The darker aspects of books, movies, plays, and other performances that tell a story can also be known as gothic elements. Juicy material such as the supernatural, violence, and death are considered as gothic elements. These elements can be found in the works of countless authors writing such as Horacio Quiroga, Edgar Allen Poe and more recently, Ransom Riggs. Therefore, the works of these authors contain gothic elements that can be related to one another. Miss Peregrines Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs shares similar gothic elements with Edgar Allen Poe’s works The Black Cat, The Raven, and Horacio Quiroga’s work The Feather Pillow. The first work that shares a common gothic element with Miss Peregrines Home for Peculiar Children is The Black Cat. The gothic element which the two works share is violence. In the Black Cat, the narrator gets angry at the cat for trailing him and so he “deliberately [cuts] one of its eyes from the socket” (Poe …show more content…
Their shared element is pain and grief. In the Raven, the narrator cries for “respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore” (Poe 5). The narrator is longing for a suspension of his grief of Lenore, whom the narrator was in love with but had passed away, hence the grief. A similar scene takes place in Miss Peregrines Home for Peculiar Children. In a private room with Miss Peregrine, Jacob reveals to Miss Peregrine the news of Abe’s passing. Suspecting an eavesdropper, Miss Peregrine opens the door to the room, revealing Emma “crouched on the other side, her face red and streaked with tears” (Riggs 152). The reader can infer that she is grieving for the loss of Abe, however it is soon revealed that Abe and her “were admirers” (Riggs 153). Just like the narrator in The Raven, Emma is grieving the loss of a loved one; the narrator’s Lenore is Emma’s Abe. The two works both show the gothic element of
Gothic texts are typically characterized by a horrifying and haunting mood, in a world of isolation and despair. Most stories also include some type of supernatural events and/or superstitious aspects. Specifically, vampires, villains, heroes and heroines, and mysterious architecture are standard in a gothic text. Depending upon the author, a gothic text can also take on violent and grotesque attributes. As an overall outlook, “gothic literature is an outlet for the ancient fears of humanity in an age of reason” (Sacred-Texts). Following closely to this type of literature, Edgar Allan Poe uses a gloomy setting, isolation, and supernatural occurrences throughout “The Fall of the House of Usher”.
Gothic literature, such as The Night Circus, “The Devil and Tom Walker”, “Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment”, and “Masque of the Red Death”, are known for incorporating gothic elements such as the supernatural, death, and fascination with the past.
Key Elements of Gothic Literature Jasmine Giles People enjoy reading gothic literature due to its heart rate exciting nature. Without having to engage with any real danger, it is common for the reader to feel anxiety and impaitence when reading gothic fiction. In order for the reader to feel these emotions, the author uses certain elements, such as a gloomy setting and old-fashioned dialoge. In the stories “The Black Cat” and “The Tell Tale Heart”, by elgar allen poe, and “The Landlady”, by Roland Dahl, there are many similarites that remanticize the idea of horror and mystery. Some elements, however, bring out the disbolical horror of gothic literature: the setting, characterization, and the motif of suspense.
In,”The Raven”, Poe utilizes diction, syntax, and rhymes to convey his theme of depression towards his lost love, Lenore. The raven flew into Poe’s home uninvited and stayed perched on his chamber door. In the story, the raven symbolizes the undying grief he has for Lenore.
In what follows, my research paper will rely on an article by Kathy Prendergast entitled “Introduction to The Gothic Tradition”. The significance of this article resides in helping to recapitulate the various features of the Gothic tradition. In this article the authoress argues that in order to overturn the Enlightenment and realistic literary mores, many of the eighteenth century novelists had recourse to traditional Romantic conventions in their works of fiction, like the Arthurian legendary tales (Prendergast).
Punter David, ‘The Literature of Terror’, in A History of Gothic Fictions from 1765 to the Present Day, The Modern Gothic. Harlow, eds. (UK: Pearson Education, 1996)
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,
Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” follows the story of a young man who is sadden by the death of a woman named Leonore. As the reader advance through the poem, the main character is getting more and more emotionally unstable. He is clearly suffering from some kind of mental illness most likely depression. The narrator is in first person, we are living the poem through the eyes of the main character. (He compulsorily constructs self-destructive meaning around a raven’s repetition of the word 'Nevermore ', until he finally despairs of being reunited with his beloved Lenore in another world. Just because of the nightmarish effect, the poem cannot be called an elegy.) Poe use vivid details to describe how the narrator is gradually losing his mind.
Now we have examined three stories written by two well distinguished authors known for their Southern Gothic Literature and found many similarities in each story. Each story has its form of the grotesque we have Miss Emily, the Misfit, the Grandmother, and Marley Pointer and let’s not leave out Helga. The characters of each story has some form of cringe inducing quality, meaning some kind of attitude about themselves that gets under ones skin. Then as we can see from the stories they all are Southern based each story is in a Southern setting. And the final thing we look for in Southern Gothic literature is tragedy which all three stories possessed.
The blending of terror and romance in Gothic Literature was used in a unique combination to attract and entice the reader into the story. The terror in the literature helps the reader explore their imagination and form their own picture setting of what is happening. Using romance in the story also keeps the reader's attention because of the unknown and the curiosity of what happens next. The Gothic writing became popular after the Romantic period because readers were still a...
Gothic literature is known for captivating readers by bringing to light the dark side of humanity. The Gothic possesses many key elements such as paranoia, anxiety, death, etc. It strikes fear and suspense in the reader not by creating fictional monsters, but showing the reader the types of monsters that lurk within human beings. In “the Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe, various themes of the Gothic are present throughout the short story such as gloom and doom, darkness, and madness. These elements are used to enhance the central theme of the piece: revenge. I will argue that Poe uses a number of the Gothic elements to craft an intense dark tale of revenge: an unreliable narrator, madness, darkness, a haunted setting, and evil/devil
Gothic Literature is present in numerous short stories and books, and multiple stories have a similar parts as other short stories. “The Black Cat” and Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children relate by both stories including a type of pain. Also, “The Feather Pillow” and Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children are similar by both stories having a monster. Finally, “Fall of the House of Rusher” and Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children are common by both stories containing a mystery within them.
Gothic Literature consists of many romantic and dark themes that some parents find disturbing and unhealthy for their child to comprehend or understand. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, Gothic Literature first began to rise. The purpose of Gothic Literature is to promote horror and to place terror into the reader's mind. Therefore, most parents do not approve of their children reading these types of novels because they believe that it could have a negative effect on their child's life. Gothic Literature combines both horror and the age of Romanticism into one period. Parents object to their children reading Gothic Literature because they believe that it places
In the novel, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, by Ransom Riggs, and the short stories, “Masque of Red Death”, by Edgar Allan Poe, “Black Cat”, by Edgar Allan Poe, and “A Rose For Emily”, by William Faulkner, the authors use many gothic elements throughout the texts. However, the gothic elements primarily used are violence, pain and mystery. Violence is evident in the novel, Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children and the short story “Black Cat”. When something uncommon to the normal eye occurs, it is almost as though the characters are not phased. In “Black Cat” the owner of the creature “slipped a noose about its neck and hung it by the limb of the tree” (Poe 2), which is no orderly task.