Defining the Gothic: Revisited

Gothic literature is not Gothic architecture, gothic fashion, or gothic music. Gothic literature may contain elements of these other gothic enterprises but a woman with black eye make up; playing a guitar in a cathedral does not necessarily a gothic story make. To explain the gothic you should understand what it is doing, how it does it, what appears Gothic but is not, and why it matters.

To call something gothic should conjure up all sorts of images: gargoyles, women running from abusive barons, ghostly apparitions, and a good bit of fainting. This conjuration that accompanies the use of any word makes defining that word all the more important. Calling a piece of literature gothic should let the reader know that the work deals with uncomfortable emotions, and there likely will not be a typical happy ending. Calling the gothic also should cue other ideas of what one might expect from the story.

           

Gothic tropes include:

Supernatural events – giants, skeletons, ghosts, moving paintings, the undead

Oppression of women – forced marriage, rape, reduced role in deciding one’s own fate

Fear of science

Fear of weather

Fear of the mind – are those ghosts real? Am I imagining this?

A story that occurs in a mysterious or ruined abbey or castle

Oppression by the church

Oppression from one’s past

Forbidden love

Some pieces may contain these elements but are not using them for the gothic purpose. Other pieces may contain only some of these elements.

Harry Potter contains giants, but is it gothic? That element of it fits into the gothic literary genre but you must analyze the piece as a whole.

The gothic should frighten you, or at least make you feel uncomfortable.

Go-Daddy commercials can make you feel uncomfortable, and a beautiful woman kissing a nerdy man is certainly an example of forbidden love but the piece as a whole is not very gothic.

The horror genre contains the same aim as the gothic genre but accomplishes its task in different way. The horror genre may even contain some gothic tropes, but when taken as a whole the piece is called horror. This could be because the piece employs more horror techniques (senseless bloodshed, daisy dukes, large shiny knives, men in masks) but lacks the class and modesty of the gothic.

To call a piece of work gothic, you have to be able to justify it. If you believe Dracula, or Twilight to be gothic you have to follow the evidence. Pieces that are missing some gothic elements may be sufficiently gothic if they don’t pull too much from the horror, or science fiction grab bag. If a key part of the work is intimately gothic then you may deem that piece gothic, even if it takes place aboard a spaceship in the year 2045 and not in a baron’s castle.

There is no checklist for gothic; a piece isn’t gothic just because you have seven check marks in the gothic trope category and only four in horror. Assigning a check mark to tropes does not appropriately represent the significance that the trope plays in the story. Assigning a piece into the gothic genre is not black and white. Something is not simply “Goth” or “not Goth” Instead the gothic represents a spectrum. The Castle of Otranto is very gothic; you can find it just past Beauty and the Beast on the gothic scale. Twilight and James Bond can also be called gothic and you can find those pieces just past Ruby Gloom on the gothic scale.

So in the question should not be “is it Goth or not?” The question should be “How gothic is it?” The previously mentioned black-eyed woman playing a guitar in a cathedral could indeed be gothic. The piece would have to be analyzed for any other gothic tropes, the use of tropes from other genres, the significance of those tropes in the piece, and the purpose of the piece. After all that has been done, one could never decide it is not gothic, one could only decide just how gothic it is.

"The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Stetson

“The Yellow Wall Paper” by Charlotte Perkins Stetson addresses the issue of woman’s inability to confront and solve issues imposed upon them by a male dominated society, in a productive and conventional way. Women in this period were denied the means of usual problem solving, because of their role in society. Men of the period believed women were weak, prone to flights of fancy, unable to decide what was in their best interest, and needed a man to direct their life for them.

            The work begins by the Narrator expressing her concern that the house is unusual, and maybe haunted. Her husband, John, laughs at her and the Narrator says, “one expects that in marriage.” The narrator is concerned but her husband will not take her seriously. John believes that he knows what is right.

            Like his belief that the house is okay, John does not believe that there is anything wrong with his wife’s health. However he has recommended a cure that includes isolation rest, and no work of any kind. The Narrator wishes to see her family, and child but John does not think that would be good for her health. John prescribes scheduled naps, and chastises the Narrator for getting out of bed at night. The Narrator is dissatisfied with their bedroom but John does not allow her to change rooms, and attributes her dislike for the room as a fancy, which she must not indulge.

