The narrator is the main character in 'The Red Room'. This is typical of Gothic novels in particular, although the male characters are usually male heroes. Also, 'The Red Room' strays from the usual convention that a female usually suffers some distress in the course of the plot, e.g. a supernatural encounter. This is not the case as the narrator has to enter the Red Room himself, and not for the purpose
“Gothic literature is concerned with the breaking of social and moral codes” – to what extent do you agree with this criticism of gothic writing? Gothic literature often encompasses a large amount of taboos and transgressions that continue to populate the genre today, in which the breaking of social and moral codes is still a popular element that is continually explored. However, critiques often focus upon the driving force behind this exploration within the genre and its effectiveness where moral and social codes remain largely culturally relative and the line between normal and abnormal is unclear. This ambiguity continues to puzzle both readers and critics alike in a fashion that only breeds curiosity and fascination within society of what social and moral codes are available to be broken, particularly within literature. In many ways, the character of Heathcliff within Wuthering Heights may be seen as a complete antithesis to the conventions of society; the name “Heathcliff” acts as both his Christian name and surname in contrast to the inhabitants of Wuthering Heights with many names shared across the generations.
Chapters 3, 4 and 5 Chapter 3 1. What does Catherine Earnshaw’s diary add to the narrative? Catherine Earnshaw’s diary adds to the narrative a complex, interlocking structure of this text. Catherine’s diary s described by Lockwood as a commentary, written in the margins of Branderham’s sermon. The diary allows for Wuthering Heights to be read as a parable, in that it is Lockwood’s narration of a story which is adjacent to the mysterious events which he is trying to understand.
The protagonist, Rolf Carle, in “And of Clay Are We Created” goes through deep emotions that ,Isabel Allende, the narrator portrays in her own unique way. The author’s tone, or attitude, towards human ability to contain the effects of catastrophes is bleak. The first person point of view gives the author the ability to do that. The tone of the story is immediately dampened from the start. Allende’s first sentence sets the tone for the rest of the passage.
Both of these writers includ women as an element of their Gothic fiction, but they are used in contrasting fashions. In the Gothic genre, women are often times portrayed as either oppressed by a tyrannical masculine character, or in a forced position to make a tough decision. The former is the case in “The Black Cat,” although the beginning of the story makes it seem otherwise. This is exemplified by the narrator when he states, I grew, day by day, more moody, more irritable, more regardless of the feelings of others. I suffered myself to use intemperate language to my wife.
Among this concern, Coleridge also portrayed the romanticism, which led to gothic literature. He wrote of everything having beauty, even things no one would commonly associate with beauty. For example in the line 273 to 285, Coleridge describes the slimy things amongst the boat having beauty ‘I watched the water-snakes … I watched their rich attire … their beauty I might declare’. Coleridge also dwells into discussing the unknown, through voyaging into new worlds. For Coleridge lived in the time where new places were being discovered, leading to questions of cultures and beliefs, creating more uncertainty.
With his tale of corrupt patriarchy filled with mystery, romance, and tragedy, Horace Walpole bridged the gap between the wantonly romantic and the excessively realistic (Scott 11); filling the space with dark settings, stark characters and tangled narratives. It was the sum of all these parts that became the formula that is still followed today by writers of the genre. This essay will outline various elements of the typical gothic novel, and the way in which they are associated with excess in the themes, characterisation, and style of writing. In doing so, the differences in the techniques used in Walpole’s novel Castle of Otranto, and M.R James’s short story Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad, will be identified and discussed. The primary objective of Gothic novelists is to rouse the reader into eliciting emotional responses such as shock or fear (Hume 284).
Gothic Characteristics of Edgar Allan Poe’s ”The Black Cat” In this short essay I intend to collect the most important Gothic features of Poe’s short story, The Black Cat. However, the definition of the literary Gothic is not at all unified. Hence, I would like to discuss first the possible determinations which we can use in analyzing The Black Cat. The Gothic fiction is often defined by its stock devices and its use of a particular atmosphere for essentially psychological purposes. It attempts to immerse the reader in an extraordinary world in which ordinary standards and moral judgments become meaningless and good and evil are seen as inextricably intertwined.
This was the time of the Enlightenment, when many artistic and literary trends prior to the 17th century were considered unrefined and primitive. The favoured approaches in architecture and the arts were classical models derived from antiquity. The word 'Gothic' was frequently used as a pejorative term to describe the barbarism and superstition of the Middle Ages. Gothic fiction actively railed against these schools of thought by openly celebrating the phenomena of the medieval era. A variety of sources affected the character and development of the Gothic genre.
In this sense, I would like to contrast and compare the two pieces of writing mentioned above in order to reach an idea of the different elements that compose the Gothic genre characteristic of the Victorian period, such as the setting, the dark atmosphere, and the fear and horror feeling, and the new ones that were added when introduced the ghost stories narratives, such as those of orphan children, the supernatural and the past, among some others. In both, The Turn of the Screw and The Old Nurse’s Story, the past becomes a focus of anxiety and the story itself a way of anchoring the past to an unsettled present in a continuum of life and death, which is a characteristic feature of Ghost Stories. Ghosts in the Victorian period were images of the lost past which threatened us, but which could be used to confront the demons of guilt and fear, as we can see in both of these stories, on the one hand in the case of James’s Governess and in the other hand in the case of Miss Grace Furnival. Comparing these stories, we can observe that both are pretty similar in content, this may be due to the influence that Charlotte Brönte and Elizabeth Gaskell, who was Brönte’s biographer, displayed on Henry James’s writing. In both stories we