Gothic Elements In 'The Moonlit Road'

The story The Moonlit Road, has three gothic literary elements. These gothic elements include supernatural elements, experimental writing techniques, and horror. There is a supernatural element in the Late Julia Hetman story is being through the Medium Bayrolles. She says after she dies, “O God! What a thing it is to be a ghost, cowering and shivering in an altered world, a prey to apprehension and despair!” (Bierce). This is a supernatural element because Julia dies and becomes a ghost. The Moonlit Road, becomes a gothic story because she died and become a ghost and walked around in an altered world that is not like the world we live in. Julia’s death is supernatural because Julia had no control of it. The next gothic element to be introduced

in this story is experimental writing techniques. The author, Ambrose Bierce, does this by telling his story from three different perspectives. He tells it from Joel Hetman, Jr., Caspar Grattan, and Julia Hetman through Medium Bayrolles. In the story Joel Hetman, Jr. states, “I am the most unfortunate of men” (Bierce). Caspar Grattan says, “So I say a name, even if self-bestowed is better than a number” (Bierce). Julia Hetman through Medium Bayrolles says, “Forgive, I pray you, this inconsequent digression by what was once a woman” (Bierce). This is how the author, Ambrose Bierce, uses the gothic element of experimental writing techniques in his story. The use of experimental writing techniques makes it gothic by using each person’s point of view on the situation. The final gothic element is horror. The gothic element horror is used multiple times in the story. For example Joel Hetman says, “At a railway station in Nashville a distant relative awaited me to apprise me of the reason for my recall: my mother had been barbarously murdered” (Bierce). This ties into the gothic element of horror by the author using the words “barbarously murdered”. Another example of horror in the story, The Moonlit Road, is a quote from Julia Hetman through Medium Bayrolles, “There was an interval of unconsciousness, and when I revived I felt a strangling clutch upon my throat—felt my arms feebly beating against something that bore me backward” (Bierce). This quote demonstrates horror by Julia Hetman telling about her horrible death. Horror, supernatural elements, and experimental writing techniques are all ways that The Moonlit Road displays gothic elements throughout the story. Therefore, The Moonlit Road is a gothic story.