            The room itself represents the Narrator’s, and women in general, place in society. She cannot change the room even though she finds its alarming and revolting. The bed is nailed down, the windows are barred, and the wallpaper forms a prison for a woman, when viewed in the moonlight. Like the Narrator the woman in the wallpaper is trapped. The Narrator tries to help her escape, but rather than the woman escaping out of the wallpaper, The Narrator escapes into it, or rather into her own head, rejecting the world which has resigned her to a nominal role.

            A man in this period would not have been forced to accept bed rest as a cure for a problem that no one believed was really there at all. He would have been taken seriously, and his opinion would have counted. A man would have had the opportunity to decide for himself that he is well enough to work, or visit his family. If a man were unhappy with his room, he would change it. Women were denied the same paths for seeing their will put into effect. They were something to be conducted by men, their decisions contingent on the decisions of the man. The Narrator is denied this options and must resort to a different sort of problem solving. There is no way to seek change within the system, so she leaves the system.

"The Ruins of the Abbey of Fitz-Martin"

The principal gothic tropes in the “Ruins…” include angry, powerful, and manipulative men. This trope manifests itself in the Knight, and the Baron/Vortimer. The Baron is only using Anna to regain the abbey. The current owner of the abbey finds it in ruin, and is forced inside its mysterious interior by stormy weather. Rosaline encounters a supernatural voice, and figurines of death in Anna’s tomb. Anna is imprisoned in this tomb by corrupt church figures, who have been manipulated by the Baron.

The solutions that the author offers are not very hopeful. The women in the story have no way of escaping from these problems in life. The only way out is to die. Even if you run away, you either must return, or you will be tracked down. In death you are free from these problems, and in death you are able to exact revenge. Only in death is Anna able to be free from her father and husband. In death she is also afforded the power to make these people pay for what they have done to her. The anonymous author, a woman, writing in a period in which women had very little control of their life must have been hoping to warn women about the dangers of men and the world in general. Even if you can escape wedding the wrong man, you may find yourself haunted by their power, or forced into a corrupt and unforgiving religious life. Women simply can’t win. Armed with this knowledge women may better control their own fate, or at least see that there are often ulterior motives behind the actions of men. 

17th Century Fears

Literature is always representative of the time it was written. This is because the author is a byproduct of his environment. 17^th century England was a confusing, dark, rigidly constructed, and constraining time period and Walpole’s Castle of Otranto draws in the appropriate fears to frighten and delight a contemporary audience.

Walpole deals with environmental fears such as darkness, and storms. To a modern day reader these fears are almost nonexistent. Aside from rare circumstances of extreme weather, a modern day reader can almost always avoid these situations. The world is filled with lights, flashlights, stabile and frequent shelter, raincoats, and cars. Someone in 2013 rarely needs to fear getting caught away from home unprepared for the weather. 17^th century readers did not enjoy these luxuries. To get caught outside unprepared could mean your death. A particularly strong storm might destroy your home, or leak through your primitive roof meaning you were not even safe in your own home. When the sun went down, and darkness fell, there was no work around. This darkness creates a perfect environment of mystery and misunderstanding which harbors all things dreadful and supernatural.

Science in the 17^th century was laughable. People were still very dependent on the supernatural for providing explanations questions, which could not be answered. Today, there is scientific method and theory, and many of those questions have been answered. In the 17^th century the supernatural was less extraordinary, and more accepted. That is not to say that the power of the supernatural was lost on Walpole or his contemporaries. Since the supernatural served as the traditional method of explaining things, and had such an integral part in their lives, when the supernatural was warped and made dreadful the effect was all the more powerful. A skeleton hermit in a hood was not something to be questioned, but something to be feared and respected.

Equally as important in 17^th century England was the respect for the Church. Walpole displays the Church as a shining beacon of light, Matilda wishes to be a nun, Hippolita would be happy doing the same, Jerome is a pious and just man who resists Manfred’s cruelty, and offers sanctuary to Isabella. Here the church is doing exactly what the church should be doing. What 17^th century readers feared was the breakdown of the status quo. Much of The Castle of Otranto focuses on people behaving as they should not or being afflicted by troubles foreign to their station. Manfred is cruel rather than magnanimous, Isabella is husband less rather than married to Conrad, Matilda is dead and in love with a peasant rather than alive and married to a nobleman, Hippolita has a disloyal husband, Theodore is a peasant, than a prisoner, than a dueling knight, and finally a prince. 17^th century England was built on a strict class system, and the chaos ensuing around the breakdown of this system was a real fear. In modern day society where social mobility is high, this fear is foreign. The breakdown of the system was not the only fear. The system working correctly was also frightful because it left woman almost powerless to their male counterparts.

