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LITR 4232: American Renaissance  |
Final Exam Essays 2013 Sample answers for
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Jenna Crosson
“There is Gothic in Everything We Read!”
The Gothic is an aspect of
literature that is exciting and thrilling for the readers.
When we think of the Gothic we think of horror
films, haunted houses, and theoretically, things that go “bump in the night”.
I enjoy studying this term because it completely
contradicts everything I see as “romantic”.
The Gothic is attributed to things like dark
hallways, creepy noises, blood, the colors of black and red, secret passageways
and mazes, death, and the Christian version of hell and devilish figures.
When I think of the Gothic, Halloween comes to
mind.
But, there is much more to it than that.
The Gothic is also representative to the character,
not only just a scene in which the story is set.
We can see madness and unrest in the mind of
characters that can be attributed to the Gothic.
Emphasis on the darkness, whether it be in a scene
of a haunted forest or in the mind of a character is an important role of the
Gothic.
These aspects are apparent in many of the readings we have
studied this semester.
The contrast of light and
dark is also an interesting qualification of the Gothic and is apparent in
Cooper’s Last of the Mohicans.
Cora Munro is of mixed heritage and is considered
to be the “dark one” in contrast to her damsel in distress sister, Alice, who is
called the “fair one”.
The contrast of the “fair lady-dark lady” concept
is to show the reader to differences in character.
Cora is dark complected which is associated with
her wild and uncontrollable nature.
Alice is light and is considered to be innocent and
desired.
Moving away from the
depiction of a character, we can also see the gothic in inanimate objects.
This is popular is horror movies, giving non-living
things haunting qualities that truly spook the reader.
Take for example Poe’s
The Fall of the House of Usher
in which we see a house be wicked and evil.
In this specific piece the house itself is
dangerous to those living in it and end up driving its occupants completely mad,
another defining quality of the Gothic, mental unrest and instability.
Another aspect of the Gothic
is death and decay and the frailty of the human condition.
These may not have anything necessarily spooky or
scary about them but death is still considered to be a qualification of the
Gothic.
After reading Rebecca Harding Davis’ “Life In the Iron
Mills”, we see a very realistic part of the Gothic.
We see the struggle of the workers as they face
everyday life in the Iron Mills.
The danger that entails with this job; the flames
and dirt, and cruelty thrust upon them are all aspects of the Gothic.
The workers try to overcome and transcend into a
safer life but, in the end, the flames overpower them.
We see the frailty of humans as they endure so much
hardship and there only release from it is death.
The message in this story is really powerful and I
enjoyed how real it was.
To conclude, the Gothic is
much more than just seeking a thrill and shrill out of its audience, although it
does make for great entertainment.
It is much more than the run of the mill haunted
house, witch, vampire, or bloody movie but about the darkness that we can see in
everyday life.
It is the forbidden, the feared, and everything
very real in our lives that scare us.
Although the spooky stories are great to read, it
is also important to understand that there is darkness lurking all around us and
can be debilitating to the human spirit.
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