Sample Student Research Project, spring 2006
LITR
4232: American Renaissance
Sample Student Research Project, spring 2006
Melissa S. Jones
21 April 2006
The Gothic Style Over Time
Introduction to
the Gothic Style
The Gothic style is a literary tool that is used to evoke weird, wonderful, and uncertain feelings in the reader, and aide the author in portraying certain themes. The gothic style transports a reader to places they has never explored, and leaves the reader wondering. This powerful tool, which is filled with so much description and a feeling of the unknown at the same time, permits the reader to loose themselves in the story, and feel a part of it more than with other genres.
Over the years, the Gothic novel was often condemned and written off for having overly exaggerated scenarios and outright predictable plots, but the growing popularity of the genre points to a resilience that cannot be overlooked. The gothic novels and stories that are present today are comparable to the gothic literature of the American Renaissance, but some things have changed.
I originally planned to research how the modern gothic literature has remained the same or differed from American Renaissance gothic literature, but during my research, I discovered more elements of the gothic style than we discussed in class. I decided to include my findings in these journals because they aid in exploring the differences between gothic literatures over the years.
History of
Gothic Novel
The term “Gothic” was applied to architecture long before it was applied to literature. Horace Walpole was the first to connect the two when he wrote “A Gothic Story.” Gothic architecture has since then been a key element of gothic literature.
The Gothic novel grew in the 1780’s from such things as the Gordon riots and the Revolution which changed the social system in Europe. The social revolution, the collapse in the way of life, is portrayed as a disintegrating and haunted Gothic mansion, and the loss of social identity becomes the Gothic hero’s search for identity.
Principle
Elements of Gothic Style
There are many characteristics that define the gothic, but the predominant indication of gothic style is color scheme and environment. Traditionally, gothic novels were set in old castles or cathedrals which aided in establishing a haunting mood. However, American authors (during the time of the American Renaissance) implemented the wilderness and forests to create a new gothic environment with which the American people could identify. The arches created by trees in a forest and the haunted lands of the wilderness replaced the European buildings that defined Gothicism.
The color scheme of the gothic style usually involves the interplay of light and dark colors. Customarily, authors use colors such as black, gray, and brown, contrasted with white or bright colors and mix in colors of red, pink, yellow, or orange. The dark/light contrast of the gothic style is not only used in the color scheme, but can also be conveyed through states of mind or feelings of darkness, or despair, and lightness, or happiness.
Another common element of the gothic style is the revisiting of past sins or crimes, hidden secrets coming out, and the remembrance of evil doings in the past. Startling or strange sounds and haunted figures are some other elements that are often seen in the gothic style.
Two Strands of
Gothic: Horror and Terror
There are two strands of the gothic genre: terror and horror, and authors may choose to utilize only one of these or both. “Terror and horror are so far opposite, that the first expands the soul, and awakens the faculties to a high degree of life; the other contracts, freezes and nearly annihilates them” (Berger). The difference between the two can be more clearly explained in saying that terror is an uneasiness of what could be, while horror is the actualization of something that has happened. The “Craft of Terror,” gives the reader hints of the truth and allows the reader’s imagination to take over and exaggerate what may really be occurring. The “Chambers of Horror,” leaves nothing to the imagination, and crudely explains the details of gruesome events.
The Outsider
Effect
Most gothic literature contains an outsider. The outsider moves along the edges of society, and is often countercultural. “While the society at large always appears middle class in its culture and morality, the Gothic outsider is a counterforce driven by strange longings and destructive needs” (Berger). The outsider is seen as insane, and often feels terrible desires and urges of power and destruction. He is not bound by the laws of society, but rather creates his own laws of existence.
