Essays on Gothic Literature

This chapter from the novel ‘Dracula’ by Bram Stoker includes an abundance of conventions typical of the Gothic genre, primarily employed here through Stoker’s characterisation of Johnathan Harker, Count Dracula and the three seductive women. Published in the late 19th Century, at a time when...

Sleep is a physically and mentally vulnerable state; the body is unconscious, unsuspecting, and the mind is visited frequently by an array of distorted images called dreams. Only devilish and cruel predators hunt sleeping prey, when struggle is least viable and victory is guaranteed. The...

In an essay concerning the components of the Romantic novel, James P. Carson frames the difference between Gothic and Romantic attitudes as a “disagreement over values inherent in attempts to represent people” (Matthews). He succinctly describes the difference as one of intent: the Romantic novel...

The appearance of the Gothic in architecture of the Middle Ages was the start point and muse of Gothic Literary. The lack of simplicity, symmetry, regularity and nonconformation to nature inspired the features of Gothic Literature: horror/ terror, dark environment, paranormal, evil creatures, supernatural entities...

The Gothic is undeniably intertwined with transformative states, both literally, such as with the presentation of supernatural beings that lie between life and death, and also thematically, with the idea of transitional time periods and settings. One of the great contradictions of Gothic literature is...

The opposition between the natural and the unnatural is particularly prominent in gothic literature and the transgression of the boundaries between the two is often seen to be condemned. In Shakespeare’s play Macbeth(1606), Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein (1818) and Angela Carter’s collection of short stories...

When Horace Walpole wrote the first ever Gothic novel in 1764, the world had never seen anything quite like it before. In an age we now call the enlightenment, where knowledge, science and philosophy had made huge leaps forward, this book dared to be openly...

Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto was the first gothic novel, and thus was the originator of many of the distinctive features that have pertained throughout the history of the genre. Early gothic was characterized by the rejection of enlightenment thinking in favor of the intense...

Gothic architecture thrived during the high and late medieval period. The upper echelons of the feudal system were so impressed by the looming cathedrals that they had their castles built in the same Gothic style. These castles are striking yet, at the same time, sinister:...

In Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles (HOB), Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson are immersed in a setting that appears to transcend the known limits of the physical world. A demoniacal hound roaming the moors of Devonshire is rumored to have been...

To be a paradigm of a Gothic novel, The House of Seven Gables needs to include many elements, all which center on the ideas of gloom, horror, and mystery. The action of a Gothic novel takes place in a “run-down, abandoned or occupied, mansion or...

By the 19th-century, according to Hawthorne and Melville, a man’s home was no longer his castle, but an effete parlor-room, a locus of stripped and castrated masculinity that hampered the development of classically intellectual and original literature in favor of the mawkish and uniform. While...

It has almost become an everyday slogan, in light of present events, that behind everything that seems so perfect there is some horrible mistake, or some terrible sin waiting to come back and rear its ugly head. Nathaniel Hawthorne could not have given any better...

Ostensibly a tale of the effects of sin and guilt as manifested through successive generations of a New England family, Hawthorne’s The House of the Seven Gables is a richly detailed novel with multiple levels of meaning and ambiguities that have prompted a wide array...

In an attempt to write a more cheerful novel then his brooding Scarlet Letter during a time when optimism was the one quality shared by all, Hawthorne writes, what critics call today, a contrived ending for his House of Seven Gables. When all seems its...

In a rather prophetic statement about a doomed family residing in an ancestral home, where the curse of the father becomes the curse of the children, Hawthorne writes in The House of the Seven Gables, “Ambition is a talisman more powerful than witchcraft” (209). For...

Nathaniel Hawthorne uses symbols and characters to portray the struggle between aristocratic and democratic ideas in his novel, The House of the Seven Gables. The democratic ideas which develop throughout the novel prevail against the aristocratic greed, injustice, and pride. Hawthorne begins his novel with...

It is important for those with problems to seek refuge in a place where they can better sort out their difficulties and find solutions to their predicaments. Different people have different methods of coping with their problems: some attempt to distract themselves, others simply find...

Matthew Lewis’s The Monk takes its era’s heightened anti-Catholicism to heart, and uses it to critique social norms. Lewis tackles the problem of the fetishization of purity that the Catholic Church, and society outside the Church hold so highly. Lewis presents the idea that despite...

“Emily gazed with melancholy awe upon the castle, which she understood to be Montoni’s; for, though it was now lighted up by the setting sun, the gothic greatness of its features, and its mouldering walls of dark grey stone, rendered it a gloomy and sublime...

One of the giants of Gothic Literature, Edgar Allan Poe set the standard not only for the genres creepy plot and characters, but also for what it means to be Goth Depicted in portraits dressed in black, with haunted, sunken eyes, Poe’s bad boy behavior,...

The idea that you could transform into something evil scares us all, therefore gothic literature uses this as a common tactic to induce greater fear. In “House Taken Over” by Julio Cortazar we can see the transformation of fear in the siblings daily lives, which...

Introduction As described by many critics and literary writers, Edgar Allan Poe is, without a doubt, one of the most influential writers, critics, poets and editors in America history and well-known in the world of literature. With his ‘Gothic’ style in writings, as many of...

Determining the setting, choices, actions, and decisions of the characters in a story can tell just how significant each character’s role is within that story, and sets the tone for which direction the story takes. The setting of Sleepy Hollow, New York, is important because...

On the crisp fall evening, I attended a play at the theatre. The theatre present Washington Irving’s well-known speculative fiction, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. The play was directed by Janette Gaines. The character, Ichabod Crane was played by Lucas Schmidt. The setting took place...

Gender expectations have been rooted in society for generations, creating an image of what the female identity should look like. In the 1800s, women in literature were often depicted solely as domestic caretakers; their sole purpose was to care for their children and husbands. Nathaniel...

Bronte uses a variety of Gothic settings in Jane Eyre but Thornfield Hall has the most Gothic aura out of all the places Bronte created in Jane Eyre because of the way it is described. Thornfield Hall is the home of Mr. Rochester who has...

Gothic literature is characterized by suspense that comes from not knowing what will happen next in a story. Great Gothic writers like Edgar allan Poe move beyond simple techniques like beginning there stories with descriptions of a dark and stormy night. Poe’s effective narrative choices...

The opening paragraph of The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson is considered to be one of the most poignant, meaningful, and undoubtedly most famous openings in the horror genre, if not in all fiction. To consume is to destroy or expend by use....

The human mind is something that is very fragile. It is easy for it to be manipulated or hurt by events that have occurred in someone’s past. When the mind is hurt, it looks for something to attach to. For example, it can find comfort...