Manfred fails to resist transform Manfred from a formidable dominator to a powerless prisoner, which resulting an abrupt provoke of horror and uncanny.
In The Architectural Uncanny (1992), Anthony Vidler states that “At the heart of the anxiety provoked by such alien presences was a fundamental insecurity: that of a newly established class” (4). Manfred’s imprisonment has a symbolic meaning of his limited material security. His madness is mainly triggered by his desire to ensure his status in his newly established, unsteady regime, and his absurd lusts can be viewed as reflections of his unconscious fear. In the novel, Manfred cried out "Do I dream? or are the devils themselves in league against me? Speak, internal spectre! Or, if thou art
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my grandsire, why dost thou too conspire against thy wretched descendant" (25). As Vidler points out, “the fundamental propensity of the familiar to turn on its owners, suddenly to become defamiliarized, derealized, as if in a dream” (7). The confusion of dreams and realities creates an abstruse sense of uncanny that reveals Manfred’s unconsciousness and deep-rooted dread towards being punished for the past crimes. Manfred’s avoidances of recalling of the past push him towards alienation. Vidler describes such alienation as “Individuals, lost in an isolation from nature, stranger to the place of their birth, without contact with the past, living only in a rapid present” (4). In the novel, covering up and disaffirming the past scandals lead to a disorganized, illogical, and chaotic present, which further initiate people’s confusion, insecurity, and uncanny. Kilgour (1995) claims that “the gothic reflects the return of the repressed, in which subconscious psychic energy bursts out from the restraints of the conscious ego” (3). The confined space triggers characters’ repressed anxieties and allows readers to feel emotional bursts that are impressive, inspiring, and passionate. Inside the castles, the construction of space creates an intricate and puzzling structure where people find it easy to get lost while walking.
Long galleries, chambers, trap doors, and secret passages together create a maze-like interior structure that seems mysterious and full of secrets and uncertainty. Plenty of empty spaces exist in the enormous inner space of the castle, which the chasing between Manfred and Isabella to take place. The ambiguity of one’s actual location can lead to confusion, misgiving, and fear. When Isabella is trying to run away from Manfred’s grasp, she “continued her flight to the bottom of the principal staircase. There she stopped, not knowing whether to direct her steps, nor how to escape from the impetuosity of the Prince” (25). Isabella’s exposure to uncertainty challenges her remaining consciousness and rationality, which pave the way for a sense of uncanny to emerge. Later on, Isabella once again gets lost in the lower part of the castle where is “hollowed into several intricate cloisters; and it was not easy for one under so much anxiety to find the door that opened into the cavern.” (26). Isabella’s consistent lost in the castle leads readers to feel an illusion of encountering a familiar sense of anxiety repetitively. Such strange familiarly stimulates a feeling of uncanny, unsettling and unearthly. Vidler (2015) claims that “ The uncanny habit of history to repeat itself, to return at unexpected and unwanted moments” (5), and he also defines uncanny as “a significant psychoanalytical and aesthetic response to the real shock...compounded by its unthinkable repetition” (9). Repetitively getting lost in pavements creates an eerie atmosphere in the story and steadily increases readers’ trepidation and uncanny
feeling. Besides the constrained boundaries and the complex interior design, the vertical space is another significant feature of the castle. The soaring verticality of space refines volumetric proportions of the castle and enhances a sense of mindfulness that guides readers to engage in the present moments. Such verticality enhances the dimensionality of the castle and increases readers’ mental awareness. The stained glass windows admit light coming in and create a light-dappled interior effect that adds a sense of romanticism to the Gothic story. Isabella feels “a kind of momentary joy to perceive an imperfect ray of clouded moonshine gleam from the roof of the vault, which seemed to be fallen in, and from whence hung a fragment of earth or building, she could not distinguish which, that appeared to have been crushed inwards” (27). Isabella’s short pleasure indicates her temporary escape from horror and distress. This relaxing moment reflects Isabella’s naive, innocence and her unconscious beliefs in feminism and romanticism. The gentle, smooth, elegant