Rip Van Winkle
In Rip Van Winkle, Irving utilizes the gothic scene of an undiscovered wilderness. He describes the scene as, “a deep mountain glen, wild, lonely, and shagged, the bottom filled with fragments from the impending cliffs, and scarcely lighted by the reflected rays of the setting sun” (Irving). The description of what Winkle is seeing envelopes the reader, and sends out a fantastic and dangerous feeling at the same time. The feeling of this passage, along with the darkness that is interplayed with small flecks of light, give way to the dark/light element of the gothic style. Another gothic scene is when Winkle returns to find his house in structural ruins and decaying.
The Outsider Effect is another gothic element that is applicable to this story. Winkle feels disconnected from his life and society, especially when he returns to the town after his long slumber and notices that the town he once knew has undergone drastic changes. Everyone appears sane, whereas Rip Van Winkle appears insane.
The Legend of
Sleepy Hollow
In The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Irving again uses the gothic portrayal of nature as the setting of one of the last scenes. The tree which obstructs Ichabod’s path, “towered like a giant above all the other trees of the neighborhood, and formed a kind of landmark,” with branches that were, “gnarled and fantastic enough to form trunks for ordinary trees, twisting down almost to the earth, and rising again into the air” (Irving). The adjective “gnarled” in the describing the limbs as well as, “twisting down almost to the earth, and rising again into the air,” make it seem as though Irving is painting a picture that the tree has formed a labyrinth – which is indicative of a gothic setting. This towering tree is Irving’s creation of gothic architecture: creating arches with it’s branches, and blocking most of the light as to create the light/dark element of gothic style. Another element of this story that points to Gothicism is the character of Ichabod Crane. Ichabod’s pale skin up against the dark clothing he wears, and that he is an outsider in the town of Sleepy Hollow, make him a gothic character.
The Minister’s
Black Veil
In The Minister’s Black Veil, Hawthorn adds to the traditional gothic elements and incorporates a moral gothic style. Moral Gothic is often used in writing about past, guilt, and sin, and this story focuses on the conflict between righteousness and sin. The black veil that covers Hooper’s face contributes to the moral gothic style and traditional gothic style. The veil is described as consisting of, “two folds of crape, which concealed his features, except the mouth and chin, but probably did not intercept his sight, farther than to give a darkened aspect to all living and inanimate things” (Hawthorne). The gothic light/darkness element is used in the portrait that Hawthorne paints of the minister’s pale face barely showing through the black veil. The veil also places darkness over everything that Hooper sees, causing the people in his congregation to appear both physically and spiritually dark.
But the black veil serves as more than a part of a traditional gothic color scheme – it is also associated with the memory of a past sin. The reader gets the idea that Hooper must wear this veil in order to contain his sins of the past from penetrating the town, just as Gothic castle walls would contain the crimes committed within its walls. The veil also serves to separate Hooper from the rest of the townspeople, as he is forced to move on the outskirts of society. True to the outsider effect: while everyone in town is seen as sane, the minister is seen as being insane. The veil so far removes Hooper from society that he feels compelled to, “give up his customary walk, at sunset, to the burial ground: for when he leaned pensively over the gate, there would always be faces behind the grave-stones, peeping at his black veil” – he is an outsider to the dead as well as the living (Hawthorne).
The customary walks that Hooper would take through the graveyard are indicative of a standard traditional gothic element of “The Minister’s Black Veil.” The cemetery creates thoughts of death, darkness, and decay which give the reader an eerie feeling about the scene and the minister’s dark habits.
The Fall of the
House of Usher
Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher, is a psychological gothic story where the mind is haunted as well as the surrounding environment. When Roderick Usher realizes he has buried his sister alive, his mind haunts and tortures him for days.
Roderick Usher and his sister, lady Madeline, are gothic characters. Lady Madeline appears dressed in white, as if she were already a ghost wandering through the house. She is described as having, “a settled apathy, a gradual wasting away of the person, and frequent although transient affections of a partially comatose character” (Poe). Both siblings were outsiders who avoided society, but she hid from all visitors, and preferred to waste away in privacy. Usher is also gothic in appearance with his pale skin and dark clothes.
