Briskly walking through the mysterious darkness of the menacing forest, grasping tightly my withering frozen hand, my petrified newly wed wife clung on for protection. It was pitch dark on a cold foggy night in the mid days of December. We were in search of somewhere to rest our staggering and lost bodies. My wife and I had been walking for miles through this never ending cursed old forest.…
In Southern Gothic genre, there is dark humor in the stories. It exposes the problems of society, but also reveals this by developing complex characters. The authors explored the behaviors of people (usually strange) and the social order of the South. Through their stories, the authors hoped to show that the social order was fragile, and the realities behind it were actually disturbing. The authors work to point out truths of Southern culture and its moral shortcomings. The themes of this genre are developed around these goals. Through violence, perverse, and grotesque images O’Connor depicts a setting characterized by sin, guilt, and…
Social and Historical Effects Responsible for the Conception of the Fantastic and Supernatural in Gothic Horror…
“Gothic Literature is concerned with the breaking of normal moral and social codes” Discuss (40 marks).…
Relating to Gothic literature, Gothic films appropriate the subversive shudders of the eighteenth and nineteenth century gothic literature, it has for a century infiltrated popular culture increasingly taking centre stage. Some of the early gothic rock artists adopted traditional horror film images and drew on horror film soundtracks for inspiration. The common characteristics include vampires, ghosts, werewolves, bats, cobwebs, monsters, old dark houses, sublime castles, dungeons, graveyards and secret passages. The vampire embodies both life and death taking the life of others to sustain itself and in so doing living immortally, has been adopted by part of the Goth subculture as a cultural icon. Horror film fans would say that the Goth genre…
Changes are not easily made in life. To be able to change, one must be able to handle and accept the consequences that going to happen because it not only affects the person that is willing to change, but it also affects the people that surround them. Common themes that are seen to advance Southern Gothic Literature short stories are the usage of “tradition” and “interiority” as a means of getting the readers to feel sympathy for the characters that have no control of changing their fate. From gender roles to society rules, people have an appetite for control and traditions are one aspect of life that people can and will control. Traditions are beliefs/procedures that are made from one point in time and then continued and done routinely. When traditions are being challenge to change or are in the process of being changed, the ones that are accustomed the most to certain traditions being to fear of losing control of what is theirs. In the short stories by Alice Munro and Shirley Jackson, both authors show that some traditions are found to be helpful and advantageous while others are poor and…
Gothic literature demonstrates the consequences of disrupting the natural order of things. Consider the texts you have read in the light of this comment.…
Authors like Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and William Faulkner have presented gothic literature throughout their writing during the 18th and 19th centuries. Gothic literature is defined as a "distinct modern development in which the characteristic theme is the stranglehold of the past upon the present"(294 Drabble and Stringer).Therefore, to deliver this theme to their readers they used gothic elements to create a "dark" sensation especially in the area of setting. All three authors in their literature portray accursed or decaying settings that are associated to violence, poverty, and human behavior. It appears authors like Poe, Hawthorne, and Faulkner were drawn to this elements of Gothicism for what it revealed about human psychology…
To summarize Stephen King’s argument, he explains his thoughts on why people crave horror movies. After reading the give supports of why, Stephen King has been convincing that people are attracted to horror movies because they let people express they’re fearless, their true sanity and feeling on normality.…
Nowadays, people are still enticed by fear, they have a curiosity for the supernatural, evil and frightening. Although modern day society is supposedly politically correct, we are still an immoral society and many of us would treat a creature like Frankenstein's creation or a vampire like Dracula like a monster. In this way, the novels still have social significance.…
Having the horror genre gives us a chance to escape reality. Humans go through so many things everyday. Working, going to school, taking care of kids, finishing deadlines, and even cleaning up the house. Lots of people say that it isn’t stressful, but doing all of it in a single day can be a real challenge. In order to win the challenge we have to take a short cut. Anything from the horror/ gothic genre can be that short cut. According to Stephen King in “Why We Crave Horror Movies,” and Carina Chocano in “How Tabloid Train Wrecks are Reinventing Gothic Literature” we humans are a bit wrong in the head. The purpose of the gothic genre is to let people experience a thrilling sensation.…
Southern Gothic Literature is a genre that focuses on events occurring in the American South after the Civil War. It involves supernatural events, monsters, heroes, and must reveal social and cultural issues. Boo Radley, a character who lives in Maycomb, fits the supernatural role in Southern Gothic Literature. To fit this role, ironic and unusual events should occur involving that person. Boo does a lot of unusual things throughout the story. He lives in an old, eerie house which reflects his character, “the misery of that house began many years before” (9). Scout and Jem were born after Boo Radley started staying inside, and Boo ended up being hidden for years. He is sheltered, deprived, and keeps to himself. The house begins to represent Boo and how he lives in “misery.” This is ironic because most people like to be social when living in a neighborhood like his, but it’s his choice to be kept up inside. If he’s really miserable, you would think he would change the way he’s living. He “dined on raw squirrels and any cats he could catch,” which isn’t the normal for most people (13). In fact, it’s quite disturbing. Including the fact that he dines on raw squirrels and cats helps his character fit the role even better because this is very unusual. The fact that he hasn’t made any physical appearances yet shows that he is only viewed in spirit; he is truly a supernatural creature. When the kids thought they “saw an inside shutter move,” it gave the readers a hint that Boo Radley might actually be the “malevolent phantom” he’s portrayed as (12). This isn’t unusual in the sense of him eating squirrels, but unusual as in he’s never been seen by Scout, Jem, or many others, but it seems as though he’s getting curious. Whether or not he fits the title given to him by the people of Maycomb, they are going to believe whatever they hear because it has been a controversial topic for fifteen years.…
Throughout human history there have been many literary genres to come and go. Some were entertained by the general public while others may have had a critical reception by a marginally smaller audience (or minority). Though what remains the same, across the board of all genres, there is the thirst for imagination as well as the fulfillment of human curiosity. Albeit relatively new, both fantasy and horror (also respectively different) are successful and popular as genres, for they are able to satisfy the basic human emotion of curiosity and are able to cater towards the human imagination. Sigmund Freud explains how children’s role-played imaginative worlds become suppressed adult fantasies and are therefore tended to go through various mediums; literary fantasy being among one of them. Horror has been able to capitalize on the human’s natural curiosity for the unknown, or death, by bringing its audience as close as possible to it. Although the horror and fantasy genres are different with respect to their content, they share many similarities as to why they (and many other genres) are so popular. Their deep psychological impact on human curiosity and imagination has been just as relevant to both sets of their audiences.…
People who prefer horror films obiously like to be grossed out or like to be frightened. The horror fans usually tend to enjoy suspense and anxiety. One might suspect these people love to go on frightening roller coaster rides or do other thinfs that would cause suspense and anxiousness. People of this nature might also enjoy things that most people would not, considering the amount of gore produced in many horror films. For example, some people watch surgeries purely for fun. While others, like myself, would become sick even thinking about cutting someone open. Horror films are infact unsetting films deisnged to frighten and panic, cause dread and alarm, and invoke our worst hidden fears while doing it in a shocling yet entertaining way. People who preferably enjoy these kind movies are usually intrigured by such things as nightmares, vampire, werewolves etc. Sometime its even the simple thrill of our vulneravilty, alienation, and cliques such as “the terror unknown that draw these people to the horror genre.…
A classic, written in 1897, that depicts the elements of gothic literature with the ideas of the Victorian Era, is a horror story called Dracula. Written by Bram Stoker, the adventure is told in an epistolary format, narrated in multiple perspectives through journals, letters, and newspaper articles. Dracula was based off of a real life ruler of Romania, named Vlad Dracul III. It takes place mainly in England, but also in other various places of Europe. Moreover, it is about a group of seven people – Jonathan Harker, Mina Murray, Abraham Van Helsing, Dr. John Seward, Quincey Morris, and Arthur Holmwood – who goes on an expedition to end Dracula’s raid of killing off young women and children for his sake. The book carries many parts of suspense…