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(2017
midterm assignment) Sample Student Midterm Answers 2017 #2b: Short Essay (Favorite Term) |
LITR 4328 |
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Haley Zills
The Gothic—this isn’t a phase.
Hearing the term “Gothic” probably zaps a picture into your head of
Dracula, or maybe even a sulking teenager wearing black from head to toe.
However, in actuality, Gothic means so much more. Generally, Gothic Literature
is packed full of darkness, melodrama, despair, and mystery. If this description
has the effect of deterring you from reading any Gothic Literature, I strongly
encourage you to push through its initial daunt, and read on to see the beauty
in the darkness.
Evidence of the Gothic can be found in
several American Renaissance works, but in this essay, I have chosen
Ligeia by Edgar Allan Poe as my example piece. I chose
Ligeia because even though Poe does
write very dark and desperate words,
Ligeia has a way of being just as beautiful as it is drab. In
Ligeia, Poe describes a beautiful
woman who is very fair skinned with raven hair. He goes on to explain that she
is not of the average beauty, she is more natural looking than society’s
standard “beautiful”. Ligeia’s dark
hair and white skin play a part in revealing the Gothic in this piece. Back,
white, and red, are Gothic colors-Poe uses these colors in his descriptions of
Ligeia, making her a Gothic version
of beautiful.
The very setting of
Ligeia itself is a prime example of
Gothic. A very large castle with very dark corridors, and blowing curtains that
create mysterious and alarming shaped; every detail adds to the mystery and
darkness of the setting. Ligeia, a
woman who refuses to die though her body already has, becomes a sort of lady of
the undead, a Gothic occupancy itself. Pain swallows this story whole, pain that
the narrator experiences as his beloved
Liegia is dead- and his heart is broken-his life empty. These are all
examples of the Gothic. Pain, darkness, dark beauty, mystery, death, and
loneliness all encapsulate the Gothic, and Poe laces this story with them
through and through.
This
term has become my favorite term because I have found it to be so overwhelmingly
beautiful. Somehow, death and sadness and despair are so emotional and
gut-wrenching, that I find myself MOST invested in Gothic stories, as opposed to
other Romantic stories. The vividness of Gothic language, and the emotional
response it garners blows me away, and leaves me feeling so attached to the
work. This term has made me realize how evident the Gothic still is in our
modern literature today, and even jus in society itself. People love to feel,
even if it hurts, and that’s why people love the Gothic, and it’s why the Gothic
is still so relevant today.
