I stand on the crumbling edge of what once used to be a vibrant, lively town, now. reduced to a ruins. St. Kilda--a cemetery of forgotten promises and shattered dreams, a ghost-infested city, that mirrors the abyss inside me. The buildings once stood tall, now their skeletal remains are entwined with vines that writhe and coil, mimicking stories murmured by the icy gust. Their shattered windows gaze like empty eye sockets, staring out into the void with a gloomy blankness. Tattered curtains flap in the uninviting wind, whispering a ghostly echo for those that lived before. The streets crawl with restless spirits of the past, filled with echoes of anguished cries. As I tread through the debris laden cobblestone, I feel an unseen force directing …show more content…
He begs for his life, his cries echoing in the empty halls. I savour his fear, the way it courses through my veins like a drug. With each slash of my blade, I feel a twisted sense of satisfaction, a fleeting moment of control in a chaotic world. As the life drains from his eyes, I see my father’s face, his evil grin taunting me from the grave. “You’ll never be free,” he sneers, “You’re just the same as me.” The words cut deeper than any wound, a reminder of the monster I’ve become. I laugh, a bitter, hollow sound, and wipe the crimson blood off my stained hands. In the silence that follows, I hear Mothers voice again, a soft whisper in the darkness, “Zaroon, come home.” I turn expecting to see her frail form standing in the doorway, but nothing, only the loneliness of my own mind. I am alone, the last remnant of a broken family, a ghost in a ghost town. I return to the hospital, my footsteps echoing in the deserted halls. Mother’s room is just as I left it, her body motionless, her eyes closed. I sit beside her, taking her cold hand in mine. “Mother,” I whisper, my voice cracking. “I’m sorry.” But there is no forgiveness for someone like
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.
When it comes to Southern Gothic literature, most authors that had written in this genres stories were younger such as twenty-one through twenty-four when the stories were created. Southern Gothic Literature has always been around and it will continue being around as long as it remains a popular genre. Now, what is Southern Gothic literature? It is a type of writing that was created in the south. The genre surrounds itself “on grotesque themes. While it may include supernatural elements, it mainly focuses on damaged, even delusional, characters”. (What Is Southern Gothic Literature? 1). The whole point of Southern Gothic Literature was to
Elements of Southern Gothic Literature Literature comes in all types of styles and one type is Southern Gothic. But what makes a story develop into this type of Southern Gothic style? There are many characteristics that are apparent in literature, so what conditions are distinct that would give them the term Southern Gothic literature? What kind of elements do we call for when trying to find this type of literature? Southern Gothic is a literature that has a style all its own.
Gothic literature was developed during the eighteenth and nineteenth century of the Gothic era when war and controversy was too common. It received its name after the Gothic architecture that was becoming a popular trend in the construction of buildings. As the buildings of daunting castles and labyrinths began, so did the beginning foundation of Gothic literature. The construction of these buildings will later become an obsession with Gothic authors. For about 300 years before the Renaissance period, the construction of these castles and labyrinths continued, not only in England, but also in Gothic stories (Landau 2014). Many wars and controversies, such as the Industrial Revolution and Revolutionary War, were happening at this time, causing the Gothic literature to thrive (“Gothic Literature” 2011). People were looking for an escape from the real world and the thrill that Gothic literature offered was exactly what they needed. Gothic literature focuses on the horrors and the dark sides to the human brain, such as in Mary Shelley’s book Frankenstein. Gothic literature today, as well as in the past, has been able to separate itself apart from other types of literature with its unique literary devices used to create fear and terror within the reader.
Looking at Gothic Horror The horror genre remains very popular with cinema audiences even nowadays because the special effects today make creatures look even more terrifyingly realistic and it also means that you can film stunts or scenes like somebody turning into a werewolf for example, much more easy to film and much more effective. An example of a modern horror film that consists of very effective special effects is 'Underworld' that makes use of computer generation to make some impressive transformation scenes. The advances in technology give modern horror films an edge over classics and a modern audience expects a lot more from a horror film nowadays.
Southern Gothic Literature is a subgenre of Gothic fiction writing, which takes place in the American South. The Southern Gothic style is one of that employs the topics such as death, bizarre, violent, madness, and supernatural. These tools are used “to explore social issues and reveal the cultural character of the American South (Wikipedia).” The view of the South which is self-identified as the “national” or “American” view is basically a colonial Romance, with the rest of the nation identified with the forces of the light and the South with the forces of the darkness (Wacker 107).The authors of Southern Gothic typically use damaged characters to make their stories better, and to show deeper meanings of unpleasant Southern characteristics. These characters are diverse from society due to social, physical or mental disabilities. However, not all characteristics of the characters are bad; it is that a mixture of good and bad is found in most of the characters. Two authors who express the Southern Gothic writing style are William Faulkner, who wrote “A Rose for Emily,” and Flanner O Conner, the author of “Good Country People” and “A Good Man is Hard to Find.”
