Gothic Literature Essay

Gothic American literature explores the human capacity of evil and includes elements of fantasy and supernatural. Instead of looking at the good in people, Gothic authors always sought out the bad. Works written during this time had characters such as monsters, gargoyles, and the devil. Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs, “The Black Cat” by Edgar A. Poe, and “The Devil and Tom Walker” by Washington Irving all have elements of Gothic literature such as supernatural characters and violent actions. Monsters and supernatural characters play a major role in Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. In the novel, the orphans all live in a supernatural orphanage where everyone there has a super power. Miss Peregrine
In this short story, the main character, an alcoholic, gets angry at his black cat and takes from his coat, “a pen-knife, opened it, grasped the poor beast by the throat, and deliberately cut one of its eyes from the socket” (Poe 2). In the end he kills his wife and hides her body in the wall only to be discovered by a twist of fate. The one-eyed cat is buried with his wife and lets out a “cry, at first muffled and broken, like the sobbing of a child, and then quickly swelling into one long, loud, and continuous scream” and alerts the police in his house (Poe 6). As true Gothic literature, “The Black Cat” is violent and disturbing. Another element of Gothic literature, the Devil as a character, is displayed in Washington Irving’s short story “The Devil and Tom Walker.” The main character, Tom Walker “shook hands and struck a bargain” with the devil in the woods and becomes very wealthy by becoming a usurer and “opens a broker’s shop in Boston” (Washington 329). In exchange, “the black man whisked him like a child into the saddle” at the end of his life and keeps his soul (Washington 332). The Devil is portrayed as a character in this short story which categorizes this as Gothic