Among the most striking features of the Gothic genre is the style of its architectural settings. In early Gothic, these were often medievalist, involving ancient stone buildings with elaborate, “Gothic” arches, buttresses, passageways, and crypts. This was to become the mise en scene of Gothicism, replete with trappings of hidden doorways and secret chambers, incomprehensible labyrinths, speaking portraits, and trapdoors. (Allen Lloyd-Smith 7) Gothic Element of the Seven Gables The House of the Seven Gables, by Nathanial Hawthorn is filled with gothic tropes and features. Since the story takes place in the Pyncheon house or rather the Maule’s property, I will focus on the features of the house, which are gothic. That is not to say that the story is only gothic because of the house, but rather that the house and its property is the setting of the Gothic events. The parts of the house are described throughout the story, mostly in small junks reminiscing the past. The narrator passes by the Pyncheon house. He referees to it as an “antiquity” and “the weather-beaten edifice” (11). Right now, the house may not seem that gothic but rather just an old mansion. However, with more description of the house, it becomes more evident. The best description of the house is in chapter one: There it rose, a little withdrawn from the line of the street, but in pride not modesty. Its whole visible exterior was ornamented with quaint figures, conceived in the grotesqueness of the Gothic fancy, and drawn or stamped in the flittering plaster, composed of lime, pebbles, and bits of glass, with which the woodwork of the walls was overspread. On every side the seven gables pointed sharply towards the sky and presented the aspect of a whole sisterhood o... ... middle of paper ... ... discover it, one summer afternoon, when I was idling and dreaming about the house, long long ago. But the mystery escapes me.’ (328). The secret of the trap door as well as the door itself, which lies behind a portrait of Colonel Pyncheon, are both gothic elements. Clifford has lost memories trying to come forth and the Judges fight to make those memories become known is found in many gothic stories. In gothic novels, evil will follow evil and the darkness would fall upon the house. With as hold as the house it, it would seem to decay much faster than it really did. The house, built by the ‘wizard’s’ son its self is strong and is able to stay as long as it holds a secret and a cures. It is not until the curse is broken and the Pyncheon family abandons the property that it takes on the idealized dreary look that the narrator paints at the beginning of the story.
The castles and mansions that provide the settings for traditional Gothic tales are full of grandeur, darkness, and decay. These settings are one of the most recognizable elements of traditional Gothic fiction. Setting is equally as important in modern Gothic literature as well. While the settings in the two stories, “Fall of the House of Usher” by Edgar Allan Poe and “Where Is Here?” by Joyce Carol Oates, are incredibly different, they are also very similar.
Various authors develop their stories using gothic themes and characterizations of this type to lay the foundation for their desired reader response. Although Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher” and Peter Taylor’s “Venus, Cupid, Folly and Time” are two completely different narratives, both of these stories share a commonality of gothic text representations. The stories take slightly different paths, with Poe’s signifying traditional gothic literature and Taylor approaching his story in a more contemporary manner.
Kathy Prendergast, further contends, that it is this convergence of the Gothic art style and Romantic genre which was quintessential of the nineteenth century era. Both collided to spotlight terror, valuelessness emotion and vulnerability. Both collided to perpetrate a sense of wonderment in the reader/viewer, a sense of helplessness in the face of some superior force. The Gothic architecture with its peculiarity, mystery and imperilment; the Gothic architecture with its a...
Written in 1818, the latter stages of the Gothic literature movement, at face value this novel embodies all the key characteristics of the Gothic genre. It features the supernatural, ghosts and an atmosphere of horror and mystery. However a closer reading of the novel presents a multifaceted tale that explores
Connected to the somber image of the town, The house is described with harsh diction such as “streaked with rust”, depicting the years of neglect. Affected by abuse, Petry describes the house as stained with “blood” in the form of rust. Despite the harsh outer layer, Lutie is drawn to it as her figurative and literal “sign”of refuge. A town that had been nothing but cold to her is finally seen as warm from the words on the sign; describing the house as “Reasonable” and open to “respectable tenants”.
