This specific approach to art usually consists of mysterious, dark elements: supernatural conflict and ominous setting, typically an abandoned castle. In the aged version of gothic romanticism, the gloomy aspects are still found; however, they are depicted in different manners. An example of modified gothic romanticism is seen in Washington Irving’s “The Devil and Tom Walker” by its supernatural conflict, and setting in the mysterious, abandoned Native American Fort. Irving’s
In the early 18th century a new genre of fiction prose, named "Gothic Novel" was introduced. The term ”Gothic” used to refer to the German tribe of the Goths, and later on signified ”Germanic”, then ”medieval”. The Gothic novel spread over the 19th century and had the popular theme of haunted places such as castles, crypts, gloomy mansions and convents; supernatural elements having the role to intensify the atmosphere. The characteristic motifs of the gothic genre were the strange places, the supernatural, magic objects, monsters, demons, science used for bad purposes. And many of them appears also in "The Picture of Dorian Gray" The protagonist is both good and bad, both handsome and ungly by his character and the picture, his own portrait, represents Dorian 's inner soul.
Such an emotion would have destroyed him. They were big, white, armed men. He was small, black, helpless. His subconscious knew what his conscious mind did not guess – that hating them would have consumed him, burned him up like a piece of soft coal.” In the fear that he might have impregnated her, he runs away. This is his coping with it, he runs away just like his father and mother did.
The readers are just like Mr. Lockwood curious and enthusiastic to reveal the mystery. There are hints here and there in the first chapters which arouse suspicion in Mr. Lockwood towards Wuthering Heights and its inhabitance. So, as many gothic novel it starts with a secret from the past.44 Emily does not only narrate gothic events but she powerfully uses her descriptive ability in expressing emotions, characters, and the simplest details. For instance, when Heathcliff visits Catherine on her death bed, Nelly gives an odd, fearful description the
Setting is the key element in Gothic Literature. It displays the different places and architectures that are essentials to visualize Gothic. The setting is highly significant in a Gothic novel because it helps to add horror and fear to its mood and dreadful weakness to its characters. As said by Snodgrass, the settings of Gothic literary works present an extensional symbolic psychological case to its human characters (158).Gothic fictions are usually set in isolated landscapes or highly secured prisons, secret passages or corridors, old castles or ghostly houses, and graveyards. According to Hogle, Gothic areas might be "a castle, a foreign place, an abbey, a vast prison, a subterranean crypt, a graveyard, a primeval frontier, or island, a large old house or theatre.
I felt creeping upon me, by slow yet uncertain degrees, the wild influence of his own fantastic yet impressive superstitions." So we are left hanging with the question, does he lives only to tell the tale? Moving on to the characteristic of genre, „The Fall of the House of Usher” can be considered as a gothic or horror fiction. The metonymy of gloom and horror, an atmosphere of mystery and suspense, high, even overwrought emotion are also part of characteristics of the story. In this case we have a creepy house, dark atmosphere and awful weather and also a tomb.
GOTHIC ELEMENTS IN THE BOOK The strange case of Dr.Jakyll and Mr.Hyde is a famous novel by a well-known Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson which was first published in 1886. It is likewise known as jakyll and hyde, the tale of a health practitioner who attempts a test with the intention of finding out his evil nature. But he becomes fascinated by the evil facet of his nature. He will reach a factor in which he'll not be capable of controlling Mr Hyde, the person he has created. The latter will start to appear suddenly and started ruling Dr.Jakyll's life.
Along with the start of the Gothic period in the 1760s, came many stories and poems inspired by this theme. This includes “Frankenstein” by Mary Shelly, “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” by Robbert Louis Stevenson, and “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. These stories and poem come to mind as representations of gothic literature as they are all monumental breakthroughs during its time. This is shown in the darker tones and theme that is used in each story and poem. They all shared common elements such as gloomy settings, intense emotions, and somehow always involving sadness or death.
This woman writer was the progenitor of a new literary form which is “gothic science-fiction.” This means that science-fiction is in symbiosis with the gothic as it incorporates its major tropes. In her novel, she takes the gothic trope of fear in order to express the distress concerning technological innovation and scientific progress/experimentation. Gothic science fiction, therefore, is “a product of cultural anxieties about the nature of human identity, the stability of cultural formations, and processes of change” (280). Frankenstein adopts gothic tropes while infiltrating science in the body of the narrative. Shelley’s text is perceived as an indictment of science which contributes to the creation of human beings/the birth myth.
The Early Gothic The word “gothic” existed long before it become as a specified literary genre. The origin of Gothic literature is traced back to the various aspects, the history, culture, and tradition. The gothic elements were popular in the folktales such as bridegroom, cannibal, demon lover…etc. 19 The gothic roots belong to the medieval romance. If gothic genre is featured by its elements, then, gothic could be traced back to the old legends of chivalry, which embody stories set in an atmosphere of fantasy and enchantment, and deal with traditional heroes encounter monsters and beasts for the sake of fame and glory such as “Beowulf”; an epic which involves struggles with monsters as Grendel and his mother, and supernatural creatures as the