IT’S ALL GOTH TO ME!
Gothic Literature: The Romantic literature preoccupied with
mystery, horror, and the supernatural is known as Gothic.
The name is a reference to the barbaric Gothic tribes of
the Middle Ages, or to medieval times in general with its
castles, knights and adventure. Gothic novels tended to
feature brooding tones, remote settings, and mysterious
events. The characters’ inner emotional lives receive a lot
of attention, as does the struggle between good and evil.
The style took its name from Horace Walpole’s The Castle of
Otranto: A Gothic Story, the first book identified as
belonging to the genre.
Gothic elements include the following:
1. Remote settings, as in a castle.
2. An atmosphere of mystery and suspense.
3.
Omens, portents, visions
5. Supernatural or otherwise inexplicable events
6. High, even overwrought emotion.
7. Women in distress.
8. Women threatened by a powerful, impulsive, tyrannical
male. 9. The metonymy of gloom and horror. Metonymy is a
subtype of metaphor, in which something (like rain) is used
to stand for something else (like sorrow). For example, the
film industry likes to use metonymy as a quick shorthand,
so we often notice that it is raining in funeral scenes.
Note that the following metonymies for "doom and gloom" all
suggest some element of mystery, danger, or the
supernatural. wind, especially howling
doors grating on rusty hinges
rain, especially blowing
sighs, moans, howls, eerie sound
footsteps approaching
lights in abandoned rooms
characters trapped in a room
ruins of buildings
thunder and lightning
clanking chains
Gusts of wind blowing out lights
Doors suddenly slamming shut
baying of distant dogs (or wolve
crazed laughter