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Summary key definitions for gothic literature
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this outlines key gothic tropes and motifs with their definitions that you should look for when analysing gothic passages and when writing themed questions.
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Key gothic definitions:Gothic made to force the reader into extremes, to reveal/ expose/ challenge/ criticise/ question/
subvert cultural anxieties and provoke a creation and make the reader uncomfortable. The gothic is
allowed to do this because it is fantastical, but relates to reality. Interested in 2 sensibilities:
- Excitement and anxiety
- Terror and horror
The role of the gothic is also chiefly to entertain and shock in unexpected ways.
“curdle the blood and quicken the beating of the heart” Shelley
“provoke unease” Carter
The reader is forced to experience terror and horror with the characters themselves.
Terror – “awakens the faculties to a higher degree of life” Ann Radcliffe. Often anticipates horror.
Victor’s terror of death led to the creation of the monster. Victor’s terror of women leads to the
violent destruction and the disturbing dream. Victor’s imbued with terror as he fears the return of
his creation.
All the women are empowered by terror in Carter’s short stories.
Horror – “freezes and annihilates the senses” Ann Radcliffe
Victor experiences horror at his creation and then is constantly imbued with terror. Victor also
horrified at himself and his own transgression. The victims of the creature are horrified by his
appearance.
The girl entering the Bloody Chamber, not many of the heroines experience horror, instead terror as
they are not passive but active.
Uncanny – “uncanny is in reality nothing new or alien, but something which is familiar… which has
become alienated through repression” what is both familiar and unfamiliar Freud 1919
Heimlich – domestic environments. What is both familiar and unfamiliar
Shudder – bodily physical reaction of horror and repulsion, sensory. Comes from French word orror
meaning horror.
Liminality – blurring of boundaries i.e. ghost in the living world but dead (life and death) (real and
imagination) (hero and villain)
Doubling – similarities between two characters, actions, looks, voice etc.
Sublime – what both invokes awe and terror “anything that operate in a manner analogues to
terror, is a source of the sublime.” Edmund Burke 1757
Transgression - goes against a law, rule, or code of conduct; an offence. Taboo. This can empower
(Carter) or it can warn against (Shelley).
Attraction/ repulsion dichotomy – the paradox of being simultaneously repulsed and attracted to
something taboo
Archetypes – women “fallen women” of “angel of the house” virgin vs. whore. Most women in the
gothic are Justine and passive. Occasionally you see a more dangerous, predatory female i.e., Bertha
Maison, Carmilla. These women tend to monstrous, they are deviant, don’t fit the mould of what a
woman is categorised as. Men – hero vs. villain.
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