I peered around through the rain, desperately searching for some shelter, I was drowning out here. The trouble was, I wasn’t in the best part of town, and in fact it was more than a little dodgy. I know this is my home turf but even I had to be careful. At least I seemed to be the only one out here on such an awful night. The rain was so powerfully loud I couldn’t hear should anyone try and creep up on me. I also couldn’t see very far with the rain so heavy and of course there were no street lights, they’d been broken long ago. The one place I knew I could safely enter was the church, so I dashed.
Gothic encompasses many genres of expression. Gothic artists speak out through the forms of literature, architecture, film, sculptures, paintings, and music. Many times, one genre of Gothic inspires another, creating fusing parallels between the two. In this way, each genre of Gothic rises to a more universal level, coalescing into the much broader understanding of Gothic. Gothic writers, such as Mary Shelley, influence Gothic music, as one sees in stylistic devices including diction, setting, and tone.
Gothic storytelling is a form of writing that usually includes horror, death, and romance. People write gothic style for the thrill of having a little bit of scariness in their story. Gothic style can be shown through the imagery and themes. The Fall of the House of Usher and Crimson Peak are two stories that show gothic writing though the imagery of the houses and supernatural.
English literature in the Romantic period can be characterised as emphasising on free and natural utterance of authors’ feelings as the reaction toward the world. Romantic authors stress on the influence of feelings over rationality and mind over body—they admire the potential power of human’s mind to engage in the external world emotionally, reflect on it and envisage a spiritual and idealistic one through imagination. In Gothic writing, an important genre in Romantic literature, authors try to evoke readers’ fear and anxiety, cultivate their sensibility and explore human’s mind through presenting horrible myths and supernatural. Horror, as a highly pertinent element in Gothic writing, plays an important role in stimulating readers and awakening their sensibility in a thrilling but aesthetic way. In Gothic novels, horror is often created by personal memories, historical events, uncontrollable subconscious and anything that people attempt to escape from. The symbolisation of horrible sources and even the embodiment of horror itself are rather common.
There is one known very influential writing style called Gothic Literature. It is not only considered to involve the horror or gothic element but is combined with romance, superstition, women in distress, omens, portents, vision and supernatural events to name a few (Beesly). The history and beginning of this era is not well known. From a few writers came this writing style that has impacted the world. A famous artists known for this type of writing is a man named Edgar Allan Poe. He wrote many short stories and poems that include horror, gothic, and romance just mentioned.
Gothicism is a sub- genre for many Romantic writers. This genre includes Gothic conventions such as macabre emotions of terror, fear, paranoia, mystery, ancient prophecy, omens and the supernatural(Shodganda, 2014, p. 39). Gothic literature constitutes of horror and romance as a primary theme. The nature of the French Revolution in 1789 encouraged many writers to explore the morbid aspects of Gothic literature. Furthermore, the revolution had a significant impact on Romantic writers because they were concerned with the turbulent effects of the events and its aftermath. However, there has been arguments on how Romanticism is related to Gothic literature. This paper will therefore discuss the relationship between Romanticism and Gothic literature through the works of Mary Shelley and Lord Byron. These writers explored the notions of Gothic literature in their work. Their thorough examination within their text has enabled readers to examine and interpret the relationship between Romanticism and Gothic Literature.
Science fiction and the Gothic share many similarities: a dark view of humanity, times of social and cultural upheaval, and conflicts between the old and the new, to name a few. But Gothic science fiction stories seem contained to Shelley-esque monsters and candle-lit laboratories, not in the pastel-toned and softly lit Spike Jonze movie Her. However, Jonze utilizes elements of the Gothic as described by Dr. Jerrold Hogle in his introductory essay “Introduction: modernity and the proliferation of the Gothic” to illustrate the ways in which technological advancements are slowly but surely driving us away from each other, painting innovation as a classic Gothic monster of our own making. Ultimately, Jonze argues that, while the unrelenting advance
The romanticized view of Gothic literature has influenced many by its gloomy atmosphere of metaphorical elements. Gothic Literature, also known as Gothic Horror, combines elements of horror, romanticism, and supernatural events. The beginning of Gothic Literature began in the 18th century “during the medieval times” where it was “a strong source of inspiration” , which influenced many of the authors setting choices such as the use of castles and monasteries. Horace Walpole, author of The Castle of Otranto, is known to be the first author of Gothic Romance making “use of the medieval Gothic architecture styles and design” (Lad 1). Differentiating from other genres of novels, Gothic novel express emotions of isolation, fear, despair, and suspense. The authors Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, and H.P. Lovecraft displayed these dark elements through their writings and impacted history’s literature (Lad 1).
The Gothic begins with later-eighteenth-century writers' turn to the past; in the context of the Romantic period, the Gothic is, then, a type of imitation medievalism. When it was launched in the later eighteenth century, The Gothic featured accounts of terrifying experiences in ancient castles — experiences connected with subterranean dungeons, secret passageways, flickering lamps, screams, moans, bloody hands, ghosts, graveyards, and the rest. By extension, it came to designate the macabre, mysterious, fantastic, supernatural, and, again, the terrifying, especially the pleasurably terrifying, in literature more generally. Closer to the present, one sees the Gothic pervading Victorian literature (for example, in the novels of Dickens and the