LITR 4232 American Renaissance 2012 final exam—Answers to Question B1 "Gothic characteristics and uses" final exam assignment

April Bucy

Gothic Literature—Helping the World Get Haunted One Story at a Time

I have a secret obsession with historical ghost documentaries, monster movies, slasher films, zombies, and most importantly literature that keeps me awake at night, trapped inside my mind along with everything I fear and even those things I don’t. What is most interesting about this assertion is that prior to taking this course I assumed that all of these things fell under unique categorizations rather than safely housed under the umbrella of the gothic. Gothic has a unique way of bringing the unconscious into the conscious, in a manner that allows it to be applied to everyday life. It shows up time and time again with no clear intent other than to fulfill our fascination with the good and our fixation with the bad, while at the same time allowing us to repress the dark impulses of our souls that morally we are incapable of doing.

To provide a concrete definition of the term gothic is somewhat problematic specifically because it defies categorization. What I mean by this is that elements of the gothic can be found in almost anything. Short stories, poetry, art, architecture, drama, novels, and cinema often depict the gothic in very obvious ways. Haunted house? Check. Death and decay? Check. Secret passages, mazes and labyrinths? Check, check, check. But, what is most awesome about the gothic is its ability to be discrete in its creepiness. For example, in Edgar Allan Poe’s poem, “The Raven,” the reader is forced to ponder a number of unanswerable questions such as; is the narrator in his psychologically unstable state of grief imagining the entire episode? Is the Raven mocking the narrator or is it actually answering the questions he is asking? Poe is a master of the gothic; in fact his short story “William Wilson” also demonstrates the discrete nature of gothic literature by describing a house in a manner that makes it a metaphor for the mind, “But the house!—how quaint an old building was this!—to me how veritably a place of enchantment! There was really no end to its windings—to its incomprehensible subdivisions.” The psychological gothic aims to answer the questions, why are you so scared? And what is in there that is making you squirm? But the psychological gothic, like most versions of gothic including the wilderness gothic or the moral gothic is not limited to literature alone, in the 2001 film, Session 9, “tensions rise within an asbestos cleaning crew as they work in an abandoned mental hospital with a horrific past that seems to be coming back” but seems is the operative word and causes the audience to question how they perceive the actions in the film (Reeves).

Gothic Literature tends to incorporate themes of internal conflict and documented importance to the human condition such as troublesome relationships, the sublime and the complexities associated with the light and dark as well as a fascination with twinning and doppelgangers. In “Ligeia,” by Poe the gothic becomes apparent in a multitude of ways including the narrator’s loss of one obsessive relationship only to be replaced by the troublesome aspects of another that will never wholly live up to the first. Another example of the gothic in this text is the attention to the light and dark, “the fair haired and blue-eyed Rowena Trevanion” in contrast with “the raven-black” tresses of Ligeia followed by the implied assertion that it was this darkness (maybe of the narrator’s mind) that eventually led to the Lady Rowena’s demise. But Poe is not the only master of the gothic; in fact Nathaniel Hawthorne in the short story, “The May Pole of Merry Mount” uses gothic elements to create what is considered the wilderness gothic and is based on the fear of the unknown, “bewildered in the melancholy forest,” while at the same time demonstrating the imbalances associated with light and dark, a major component of gothic literature, “the men of iron shook their heads and frowned so darkly that the revelers looked up imagining that a momentary cloud had overcast the sunshine, which was to be perpetual there.” James Fenimore Cooper also uses gothic associations in the novel, The Last of the Mohicans by placing the characters in the unknown threats in the wilderness of America, “give us wisdom to circumvent the cunning of the devils who fill these woods” (5.13). Cooper uses the uncomfortable connections of color that “apply to both physical lighting and the shades of skin” (“gothic”) in the novel by describing Chingachgook’s entrance in the following manner, “A spectral-looking figure stalked from out of the darkness behind the scout, and seizing a blazing brand, held it toward the further extremity of their place of retreat. (6.12). Twinning is also an element of gothic literature and is found in Cooper’s novel in the purposeful contrasts of Cora and Alice, making them the perfect picture of human nature. Alice, for example is fair and sensitive and moral while Cora is dark, brash and bold making the sisters two sides of the same coin and the direct representation of the duplicity of human nature.

Brittany Fletcher in her 2010 essay, “My Gothic is Your Gothic” states that “many authors over time have written masterpieces while using the gothic in different ways to illustrate their work to the fullest extent.” This assertion demonstrates the versatility of gothic literature in its form and content. But why does gothic literature keep working for us? This question is best answered by taking a quick glimpse at the purpose of literature according to Horace (and Dr. White as well) “to entertain and inform” as well as the contention that “literature concerns ideas” with “thoughts or themes represented through characters, actions, stories” (“critical sources”). Gothic literature lends itself to the development of multidimensional, sometimes two different sides of the same coin, and is saturated in action, suspense, and psychological elements. That being said, what really makes the gothic one of the most popular genres of art and life? It could be argued that the most influential elements of the gothic and the main reason it continues to work for us centuries later are found in its innate ability to transcend time and cultivate terror in the everyday.