flowing of moonlight form a strong contradiction with the dark, ruined, crushed interiors. Moonlight also seems to have a magic power to rescue the sufferers. “A ray of moonshine, streaming through a cranny of the ruin above, shone directly on the lock they sought” (28). Moonlight appears to become an oracle that represents the divine to save the innocent victim from the Gothic villain. “The ruin” represents corrupt humanities and materialist cultures while the moonlight signals divinity, enlightenment, and sympathy. At a certain level, moonlight and the ruin can be interpreted as an analogy of Heaven and Hell. The vertical space and moonlight together form an idea of sublime, which creates an elevated aesthetic that mix beauty and danger together. According to Kilgour (1995) “The gothic reveals the naked contradictions intrinsic in bourgeois romanticism...its ambiguity reflects tensions it cannot solve” (9). In fact, although moonlight brings a sense of divinity into the castle to implicitly censure the evilness and save the innocent, it does not remove the darkness or eliminate the feeling of uncanny. Horror still exists, and the interior blackness and decadent become more distinct in contrast to the moonlight. As a result, the ambiguous romanticism raises readers’ curiosity without interrupting their experiences of horror and uncanny. In general, the spatial elements reveal the social boundaries and the ambivalence between fantasy and reality, reflects characters’ self-consciousness, psychic perceptions, and ideological judgments. In the novel, confines and spatial boundaries create physical isolation that evokes anxiety. Characters’ unconscious fear and insecurity is the root cause of their experiences of alienation. The puzzling structure inside the castle leads to a cognitive dissonance toward familiarity that further results in a feeling of uncanny. The smooth integration of spatial and psychic elements in the novel creates a unique aesthetic appeal that induces a sense of pleasing horror. The mixing of contradictions such as manipulation and imprisonment, passion and repression, evilness and divinity, all work together to challenge readers’ rationality and logic, and allow them to have a contemporary escape from the reality and make judgments purely base on subjectivism.
In his wickedly clever debut mystery, Alan Bradley introduces the one and only Flavia de Luce: a refreshingly precocious, sharp, and impertinent 11-year old heroine who goes through a bizarre maze of mystery and deception. Bradley designs Bishop’s Lacey, a 1950s village, Buckshaw, the de Luce’s crumbling Gothic mansion, and reproduces the hedges, gently rolling hills, and battered lanes of the countryside with explicit detail. Suspense mounts up as Flavia digs up long-buried secrets after the corpse of an ominous stranger emerges in the cucumber patch of her country estate. Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie features a plethora of unforeseen twists and turns; it is surely a rich literary delight.
“It was a large, beautiful room, rich and picturesque in the soft, dim light which the maid had turned low. She went and stood at an open window and looked out upon the deep tangle of the garden below. All the mystery and witchery of the night seemed to have gathered there amid the perfumes and the dusky and tortuous outlines of flowers and foliage. She was seeking herself and finding herself in just such sweet half-darkness which met her moods. But the voices were not soothing that came to her from the darkness and the sky above and the stars. They jeered and sounded mourning notes without promise, devoid even of hope. She turned back into the room and began to walk to and fro, down its whole length, without stopping, without resting. She carried in her hands a thin handkerchief, which she tore into ribbons, rolled into a ball, and flung from her. Once she stopped, and taking off her wedding ring, flung it upon the carpet. When she saw it lying there she stamped her heel upon it, striving to crush it. But her small boot heel did not make an indenture, not a mark upon the glittering circlet.
Our perspective on life can have a significant impact on our life. Depending on how you were raised it can impact your perspective on life very differently than others. For example if you were raised in a home of poverty or drug abuse you are use too that lifestyle when you're young. It wouldn't be till your older you would realize it is not a normal way of life. It shapes our life. In the novel the Glass Castle Jeanette is a perfect example of how your perspective changes throughout life as you experience life in addition to maturing. Her change in life had an unbelievable impact on her life that made her a well round mature adult despite her upbringing in poverty.
