2. Genre: Gothic literature is a deliciously terrifying blend of
fiction and horror with a little romance thrown in.
Gothic novels have a long history, and it have been
changing since 1765.
3. Features:
Gloomy, decaying settings as haunted houses or castles with
secret passages. Supernatural beings or monsters, Curses or
prophecies Damsels in distress, Heroes, Romance, Intense
emotions, supernatural, madness, and romance.
4. Examples:
● The Mysteries of Udolpho. The story centers around Emily St. Aubert, an orphaned girl
who was subjected to cruelties by guardians and imprisoned in castles. The work
included strange, fearful events and a haunting atmosphere
● For example, the Gothic writer Mary Shelley set her scenes amid creepy locations such
as graveyards, gloomy castles, and even developed the persona of a monster to
emphasize the plot of her 1818 novel Frankenstein.
● An example of supernatural or inexplicable events, such as inanimate objects coming to
life, ghosts, spirits, and vampires like that of Bram Stoker’s 1897 Gothic fantasy,
Dracula.
5. Settings: Dark, Abandoned and decaying settings. In Gothic literature, you see
lots of haunted houses, cobwebbed castles, derelict churches, and other
architecture that has fallen into disrepair. You also see dark, cramped,
and claustrophobic interiors with hidden doors and secret
passageways, settings with hidden skeletons. The outside world in
Gothic literature is usually portrayed as being a dark, wild, and
treacherous place full of wrathful weather, malevolent forests, and
ghostly graveyards.
6. Movement:
Gothic novels allowed writers and readers to explore these
ideas through the medium of storytelling. Ghosts, death and
decay, madness, curses in which it provide different ways to
explore fear of the unknown and what control we have as
humans over the unknown.
7. Typical characters in Gothic Novels:
Supernatural beings or monsters as ghosts, phantoms, werewolves,
Skeletons, Vampires.
8. Plot and Setting:
It takes place in an old castle or an old mansion, or the ruins of it.
Sometimes the building is abandoned, occupied or it is not clear if the
building has occupants. The castle often contains secret passages, trap
doors, secret rooms, trick panels with hidden levers, dark or hidden
staircases, and possibly ruined sections. The castle may connected to
caves, which provide a haunting flavor with their darkness or even
floors, branchings, claustrophobia, echoes of unusual sounds, and
mystery. Caves are often hide many secrets like the housing of many
terrifying creatures such as monsters.
