The constant questioning of what was happening in the house is why the novel was frightening. Much of the fear was from the descriptions of the house such as: sick, disgusting, and cold. These descriptions made the house all more frightening because the reader shaped the house from their own fears. The novel does not sway the reader into believing what the reason for the hauntings like the film does. The movie has a time limit, that the novel does not which makes the novel go more in depth on the characters and
The prevalent atmosphere is a doom and gloomy one, in order for incomprehensible situations to take place. Some of the most known Gothic novels are Frankenstein, Dracula, Wuthering Heights, stories written by Edgar Allen Poe. According to Crystal B. Lake, the Gothic literature expose and play with the unknown, hidden parts of society or of ourselves hence what makes it so terrifying is the fact that it brings into the light, it gives a voice to
“The Gothic” English Literature helps the world escape reality. English Literature can be Funny, Scary, Serious or Factual. But Is Gothic Literature a big part of English Literature? Now some people hate the Gothic Genre and never want to take a chance and leave certain Genres to read it. But the Desire to be terrified is as much part of Human Nature as the need to Laugh (“The Gothic Novel” Brendan Hennessy Pg 324).
The setting of the story takes place in a town that is pictured as isolated and dark. This foreshadows what will happen throughout the story and this setting helps the story progress and have interactions between other Gothic characters. The life of the main character is seen as one that was sad and very lonely, “My life was, notwithstanding, rather a solitary one.” (Le Fanu 276). This is a Gothic element of the story. This helps the reader understand who the character is and how her past has
Absence in some cases stands for the state of being away, or in other cases the non-existence or the lack of something. The question of absence is central in the novel, and could also be defined as disintegration, because one of the main organizing principles is the paradox. The main accent is on the notions of thematic and formal absence. At the very beginning, the reader is drawn into the story in medias res, surrounded by signifiers deprived of their signified. The absence of author’s intrusion makes the absence of apparent meaning even more complicated for the reader, who has to try to
At the very core of the literary work, adepts are able to reveal and challenge the features of the Gothic novel not only in terms of social and cultural issues, but also in psychological and personal context (cf. Wisker, “Postcolonial Gothic” 168). Taking the myriad of Gothic novels into account, numerous key features are accentuated. Gothic writings are mainly attributed with a dark, misty and gloomy scenery, alluding to decay, terror, madness and death, either psychological or physical. This scenery induces an overall atmosphere of fear, mystery and even claustrophobia, underlined by the frequent usage of the symbolism of the fog.
“If a physician of high standing, and one’s own husband, assures friends and relatives that there really is nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression-a slight hysterical tendency- what is one to do?” (Gilman 317) Confined in the upstairs bedroom, left to just her thoughts and shreds of grotesque yet enchanting wallpaper, Jane begins to slip into a downward spiral of insanity and depression. Gilman in turn uses this setting of the dilapidated nursery in order to express the extent of solitude Jane experiences when left alone that leads to her mental instability. Not only is Jane separated from the main floor of the house, the home is located in the country, miles from any town or society. Gilman does this in order to express the lack of social interaction Jane experiences in general, and on a regular basis. With walls covered in shredded wallpaper, the nursery Gilman describes is far from being appealing.
The two tend to alternate reality in a way that creates a fantasy, or nightmare for us living in the novels of each genre. To begin, Horror fiction can keep the reader on the edge of their seat, contemplating what is going to happen next. Through the eyes of the reader, suspense can often lead them to indulging themselves into the novel itself. Furthermore, a horror story is not complete without an individual losing their life, specifically in a graphic way. The graphic portion in horror novels is the most essential part of the story.
The mysterious personality of the novel falls deep in the absolute depths of exploring darker edges of human feelings and does it well to bring about pity and terror among the visitors in the preeminent storytelling format. The gothic elements fused with the scary in the storyline where anxiety can be seen existing in the dark edges of the type and the locked secrets in back of doors retains on the memory of readers. Pictures that are hard to forget for instance as described by Jonathan Harker in his journal in chapter three "I observed the fingers and foot grasp the corners of the stones, worn clear of the mortar by the stress of years, and by thus using every projection and inequality move downwards with substantial speed, just as a
When defining the southern gothic genre, it 's the genre that is fixated on the grotesque and about the tension between the realistic and the supernatural. Some of the characteristics include alienation, decayed settings, and more. There are more elements that display this genre, and it 's all shown in the story, A Good Man is Hard to Find. Within this story, it covers many of the characteristics that we see in southern gothic stories. In A Good Man is Hard to Find, we are introduced to one of the first main characteristic of a southern gothic story; a decayed setting.