The house is a traditional gothic castle, set apart from the rest of the world. The reader has an eerie dark feeling as the narrator of this story describes what he sees as he glances at the house: “I reined my horse to the precipitous brink of a black and lurid tarn that lay in unruffled luster by the dwelling, and gazed down – but with a shudder even more thrilling than before – upon the remodeled and inverted images of the gray sedge, and the ghastly tree-stems, and the vacant and eye-like windows” (Poe). The inside of the house is no less gothic than the outside. As the two men carry lady Madeline’s corpse down to the vault, the reader gets an idea of a maze-like structure as they head down the intricate passageway.
This story is of the terror strand of gothic which leaves Usher and sister’s situation to be interpreted by the reader. The narrator doesn’t go into graphic details about what happened, instead tells of sounds and sights that are seen from afar. This way, the reader does not actually get a gruesome description of the sister, but rather just lets the reader take over and imagine how she would appear.
1408
King’s story, 1408 is about an author who is writing a book about haunted places, and ends up ending this career after staying in Hotel Dolpohin, room 1408. This is a psychological gothic story, and leaves the reader wondering if the events in Rm. 1408 are truly happening, or if they are imagined.
In the beginning of the story, the reader learns that Rm. 1408 has been the setting of over 40 deaths, beginning with the room’s first customer committing suicide. The staff and hotel manager believe there is a dark presence in the room, and only enter the when absolutely necessary. Once the author finally gets to the room, he immediately notices that the door is crooked, and upon entering the room he notices that all the pictures on the walls are also crooked.
The color scheme of the room is dripping with gothic: the walls are a sickly white color, the drapes are a dark heavy material, the bedspread is a yellow-orange, and the light fixtures are old and gave off a yellow color. The author continuously tries to describe the color of the light of the room, and finally figures that it is, “Tango light. The kind of light that makes the dead get up out of their graves and tango” (King). This description of the orange-yellow light has a gothic feeling to it in that the idea of the dead coming out of their graves is very dark, but it is interplayed with the lightness of the thought of the dead tangoing. Another reoccurring color is “the red eye” of the author’s minicorder, which the author guards as his security blanket.
The presence that fills the room, and is said to be the cause of so many deaths in room 1408, is another gothic element. The presence in the room represents past sins that have come to wreak havoc on anyone who dares enter the room. When the author first enters room 1408, he notices that the wallpaper, “feels like old dead skin” as he feels around for the light switch. The dead skin of the wallpaper, the death that has occurred in the past and the arches that appear as the room begins to change shapes, give the room a very strong gothic feel.
Man in the Black
Suit
Stephen King’s “Man in the Black Suit,” is about a boy who encounters a mysterious stranger in a black suit while he fishes in a stream near his house. This is a wilderness gothic story that takes place in a secluded area with no one around except for the strange man in the black suit. The boy went to the stream and fell asleep waiting for a fish to bite, but when he woke up, there was a tall strange man standing a few feet away from him.
The evil creature is the gothic figure in this story. He wears a full black suit in the summer-time, and has pale skin and red penetrating eyes. This creature smells of decay and death, and kills everything he touches. He is an outsider who has destructive needs and an urge for power and devastation. And as the evil creature eats, tears of blood come running down his face.
Another gothic element of this story was the environment. Although the story takes place on a warm summer day, the trees of the wilderness create a castle above him letting little light through the roof. The many obstacles that get in the boy’s way as he runs home from the stream make the wilderness seem like a labyrinth. Both of King’s stories use the same gothic elements that early writers used in their gothic literature; therefore, it seems that gothic literature has not changed over the years, but has actually remained quite the same.
The Others
Due to the amount of television, video games and movies that have become such a regular part of American society, today’s younger generations are more visually dependent. Because of this, I wanted to include some gothic movies in my research. I wanted to choose a terror movie and a horror movie in order to cover both strands of the gothic style. The Others is a terror story about a family who thinks there are ghosts in their home – only they come to find in the end that they are the unwelcome ghosts who inhabit the mansion.
