Gothic Fiction
Enter at your peril!
Definition
A non-realistic
writing style,
which came to
prominence in the
1760’s &
continues to the
present day.
 It is referred to as
a mode or style of
writing

Gothic Context
 The
gothic was
first used as a
Medieval,
architectural term
to describe a style
of building that
included gargoyles,
scenes of Hell, and
souls in torment.
Examples of Gothic
Architecture
Notre Dame Cathedral
 St. Etienne
 Westminster Abbey
Are all examples of Gothic
Architecture
The term was generally meant as
an insult. It is a reference to the
Goth and Visigoth invaders, who
were looked upon as barbarians.

The Early Gothic

Horace Walpole’s
The Castle of
Otranto (1764) is
generally
considered the
first full-fledged
Gothic novel.

The classic Gothic
novels were written
by Matthew Lewis,
Jane Austen, and
Ann Radcliffe in the
1790’s.
Radcliffe creates the formula for the
classic Gothic novel in The Mysteries
of Udolpho.
In general, the Radcliffian Gothic incorporates
an innocent that is imperiled by his/her own
innocence.
 A guardian/protector figure, who must rescue
the innocent from unmentionable evil. The
irony of the Radcliffian Gothic is that it is the
naiveté of the innocent that puts the innocent
at risk in the first place.
 Critics, like Kate Ferguson Ellis, have argued
that the Gothic mode of writing replays the
felix culpa or fortunate fall.

Contemporary Writers

twenty-first
century Gothic
artists include
Anne Rice,
Stephen King, J.K.
Rowling,
Stephanie Meyer,
Angela Carter and
Patrick McGrath.
The Gothic may be described using the
following characteristics:
Degeneration, Darkness, and
Decay
As a rule, gothic literature is generally set in
darkened scenes of degeneration and decay.
Popular settings include decaying houses,
crumbling castles, ancient abbeys, antiquated
priories, and moldering manor houses.
Gothic settings use physical descriptions of
degeneration to emphasize moral, spiritual,
cultural, and or psychological decay. Setting can
thus be said to be symptomatic of social entropy.
There is an emphasis on the
psychology of the characters
rather than plot. Things do
not always make sense
logically in gothic texts.
The Gothic goes to
extremes.
There is an emphasis placed upon
extreme emotional situations.
Use of the supernatural
Use of the doppelganger
theme
Doppelganger is a word that
comes to us from the German.
It means “living double.” The
doubling of animate and
inanimate objects is a major
motif found in gothic literature.
These mirror images often show
a split between the character’s
public and private self.
Use of an unreliable
narrator
Dark, pessimistic view of
existence
Change
There is a general emphasis on
metamorphosis and transformation; this
may manifest itself as a physical or
psychological change or both.
American v European Gothic
The American gothic is different from the European gothic
for 3 reasons:
1. America’s lack of historical breadth (there’s less loss
history to be found).
2. Protestant foundation
3. No abandoned/crumbling castles, monasteries, priories,
abbeys, etc.
Poe and the Gothic

Edgar Allan Poe invents the American
Gothic.

In creating the modern horror story,
Edgar Allan Poe redefines the gothic.
Poe’s gothic is distinctly American in
taste and setting.
Southern & Northern Gothic
Within the American Gothic, there are
two distinct movements that are tied to
geography: the Northern Gothic
and the Southern Gothic.
Both express a fear of social
entropy.
Henry James (1843-1916)
Born into a family of wealthy intellectuals
 His father, Henry James, Sr., was a leading
intellectual of his day, who was friends with
Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson,
and Nathaniel Hawthorne.
 His brother William James was a pioneer in
the field of psychology.

James Background
James was interested in literature,
philosophy and psychology.
 He wrote 112 short stories, 20 novels,
12 plays, numerous essays, and literary
criticisms.
 His writing is heavily influenced by
Charles Dickens, Nathaniel Hawthorne,
and the French writer Balzac.

James’s Literary Style
James is generally classified as a Realist
writer.
 In TOTS, he deliberately sets out to write a
“Romantic” text, but from a Realist
perspective.
 While there are strong Gothic/Romantic
elements in TOTS, James strives to convey
his story as realistically and pragmatically as
he can.
 James is concerned primarily with the
psychological effect his writing has on his
audience.

James and Realism

In 1884, Henry James announced that
the "supreme virtue" of fiction, and the
quality by which its success should be
judged, resides in its ability to produce
an "air of reality," or an "illusion of life.“

(American Passages – James)
Realist Values

James, like many other American
writers of the late nineteenth century,
embraced an aesthetic of realism, which
valued unsparing, accurate
representations of the psychological
and material realities of American life.

(American Passages – Social Realism)
Narrative Strategy
It was as an addition to the strategies used by 19th
century writers that stream of consciousness and
what might be called psychological exposition--in
which the writer describes what's going on inside
a character's mind in the same way he/she might
describe landscape or event--came to be identified
as "modern" in the first place.
(Psychological Realism -http://noggs.typepad.com/the_reading_experience/2005/05/res
ponding_to_l.html)
Stream of Consciousness
A literary technique that presents the
thoughts and feelings of a character as
they occur.
 Psychology. The conscious experience
of an individual regarded as a
continuous, flowing series of images
and ideas running through the mind.


