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The Dark Side of Individualism: American Gothic �Literature Introduction

Pages 352 – 354

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Beginnings of “Gothic”

  • The Gothic genre began in 1765 with Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Ortranto.
  • Readers fell in love with the weird setting and macabre plot
    • 1. Suggesting the horror of death and decay; gruesome
    • 2. Constituting or including a representation of death.

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Famous writers

  • Mary Shelley, who wrote Frankenstein in 1818
  • Bram Stoker, who wrote Dracula in 1897

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What’s “Gothic”?

  • Gothic literature takes its name and imagery partly from Gothic architecture of the Middle Ages.
  • Images such as cavernous cathedrals and castles with towers and high stained glass windows, were borrowed from Gothic architecture for Gothic literature.

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“Gothic” images

  • Cavernous cathedrals
  • Castles with towers and high stained glass windows
  • Borrowed from Gothic architecture for Gothic literature

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“Gothic” symbols

  • Gargoyles, which once protected Gothic cathedrals from evil spirits, are a good representation of Gothic literature’s “imaginative distortion of reality”

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How did “Gothic” compare to other literary movements?

  • The romantic writers first freed the imagination from the “rationalism of the Age of Reason”
  • Gothic writers then followed their imaginations to the darkest recesses of the human heart and mind.
  • While romantics saw hope in the individual, Gothic writers saw potential evil.

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“Gothic” in America

  • Many American writers used Gothic elements in their writing
  • Washington Irving is one (The Devil and Tom Walker)
  • Herman Melville (Moby Dick) is another

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Edgar Allen Poe

  • However, Edgar Allan Poe was “the master of Gothic form in the United States”

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Poe’s Gothic elements

  • “Dark, medieval castles or decaying ancient estates”
  • Insane male narrators
  • Beautiful, dead or dying female characters
  • Extreme situations such as “live burials, physical and mental torture, and retribution from beyond the grave”

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Poe’s emphasis

  • Poe explored the human mind and its dysfunction within the context of extreme situations
  • “Masque of the Red Death” and “The Raven” are examples of this.

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Nathaniel Hawthorne

  • Also used Gothic elements
  • “Examined the human heart under various conditions of fear, greed, vanity, mistrust, and betrayal”
  • “Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment” is an example of this.

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Fading of “Gothic”

  • After the Civil War (1865), interest in Gothic literature waned, faded
  • People had seen too many true horrors
  • However, Gothic literature made a comeback in the southern United States in the early 1900s

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Modern American Gothic writers

  • William Faulkner is considered a “modern” Gothic writer
  • “The crumbling medieval castle…became the decaying plantation with its fallen aristocratic family isolated in time and place”
  • “A Rose for Emily” is an example of this

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Other southern Gothic writers

  • Flannery O’Connor
  • Carson McCullers
  • Truman Capote

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More contemporary writers

  • Stephen King
  • Anne Rice