stoker’s “Dracula,” who is the mad one? One could argue that Renfield is simply under the control of the Count and that Van Helsing was the mad one in believing all of the superstition about vampires. Another interesting character to analyze is Frankenstein from Shelley’s story of the same name. We can choose to view Frankenstein as a brilliant or as a monster himself. Would a truly sane person become so obsessed with creating life that he couldn’t even take care of himself?
In summary, although gothic fiction can be defined by an infinite number of parameters. The broadest definition of gothic fiction is that is combines horror and romance. But to be more specific, not only is it generally scary in its constant aspect of the unknown, it combines aspects of religious superstition, and puts a twist on the general portrayal of women (at least at the time) and the definition of madness.