Walpole was able to create a work, which frightened his contemporaries. Audiences love a good scare. There is something to be said for the simple pleasure, the rush of endorphins, which a good scare can deliver. Except one does not have to risk all the actual side effects which would accompany such a scare. No need to actually duel your future father in law, go face to face with a giant, see the ruin of a castle, or the death of a young groom by falling helmet. This scare takes place in a controlled environment. When one has had too much all one has to do is close the book. Walpole allowed 17^th century readers to experience that rush by drawing in very real fears and making them “scary fun” rather than “scary you might die.”

Defining the Gothic

     The gothic means a lot of things. Gothic could describe the barbarians that the Romans encountered. To the Romans these people were uncivilized, their ways were not understood. Their savagery was frightening to the proper and refined ways of the Romans. Gothic architecture when compared to the neoclassical style could be viewed the same way. It is old, and to an extent incorrect. The pointed arches, and ornate features were not Roman. The classical here represents something clean, precise, understood, and beautiful. Gothic is old, misunderstood, old fashioned, and savage. Gothic literature continues this sort of tradition, relying on making use of the misunderstood and savage to create fear.
     The gothic genre is very much like the horror genre. Both genres are concerned with frightening us. A certain amount of enjoyment can be had from being scared, and a certain amount of truth can be gleaned from this literature. If we can understand the gothic, we can better understand ourselves. By opening ourselves up to our fears, we can learn to confront them and master them. This is why humans have been telling scary stories for as long as there have been humans.The gothic genre differs from the horror genre it that the gothic has a certain amount of class about it, born from the period in which this literature first appeared. The Castle of Otranto is frightening, but not in a Texas Chain Saw Massacre sort of way. There is not a young blonde, in daisy dukes being chased through the woods by a masked assailant. The gothic is older than that, classier than that, more period than that. The young blue jean cutoff woman is replaced by a gentlewoman, in a gown, who takes a wrong turn on her way to the grand dining hall, and finds herself in a dark hallway lined with gargoyles. The fear is less direct, much more mysterious. The gothic genre was born out of this period and the features of this period have stuck to the genre. The gothic would not be so gothic if the young damsel went missing in a pristine neoclassical courtyard, because in this period that architecture would represent something entirely different, the mood would not be the same at all. The fear and mystery of the thing is enhanced by the architecture.
     Part of what defines the gothic is this sort of class. The young woman in a gown should be comforting. She should be enjoying herself, feeling safe and popular, courted by the young duke. However the gothic achieves its goal of frightening us because it can successfully turn this comfort upside down. The gothic takes what should be safe and romantic, and turns them into something which is darker, and more sinister. Here, the gothic is a result of its period. A woman being chased by a man with a chainsaw, would be very confusing to its audience, but would be much too fearful and inappropriate. The gothic is from an earlier time, when what was feared was much different than what is feared today. People then had a more innocent disposition. The very beginnings of the horror genre must take baby steps. The gothic was a stepping stone, people were beginning to analyze the fears they felt. These may not be foreign fears to modern day readers, but they are a different embodiment of these fears.
     The gothic is an old genre. People had been telling tales that frightened them for a very long time, but to publish a work in which a young duke is out to kidnapp gentlewoman was a very bold thing to do. The gothic was a fist step to exploring our fears, and like being alone in the dark, people fear what they do not understand. Authors could not just jump into all at once, they had to start slowly, The gothic is a product of its environment because it took the environment of the time and made it frightening the best way it could. Audiences today do not fear spiky ornaments or arches but in the period authors felt that by incorporating these factors they would be adding to the suspense, and creating the desired mood. The gothic is a horror genre, but a horror genre that is horrific to the people that wrote and read it when the genre was first created. Perhaps in defining the gothic it would be useful to describe it as just a horror genre and accompany that definition with the understanding that what has feared audiences has changed, and will continue to change overtime.