Her attention to the most miniscule detail and her grand explanations of spaces impacts her writing style and her reader’s reactions. This particularity is seen in this example: “I woke to a room of sunshine. A wispy-thin curtain veiled a multi paned sliding door of glass...The windows needed washing but slid easily apart and I stepped out onto a tilted balcony, a string mop on a hook to the left of me, and a half-missing board where I had planned to put my right foot. The breath went out of me...About 200 feet below was the sea… (151).” The authors account of this event could have been dull and simple as “There was a hole in the floor of the balcony”, but instead she chose to use detail and descriptors to engage the reader to imagine seeing the strange hotel room that almost turned her relaxing morning into a 200 foot
The Glass Castle is a novel that follows the life of a dysfunctional family from the perspective of Jeannette Walls, the third child of the Walls family. Throughout the stories, the readers see all the hardships the children face, as their lunatic parents do what they think is right. After reading the book, it seems to agree the quote “Parents can only give good advice or put them on the right paths, but the final forming of a person's character lies in their own hands” by Anne Frank.
Victor and Manfred share an important similarity: the desire for radical autonomy. The paths the two characters embark on to follow this desire differ, causing Manfred to be seen a as an admirable protagonist, while Victor’s continuing attempts to attain a defiant autonomy prove to be self-defeating, and he is unable to attain a complete independence because of his responsibility for the monster, which grows and transforms into a dependency of the monster. Although the shared drive of being defiant in their independence is a key factor for the outcomes of both stories, Victor’s inability to be accountable for the responsibility he holds presents a critique of the Byronic hero in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein demonstrating that without the ability
Emilia is trying to follow Florian. “The knight’s silhouette came into view and inspired me to move faster.” (46). This quote demonstrates how Emilia fights through her pain, just to get to the knight, Florian, were she knows that she would be safe, even if he keeps rejected her. The shoe poet is talking to the wandering boy. “‘Rest. You’ll need your strength for the days ahead.’ ‘I’m fit as a lad, my dear girl.’ He pulled up the leg of his wool trousers to reveal his bony knee. It was covered in white. ‘Shoemaker’s secret,’ he whispered to the wandering boy. ‘There’s mercury in the white shoe polish. Fights off the arthritis. Fit as a lad, I am.’ The wandering boy pulled up his pant leg to inspect his own tiny knee.” (77). This quote shows how the shoe maker acts as a father-like role model who gives good advice to the wandering boy to make him feel safer under his supervision. Florian is in the estate with the group and is thinking about the shoe poet. “He seemed like a wise man, a kind man. I imagined he worked by oil lamp, cutting and sewing leather well into the night. He probably employed an apprentice and taught him an honest trade, unlike Dr. Lange, who had lured me with lies.” (88). This quote shows how Florian looks up to the shoemaker and thinks of him as a role model ever since his Father died
Another instance in which his anguish at her abandonment is connoted is when the “house [echoes] with desertion” (Carter 50). Despite the fact that the house is rather grand and is beautifully furnished, there fails to be the reverberations of any sounds that would deem the dwelling alive. Rather, it is only the sounds of emptiness which engulfs the house. Comparatively, the mindset of the Beast is st...
Under the orders of her husband, the narrator is moved to a house far from society in the country, where she is locked into an upstairs room. This environment serves not as an inspiration for mental health, but as an element of repression. The locked door and barred windows serve to physically restrain her: “the windows are barred for little children, and there are rings and things in the walls.” The narrator is affected not only by the physical restraints but also by being exposed to the room’s yellow wallpaper which is dreadful and fosters only negative creativity. “It is dull enough to confuse the eye in following, pronounced enough to constantly irritate and provoke study, and when you follow the lame uncertain curves for a little distance they suddenly commit suicide – plunge off at outrageous angles, destroy themselves in unheard of contradictions.”
