Summary The Gothic- Unseen Analysis Essay HELP BOOKLET
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Course
The Gothic
Institution
OCR
This booklet provides a detailed and coherent cover of the gothic in recent and ancient history, as well as highlighting key themes and topics, available for discussion in the unseen extract essay which appears in the OCR English Literature examination.
*Eighteenth century *Romantic era
*Victorian *Fin de Siècle
*Twentieth and Twenty first century
Planning an essay:
1. Identify: setting, structure, characters,
narrative and plot
2. Identify gothic concepts
3. LSF: characterisation, narrative, imagery, lexis,
figurative language
4. Context and Critics
5. Argument and interpretation (what does this
mean?)
,Gothic concepts to consider:
Horror= defined as fear generated through the
uncertain, unseen or obscure
Terror= generated by physical shock actually seen or
experienced
Excess= amount is more than necessary= the opposite
of rational, interested in dark and barbarous,
undermining social order, illegitimate power and
violence. Excessive via emotional reaction, fears
anxieties, superstition
Transgression= goes against laws, rule or codes.
Breaking bounds of reasonable, blurring definitions of
reason and morality
Sublime= Sense of awe or astonishment, overwhelmed
by something greater, unable to comprehend the
experience, both majestic and terrifying at the same
time.
The Uncanny= strange, eerie, mysterious both foreign
yet strange yet also familiar
Taboos= cultural, moral or religious rules which are not
to be violated
The supernatural= what is above nature
Oppositions= oppositions are often out under pressure
and may be shown to collapse = showing they are not
so rigidly different
Otherness= ‘other’ is anything different form ourselves
and perceived as a threat
, Obscurity=includes both physical and mental obscurity,
darkness and confusion
Revenant= the past returning, an action, memory, fear-
repressed thoughts
Duality and Doppelganger= being in two or two parts,
mirror image or alter ego = negative evil or repressed
within the individual
Liminal= on a threshold or boundary- fluidity, refusing
categorisation, unfixed
Context:
*The influence of the domestic= can be seen in the
works of Angela Carter, Sarah Walters, Hillary Mantel.
Familiar and domestic settings are disturbing and
dysfunctional.
*Contemporary British Gothic fiction is frequently
characterised by excess, perversity and strangeness
and violence occupying a ‘safe’ space
*Tends to represent psychologically interior forms of
dread often set within British locations
*The Nightmare 1781 oil painting by Henry Fuseli=
shows woman in sleep with her arms below her.
Demonic creature crouched on her chest= dreamlike
and haunting erotic
*Archetypes= very typical example of a certain thing =
eg vulnerable female. Tyrants, villains, baryonic heroes,
femme fatal
Key context notes:
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