Dark Romanticism

When dealing with a literary movement, it is important to comprehend the knowledge of what it was responsible for founding. In the case of the Romanticism, it created several different sub-movements. The most popular out of all of them being Dark Romanticism and Gothic Fiction. Despite their upbringing from the same movement, Dark Romanticism and Gothic Fiction are very different from each other. While Dark Romanticism focuses on the personal torment of the narrator’s psychological mindset, Gothic Fiction focuses on the inflicting horror and gore caused by the supernatural, and or unknown.

Romanticism deals with the ability of only looking at the positives of life. A theme of which, pleased many Americans, in the 1800’s, as a result of being

If the writers can incorporate a character with self-inflicted made trauma, they then are allowed to write about the darkest events, and or futures, they can think of (Dark Romanticism 1). Therefore, writers, like Edgar Allan Poe, became widely known. In his work, Poe shows conflicting opinions about personal life through his characters and their thought process, while having them face, and or go through, twisted occurrences (Morgan Howard 3). His short story most known to capture this is The Tell-Tale Heart. Inside of it, it tells the story of a narrator who is mad and questions himself about whether his madness is a blessing or a curse (Poe 1). Given this description, the narrator is often making inflicted trauma to himself, as a result of not being able to make a clear decision of whether his sanity makes him impaired, and or, not able to function properly. His unstableness, as a human being, is further seen through how he deals with the aftermath of realizing he murdered a person. When the police arrive to ask him a few selected questions, the narrator begins to have hallucinations, as he hears the heart beating from the man he murdered (Poe 3). In hearing the heart beating, the narrator, through the haze of his madness, realizes of just how crazy he is, and as a result, feels ashamed and disgusted by the sheer fact of being the one responsible for the man’s death.

Unlike Dark Romanticism, Gothic Fiction focuses on the horror and gore inflicted upon a character. There is no ulterior motive. In itself, Gothic Fiction was meant for those, during the 1800’s, who wanted something between what Romanticism offered and what Dark Romanticism offered. As such, Gothic Fiction was given the description of giving off a violent amount of terror and gore to the characters, while also encompassing the same amount of terror and gore to the readers (Gothic Literature 2). In summary, Gothic Fiction is an extremely lighter version of Dark Romanticism with the ability to make the characters and readers aware of darker realities, while also, at the same time, not letting the characters and readers get trapped into thinking about how negative and depressing their lives, and the world seems around them. To achieve this, Gothic Fiction makes the brain of the characters and readers focused, and or fixed upon, a key aspect of a supernatural setting. Whether if the story takes place inside of a haunted house, castle, wooded area, maze or labyrinth, the characters, and readers will be captivated by the mystery and horror surrounding the building, and or place (The Gothic 1). Thus, causing their concentration, and or full attention on themselves, to simply not exist. Something the American citizen could appreciate if they wanted to escape the reality of their life, and or