The actual House of the Seven Gables symbolizes the weight of the past, firstly because the house is actually cursed by an ancient plebeian accused of witchcraft. From the very beginning, neighbors say Colonel Pyncheon builds the house "on an unquite grave" and it indeed has a "bad air" (14). The Colonel constructs his house upon the very spot of the small hut of Matthew Maule, the one accused of sorcery; actively contributing to the ruin of the wizard, the society in which the Colonel lives regards him as less than impeccable. Maule addresses Colonel Pyncheon as he dies on the scaffold to iterate the curse that would haunt his lineage for generations: "God. . . God will give him blood to drink!" (14). The house becomes a symbol of the curse, and the Colonel, by building where he did, seems to give Maule "the privilege to haunt . . . the chambers into which future bridegrooms were to lead their brides, and where future children of the Pyncheon blood were to be born" (14). The curse of the past affects all members of the present Pyncheon household, and the Maules keep th...
Gothic elements are used to show suspense, symbolism, and drama, while also setting dark and twisted tones about the story and its characters. In the passage "The Fall of the House of Usher" the author uses Gothic elements to entice the reader with details of ominous character persona and setting.
Word by word, gothic literature is bound to be an immaculate read. Examining this genre for what it is could be essential to understanding it. “Gothic” is relating to the extinct East Germanic language, people of which known as the Goths. “Literature” is defined as a written work, usually with lasting “artistic merit.” Together, gothic literature combines the use of horror, death, and sometimes romance. Edgar Allan Poe, often honored with being called the king of horror and gothic poetry, published “The Fall of House Usher” in September of 1839. This story, along with many other works produced by Poe, is a classic in gothic literature. In paragraph nine in this story, one of our main characters by the name of Roderick Usher,
While reading “Young Goodman Brown” by Nathaniel Hawthorne, I couldn’t help but feel a constant overwhelming sense of dread. The root of this could have come from the story’s dark setting deep within an “haunted forest” or from Brown’s mysterious “Devil”-esque companion. While I read, another story came into my mind; the story of the “Fall of the House of Usher” by Edgar Allan Poe. In Poe’s tale the same heart pounding emotion can be felt as he describes the reunion of two friends within “the House of Usher.” With the manors “eye-like windows” and “sorrowful impression,” Poe wastes no time in setting the Gothic mood. Through their distinct writing styles Hawthorne and Poe establish a common Gothic theme within their stories.
To of the most striking descriptions used to portray the house are those of the windows and the fissure. He describes the windows as “vacant [and] eye-like.” With this description the narrator effectively anthropomorphizes the house. Thus he almost gives the status of character to the house. The other outstanding description is that of the fissure. It is described as “a barely perceptible fissure, which [extends] from the roof of the building in front, [making] its way down the wall in a zigzag direction, until it [becomes] lost in the sullen waters of the tarn.” It is interesting to note that the narrator spends so much time describing a feature that he describes as barely perceptible.
The house is similar to the mind in other ways. It houses inner demons and fears, which can be heard stalking its prey. It also contains a "basement"...
At the beginning of the story there is a very negative feeling being attached to the appearance of the house. He uses a couple of things to try and make you feel negatively about this place. He used words and phrases such as: “insufferable gloom,” “vacant,” “black and lurid,” and the “rank sedges” were mentioned too. These are obviously there to give a sort of a bad connotation, or bad karma, to the house. He speaks of how the house has a “wild inconsistency” and how each individual stone is starting to decay and fall apart. Suggesting that the house has many problems, all problems that could possibly lead to the destruction of a house.
The term ‘Gothic’ conjures a range of possible meanings, definitions and associations. It explicitly denotes certain historical and cultural phenomena. Gothicism was part of the Romantic Movement that started in the eighteenth century and lasted about three decades into the nineteenth century. For this essay, the definition of Gothic that is applicable is: An 18th century literary style characterized by gloom and the supernatural. In the Gothic novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, a wide range of issues are explored. Frankenstein represents an entirely new vision of the female Gothic, along with many other traditional themes such as religion, science, colonialism and myth.
(1265) along with other disturbing words to stress the mood of horror. Furthermore, the house evokes suspense as it strikes the reader with curiosity as to why the building presents such a dreadful and uneasy feeling. Poe describes the house with further detail emphasizing its ghostly traits: “Dark draperies hung upon the walls. The general furniture was profuse, comfortless, antique, and tattered. Many books and musical instruments lay scattered about, but failed to give any vitality to the scene” (1267). Poe describes the house using very descriptive and daunting words contributing to the story’s depressive mood as well as its suspense.
Print. The. Mike. The Evolution of Gothic Architecture. Aquinas Multimedia.