Because of the children’s skin condition, the entire mansion remains darkened, with only a small amount of candlelight to help the characters find their way around. Also, all of the characters are very pale-skinned and wear very dark, Puritan clothing. These play into the dark/light element of the gothic style.
Another gothic element of this story is the outsider effect. Due to a blanket of fog that wraps around the estate, the entire family is cut off from society. However, even if this fog were not keeping the family from leaving, the fact that the family is dead or the children’s extreme sensitivity to light would still prevent them from interacting with society.
I think this story belongs under the category of psychological gothic because of the remembrance of evil doings in the past. The haunting of the mansion is equal to the haunting inside the mother’s mind. She hears startling or strange sounds and sees things that cannot logically be explained and it is driving her to madness. Years earlier the mother had gone into a mad fit and killed her children and then herself, but she did not remember any of this happening and just wrote it off as a bad day. Now, all that is happening in the house is due to the mother’s past evil doings catching up with her.
House on Haunted
Hill
The House on Haunted Hill was the movie I chose to represent the horror strand of gothic style. The main story is that several strangers are brought together under mysterious circumstances and are forced to stay the night in a mansion that seeks deathly revenge on them. True to the definition of horror story, the movie leaves nothing to question and crudely shows gruesome death scenes.
The house itself is portrayed as being a living thing, alive with an evil spirit. The house was once a laboratory of a mad scientist who performed perverted experiments on mental patients, but one day the patients decided to fight back and everyone inside died. The evil spirit of those who died in the house wants revenge on the past crimes and sins that occurred within the walls of this house, which is why the strangers were assembled on the dreadful evening. Strange sounds and haunted images flash before the guests of the house and the viewers at home, creating a creepy feeling that resonates throughout the movie. Also, the combined evil spirits that are trapped inside the house have the desire to do evil things to the over-night guests, which makes them dark outsiders.
Conclusion
The gothic style takes a reader on a mental
journey where they experience themes of death and loss, which they may other
wise avoid. The best thing about
the gothic is that this idea grasps so much more than just scary – it includes
the creepy, eerie, haunting, and so much more.
Gothic elements have not changed over the years.
Since this genre is growing in popularity, this would imply that these
elements work to correctly support the style.
Themes of dark and light, of past sin and crime, of strange and startling
noises, and of mystical haunted settings will forever define the gothic genre,
but perhaps someday there will be a new approach to the gothic elements.
Until then, the gothic elements used to support gothic literature more
than suffice society’s appetite for terror and horror.
Works Cited
Frederick
R. Karl, "Gothic, Gothicism, Gothicists" in The Adversary
Literature: The English Novel in the Eighteenth Century -- A Study in Genre
(New York: Farrar, 1974), pp. 235-274.
House on Haunted Hill. Dir. William Malone. Perf. Geoffrey Rush, Famke Janssen, Taye Diggs, Peter Gallagher, Chris Kattan, Ali Larter, Bridgette Wilson, Max Perlich, Jeffrey Combs. Warner Bros., 1999.
King, Stephen.
Everything's Eventual: 1408.1st
ed.NY: Pocket Books, 2002.
King, Stephen. Everything's Eventual:The Man in the Black Suit.1st
ed.NY: Pocket Books, 2002.
Lauter, Paul, ed. The Heath Anthology of American Literature. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006.
Ruotolo, Christine. "Individual and Social Psychologies of the Gothic." The Gothic: Materials for Study. ENEC 981:The Novel of Sensibility. 10 Apr 2006 <www.engl.virginia.edu/ened981/Group/title.html>.
Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. Revised Text Edition (1831).NY: Bantam Classics, 1997.
The Others. Dir. Alejandro Amenábar. Perf. Nicole Kidman, Christopher Eccleston, Alakina Mann, Fionnula Flanagan, James Bentley. Dimension Films, 2001.
