English
Literature
Paper 2, Section
A
Unseen Gothic
Summary content booklet
*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:
