𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝕾𝖊𝖛𝖊𝖓 𝕲𝖔𝖙𝖍𝖎𝖈 𝕾𝖎𝖌𝖓𝖘
𝔖𝔱𝔯𝔞𝔫𝔤𝔢 𝔖𝔭𝔞𝔠𝔢𝔰
Essential in creating gothic atmosphere and unsettling the reader, gothic narratives are traditionally set in the ‘strange’ – places that are unfamiliar and faraway. Think crumbling castles, ancestral homes, religious dwellings, and long ago. Think places distant in time and space.
𝔖𝔴𝔬𝔬𝔫𝔦𝔫𝔤 𝔖𝔴𝔢𝔢𝔱𝔥𝔢𝔞𝔯𝔱𝔰
The stereotypical gothic heroine is inquisitive and brave, and voraciously reads. She has beauty and purity and is thus a target. Whether a victim to fashion (those tight-laced corsets) or the female condition (I hope my tone is clear here), her defence in danger is the delicate swoon. Though she is likely to suffer, she is usually saved.
𝔖𝔲𝔣𝔣𝔢𝔯𝔦𝔫𝔤 𝔖𝔞𝔳𝔦𝔬𝔲𝔯𝔰
Whether saviour to a swooning heroine (see above) or on adventures all their own, the gothic favours the anti-hero for its male lead. Often intellectual, perhaps academic, for him the human condition is heavy to bear. This long-suffering figure is flawed and doomed and may just reveal the monstrous in man.
𝔖𝔥𝔞𝔡𝔬𝔴𝔶 𝔖𝔱𝔯𝔞𝔫𝔤𝔢𝔯𝔰
Though gothic villains are slow to uncloak themselves, their mould has since been truly set. The shadowy stranger epitomises the fear of ‘other’. Often autocrat, aristocrat, male, and undefined ‘foreign’, he is a man out truly for himself.
𝔖𝔲𝔤𝔤𝔢𝔰𝔱𝔢𝔡 𝔖𝔭𝔢𝔠𝔱𝔯𝔢𝔰
All sorts of creatures make their home in gothic literature. There are ghosts, spirits, and apparitions; demons, the devil, and the dead returned; vampires, zombies, and apparent monsters. The supernatural may be metaphorical – a tool for subversion. It is frequently suggested as one thing and revealed to be otherwise, if there at all.
𝔖𝔲𝔯𝔤𝔦𝔫𝔤 𝔖𝔲𝔰𝔭𝔢𝔫𝔰𝔢
The gothic tone is of fear: terror or horror, and halted breath. It is dread that creeps and suspicion that grows. Suspense builds in uncanny spaces, where everything is unnerving and nothing is as it seems. Often at odds with logic, rational thought is invited to leave as heightened senses are startled by the wind.
𝔖𝔩𝔢𝔢𝔭𝔩𝔢𝔰𝔰 𝔖𝔬𝔲𝔩𝔰
Just as the narrative fiction aims to unsettle the mind of the reader, gothic protagonists are similarly disturbed. Nighttime casts shadows on certainty. Sleep, if achieved, is addled with nightmares. Waking hours, in turn, are similarly plagued. The concept of reality is toyed with as sanity and truth can no longer be presumed.