Format: double-spaced, 12-point Times New Roman font, standard 1-1.25 inch margins; at least 5
pages (yes, I said 5 pages – that does NOT include a works cited page.) Final draft will be due
Thursday January 30th . NO LATE PAPERS WILL BE ACCEPTED. Rough drafts will be
checked the week of January 20th-24th.
Option 1: Literary Analysis
In this option, you will engage a major critical issue in one (or more) of the following of Poe’s;
The Fall of the House of Usher, The Black Cat, Cask of Amontillado, or Pit in the Pendulum. (ex.
“gender,” “domesticity,” “madness,” “sexuality,” “religion”) and come to your own analytical
claims and thesis concerning the subject. For constructions of domesticity, for example, you may
want to examine Poe’s construction of “home” as a space that is both frightening and welcoming
in Usher. For this option, you will incorporate other scholarly work done on the work, and insert
yourself into an ongoing scholarly conversation surrounding Poe’s work.
Option 2: Adaptation Analysis
In this option, you will examine Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House and one of the
cinematic adaptations of the novel, either the 1963 Robert Wise version of the 1999 De Bont
version. Like option one, you will be engaging with other academic criticism to address the
subject, focusing your analysis on compare/contrast analysis. What was changed? How do these
changes reflect the different modes of representation (literature and film)? How do they reflect
different genre (is it no longer gothic but horror?) concerns or historical contexts? What has
remained the same? Why? What elements are seemingly intrinsic to the text, and what elements
are open to interpretation? Has the overall approach, delivery and “feel” of Jackson’s novel
changed, or has it remained the same? So what? What effects do the changes have for our
understanding of the work—essentially, why do the changes “matter” from a critical lens?
Option 3: Modern Gothic
In this option, you will analyze a modern permutation of the gothic and explore its complexities
in relation to the work that we have done thus far in the quarter. Possible avenues include
examining a “modern” gothic text, such as literary works by Anne Rice, Clive Barker, or Stephen
King. You may also examine “gothic” works in television (Dexter, American Horror Story, Grim,
Fringe, Sleepy Hollow, X-Files, etc), comics books (Sandman, Dark Night), film (any number of
options), video games (Resident Evil, Silent Hill, et al) or music (Marilyn Manson, The Cure, et
al). Additionally, this option allows the space to address “cultural” gothic texts, such as haunted
houses, “goth” culture, or Halloween rituals. Like options one and two, you will be engaging with
other academic criticism to reach your own claims and thesis. Vital in this option is your ability to
move beyond simple demonstrating that your text is “gothic,” and to determine how the text
constructs itself around gothic sensibilities and to what effect.