Irrational desire can be considered one of the main elements in gothic literature. In “The Queen of Spades” Alexander Pushkin shows how Tomsky’s irrational desire to find out the three winning cards from the countess eventually drives him mad and locked away in a mental hospital. In And Then There Were None Agatha Christie shows how Justice Wargrave’s irrational desire of how people should get justice for another eventually drives him over the edge. Similarly between both stories, irrational desire drove the central characters past their breaking point. Tomsky got word that the countess at the place he gambles knows the three cards that can win a game in spades. He went to all ends to try and get the countess to tell him the cards. He at some point then went to the countess’ house to confront her and she wound up dead. Afterwhile the countess came back but as a ghost and told Tomsky the three cards. Tomsky won a lot with his knowledge of the three cards. Although at one point one of the three cards told was not the correct one to win. He then became very angry and figured the countess told him wrong. Correspondingly, Wargrave believed that whether the person on the island really …show more content…
killed or didn’t kill the people accused, they should be punished. Therefore he picked people at random that he had background information on to invite to the island to receive what believed to be justice for the people “killed” by those invited to the island. In both stories the irrational desire of the main characters leads a to a tragic downfall. In “Queen of Spades” