Gothic litterature

Sujet 1: Essay : How has Gothic literature influenced our contemporary culture ? Give examples (500-600 words).

First of all, let’s define the notion of Gothic literature: it is a writing that is characteristic of gloomy and picturesque scenery, supernatural elements, melodramatic narrative devices, startling and an overall atmosphere of mystery, fear, and dread. As mentioned in class, this form of literature was born in eighteenth-century and contains frightening elements, dark aesthetic and one or several human or non-human villains. From a psychological point of view, Gothic novels has “to do with the ways in which otherwise repressed fears are represented in textual form”. As a matter of fact, “the Gothic always remains the symbolic site of a culture’s discursive struggle to define and claim possession of the civilized, and to abject, or throw off, what is seen as other to that civilized self”. This literary genre was influenced by societal changes and shifts (scientific discoveries, the rise of new social classes, industrial development, urbanisation, feminism). It deeply affected our contemporary culture in the themes addressed in the literature. For instance, the Romantic poets were influenced by it: their emphasis on introversion, sensation, the human psyche, the sublime and an idealized past. Moreover, two major Gothic villains and literary myths, Frankenstein’s creature and Dracula, the modern vampire, were created by Romantics. Frankenstein is a visionary work and is the very first science fiction novel. In fact, it is the body which provides the side of terror and it shows social fears at the time because of advancement of the science. [pic 1]

Nowadays, Gothic literature has been replaced by ghost and horror stories, detective fiction, suspense and thriller novels, and other contemporary forms that underline mystery, shock, and sensation.

We can notice that Gothic literature writings employs the same techniques present in the Romanticism which are still used to this day. In the same manner with, J.K. Rowling demonstrates this in her Harry Potter series. The seven-book series is loaded up with Gothic Machines, most notably Lord Voldemort. We likewise have our Byronic hero; Harry Potter, of the eponymous series, composed of flaws and sensitiveness, which makes him more human in the eyes of the reader. Marketed as children’s fiction, the Harry Potter series explores the extremely grown-up topics of war and ethnic cleansing. These subjects are still very much in the European consciousness long after World War II ended.

Throughout the twentieth- and twenty-first centuries, the Gothic mode reemerged not just in literature, photography and cinema, but also in graphic novels and television. The latest examples of this expansion on television are the series frequently based on previous literary or graphic works which engaged, in turn, with the Gothic genre: “True Blood”, “The Vampire Diaries”, or ‘The Walking Dead’, among many others.

To conclude, I believe it is worth understanding that earlier gothic literature novels influenced later works of horror. Writing stories where the sole purpose to scare people was unfathomable of until The Castle of Otranto. Since that initial endeavor into the genre of Gothic literature, writers have used it to explore the social, political, and scientific advancement through the monstrous creations both the otherworldly and the conceivable.

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