After his sudden impulse, Tom found himself on the other side of his window, standing on the ledge below him, gripping the ledge tightly above him. A breeze full of brisk air carried itself to collide with Tom’s body, making his knuckles white from grasping the ledge so he would not be carried by the wind. Inching towards the bright colored paper, he could feel his stomach churning and his jacket grazing across the uneven brick. His mind was only focused on the pattern of steps and hand movements he would do, hoping to not think of the imminent danger and bright lights below him. He began to say to himself, “Right, left, right, left, right…,” keeping that colored paper in his mind and sight. The ledge, its width around half of his foot length, seemed to be infinite.
The producer was aiming to create mystery and fear. The dark of the night and the description of the house as feeling dead in the protagonist’s narration sets a suspenseful scene filled with fear and tension. The young girl is followed by the camera as she explores the mansion. When entering the room suspected to be that of her aunts the camera leaves her side to pan around the room. The darkness doesn’t reveal everything but one becomes aware of a search. The revelation of little secrets leaves the viewer with many questions. The room is familiar to the protagonist as she finds items symbolic to her and familiar photographs. This familiarity however does not retract from suspicions that something sinister has been hidden. The producer has successfully captivated the viewer. The protagonist is being followed throughout the scene and has thus allowed for the viewer to bond with them. They are engaging with the audience through narration and have in return enticed the viewer to follow them along their journey. One feels nervous for the young girl however through tension in the scene one does not want them to discontinue the journey as too many questions have been left unanswered. One has been drawn into the world of which the protagonist dwells and is intrigued as to how the drama is
Before continuing with the analysis of this topic, I would like to clarify and define the meaning of the word "uncanny" in the way I understand it. This word comes from the German Unheimlich, which means "uncomely", unfamiliar, uncomfortable, uneasy, and at the same time gloomy, ghastly, demonic and gruesome. According to Freud, this word justifies the need of a special conceptual term, which is to express certain things that lie in the field of what is frightening but at the same time leads back to what is known of old and familiar. Freud, however, argues that the "uncanny" is frightening precisely because it is not known and familiar. .
Charles Jencks in his book “The Language of Post-Modern Architecture “shows various similarities architecture shares with language, reflecting about the semiotic rules of architecture and wanting to communicate architecture to a broader public. The book differentiates post-modern architecture from architectural modernism in terms of cultural and architectural history by transferring the term post-modernism from the study of literature to architecture.
Architecture is the concept of bringing structure, materiality, form and space together as a whole, provide people with enclosed atmosphere to experience. Considering this, it is important to identify that materiality and the purpose of details has been a key methodology to bringing architectural intentions into the design in an affective manner, more over producing an architectural expression. However, this position is rather declining in architecture, reducing tectonics and materiality to being secondary to form and space. With the start of modernism, the attempt to achieve minimalistic style has caused detailing to increasingly develop into a decorative aspect of a building, neglecting its individual contribution to architecture.
As a proponent of Architectural Realism, Otto Wagner was interested in urban planning. Although Wagner began as a traditional architect, he promoted the transition from historicism to the idea of an architecture that spoke to its time. As an architect, Wagner began his career with buildings that were designed in the conventional Baroque and neo-classical styles. Wagner attempted to turn away from the accepted traditional forms of architecture by bringing together structural rationalism and technology. However, he retained a sense of historicism and eclecticism. (Wagner 21). Wagner’s architectural style embraced and clearly manifested a distinct change in traditional and the emergence of purpose built buildings. The church at Vienna’s Steinhoff sanitarium, the Postal savings Bank and several entrances for Vienna’s city railway are some of Wagner’s most memorable buildings. (100) . The belief of art having purpose was expressed when he stated, “ The practical element in man, which is particularly pronounced, is evidently here to stay and every architect is going to have to come to grips with the postulate, a thing that is unpractical cannot be beautiful” (100). In the exploration of the idea of modernity in architecture, he used the designs of his own buildings, where he used new technology, materials and simpler ornamentation.