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LITR 4232 American
Renaissance 2012 final exam—Answers to Question B1 "Gothic characteristics and uses" final exam assignment |
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Velma Laborde
Meaning in the Macabre
In a sample model essay from Dr. White's gothic terms/themes page the
writer defines the gothic as, "a stylistic mode or genre that uses a set of
conventions to instill a feeling of fear, or uneasiness in the reader." This is
a great definition and the 'conventions' that are used range significantly
including things like, haunted houses/places/spaces, colors, haunted minds,
sounds, death, and traditional gothic architecture. These conventions are often
used in conjunction with literary devices like twinning, correspondence, and
transcendentalism to further intensify the intended feelings in the reader.
Gothic takes the reader's mind to a place it normally could not or would not go.
It explores fears, inadequacies, and horrors that every person has inside and
allows reader's to have the sensation of actually experiencing them. That
sensation, while scary, is also thrilling and exciting. Gothic is grounded in
just enough reality that the reader's imagination takes them to a place where
they can almost relate to the horrors they are reading about. People identify
with gothic in a personal way. This essay will examine several different texts
citing examples of the gothic conventions and literary devices used to incite
fear in readers and what purpose it serves in the different texts.
The first text, The Legend of
Sleepy Hollow (SH) by Washington Irving takes the gothic out into the
wilderness. The legend is that the forest surrounding Sleepy Hollow is haunted
by the headless horseman. The trees in the forest are described in gothic
language: "Its limbs were gnarled and fantastic" and "twisting down" (56). In
addition, the atmosphere of the forest is corresponding to Ichabod's mind. He is
"heavy hearted and crest-fallen" and "lonely and dismal." (55-56). While the
atmosphere is described similarly as: "darker and darker" and "the stars seemed
to sink deeper" (56). The qualities of the forest influence Ichabod's mind
creating an effect that is dark and creepy. Light and dark are also used in SH
in paragraph 57. It was dark out, but he "thought he saw something white," which
turned out to be "a place where the tree had been scathed by lightening." There
is an eerie contrast between black and white. Lastly, SH includes the gothic
character; the headless horseman. He is a spirit, or ghost, and rides in on a
black horse and appears to be a metaphor for the death of the old ways and old
In the essay on Dr. White's gothic terms/themes page, the writer briefly
discusses Irving's SH and RVW and states, "I would guess that Gothic exists in
his work simply to enhance the setting" and "this type of writing does well for
setting the mood but I did not find that it urged me to think or examine
myself." I agree that the gothic in SH enhances the setting, but I disagree that
it is there "simply" for that reason alone. A closer examination of the text
shows that the text is about
In Nathaniel Hawthorne's The
Scarlet Letter, the gothic is seen in similar ways. Color is used in
describing the clothes of the men as "sad-coloured garments." The description
brings to mind the color grey and black, typical 'sad' colors. The vegetation
near the prison is described as, "burdock, pig-weed, apple-pern, and such
unsightly vegetation" which had "borne the black flower of civilised society, a
prison" (2). The black and grey colors and ugly weeds correspond to the
"civilised society" that the story occurs in. The Scarlet Letter itself consists
of gothic colors. The very last line states: "On a field, sable, the letter A,
gules." Dr. White interprets this for us as "against a background of black, the
letter A, red." The letter is "relieved only by one ever-glowing point of light
gloomier than the shadow." The contrast of black and red, light and shadow, is
typical of gothic. The importance of these gothic colors in
The Scarlett Letter is that they
remind the reader of the darkness of the story. Paragraph 3 describes it as,
"the darkening close of a tale of human frailty and sorrow." The significance of
the colors as gothic is because they correspond to the dark heart of the society
and the dark side of Puritanism. In this text, the gothic augments the teaching
of a moral lesson about humanity using the stark symbolism of the letter and
colors.
Symbolism and correspondence are also an important part of Edgar Allan
Poe's The Man of the Crowd. In this
story, Poe brings gothic into the crowds of people in the city. The narrator
describes the crowd as, "a tumultuous sea of human heads" and "whose
countenances were fearfully pale, whose eyes hideously wild and red" (3, 10). In
this gothic crowd of people, he notices a certain older man and he becomes
obsessed with. The story continues as the narrator obsessively attempts to
follow and catch this man. His mood begins to correspond to the night and to the
madness. He says, "As the night deepened, so deepened to me the interest of the
scene." The night lights "threw over everything a fitful and garish luster"
(11). The gothic surroundings are corresponding to the man's mind. It is
presumed that the man is chasing after nothing more than himself. The chaos of
the city crowd, his darkening mood and wild obsessions are gothic
representations of what is going on in cities as well as his mind. The growth
and complexity of the city corresponds to his mind. In paragraph 18 he is
following the 'other man' and talks about how the man keeps going from one place
to another "plunging through a great variety of devious ways." Dr White's notes
this as similar to a maze, but in the city streets. The maze also corresponds to
his mind. He sees himself in the chaos and is losing it. In this story, the
gothic explores the issues of city life and the uses the city and the people in
it as gothic figures. The narrator's mind corresponds to the city life and the
people dwelling in it and that they are deteriorating and lost just like he is.
Gothic is used to emphasize the psychological problems with self corresponding
to city life. This is significant not only because it places the gothic in a new
position, but it includes the mind as a haunted space and further expands what
is considered gothic.
All three of these texts infuse different parts of the gothic, but they
all incite fear and get the reader thinking about society as something to fear.
It does not matter whether society is the new America trying to break through in
Sleepy Hollow, the oppressive and
abusive puritan society of The Scarlet
Letter, or the wild and mad society of the city (or the mind) in
The Man of the Crowd, the atmosphere
of all of them is portrayed as gothic to instill a sense of fear that will get
the reader to think further on the issues the writer is trying to get across.
Fear and terror heighten the senses and allow the reader to put himself in the
position of the narrator or characters giving him a relatable sense of the
macabre. Gothic is exciting, but it is also a fantastic method to draw people in
and leave them with something important to ponder.