(http://www.answers.com/topic/stream-of-consciousness)
Psychological Exposition

Exposition is a setting forth of meaning
or intent.


A statement or rhetorical discourse
intended to give information about or an
explanation of difficult material.
Psychological exposition relates to the
workings of the mind and how the mind
creates meaning out of experience.
Narrative Dilemma

Turn of the Screw is a novella with a
problem – narrative voice.

This is actually more complex than it
might seem. First, there is the problem
of identifying the narrator.
Who’s your narrator?

On the surface this problem of narrative
voice seems easily answered; it’s the
Governess, of course.

But is it? Remember, this is a frame
narrative – a story filtered through
multiple narrative perspectives.
Frame Narrative

Minimally, this, as all frame tales or
frame narratives, is a story within a
story.

There is the introduction to the
Governess’ story by Douglas, who is retelling the Governess’s story from a
manuscript he has received from his
governess years earlier.
Reliable or Unreliable
Narrative?

The narrative that Douglas reads his
audience is filtered, not only through
Douglas’s reading but through the
distance of time, as well.

Douglas’ governess writes the story at
least ten years after it happens, and it
is unclear as to whether or not Douglas’
governess is the governess of the story.
Does it matter?

If Douglas’ governess is not the Governess,
then the story has been filtered, yet one
more time providing 5 different frames for
the telling of the story – the narrator’s
recording of Douglas’ story, Douglas’ reading
of the story, his sister’s governess’ writing of
the story ten years later, his sister’s
governess’ witnessing or hearing the story,
the original Governess’ experiencing the
story.
Jamesian Narratives

Readers must do more work - and
involve themselves more in the process
of meaning-making - to understand the
relationship of the stories to their
narration.

(American Passages – Social Realism)

Throughout his career, James
maintained an interest in contrasting
European and American manners, and
in exploring the ways psychologically
complex characters deal with
ambiguous social and intellectual
problems.

(American Passages – Social Realism)

James has sometimes been criticized for
the rarified quality of his work. For
some readers, he seems to neglect
"flesh and blood" problems in order to
focus on the neurotic anxieties of overprivileged, self-absorbed characters.

(American Passages – Social Realism)
But for James, the value of fiction
writing lay in providing "a personal, a
direct impression of life," which to him
was best achieved not by chronicling
material conditions but rather by
examining the subjective, psychological
complexities of human beings.
 (American Passages – Social Realism)

American Spiritualist
Movement

James wrote The Turn of the Screw at a
time during which belief in ghosts and
spirituality was very prevalent in
England and America.

(GradeSaver)
The spirituality craze had begun in 1848
when the two young Fox sisters in New
York heard unexplained rappings in
their bedroom. They were able to ask
questions and receive answers in raps
from what they - and the many people
who became aware of their case believed was a dead person.
 (GradeSaver)

That same year [TOTS was published],
a book about the "science" of ghosts,
The Night Side of Nature; or, Ghosts
and Ghost Seers, by Catherine Crowe
was published and became very
popular.
 (GradeSaver)

The Society for Psychical Research, of
which James's brother and father were
members, was founded in 1882. It was
an offshoot of the Cambridge Ghost
Club, founded in 1851 at Trinity College
at Cambridge University - where the
prologue's Douglas was a student.
 (GradeSaver)


Reading The Turn of the Screw, it is
important to remember that despite
twentieth-century skepticism towards
ghosts and the paranormal, many
educated nineteenth-century readers
did believe in ghosts and spirituality.

(GradeSaver)

These ghosts, he [James] says, now the
subjects of laboratory study, cannot stir
"the dear old sacred terror" as old-time
ghost stories could. Modern ghosts
make "poor subjects," and his ghosts,
therefore, would be agents of evil "goblins, elves, imps, demons as loosely
constructed as those of the old trials for
witchcraft."
The Turn of the Screw

“In 1908 he [James] wrote that ‘Peter Quint
and Miss Jessel are not "ghosts" at all, as we
now know the ghost, but goblins, elves, imps,
demons as loosely constructed as those of
the old trials for whichcraft [sic]; if not, more
pleasingly, fairies of the legendary order,
wooing their victims forth to see them dance
under the moon.’"
www.kirjasto.sci.fi/hjames.htm
Hero or Villain?

Nineteenth Century audiences generally
assumed that the Governess was a
sympathetic character, who was really
trying to save the children.

Contemporary audiences view the
Governess has a disturbed young lady
with deep psychological issues.
It’s up to you…

Henry James leaves the question of
hero or villain unanswered.

The audience must look at the text and
decide for themselves whether or not they
can overcome the burdens of narrative
reliability to believe the Governess’ story
or whether that burden is far too great for
them to believe her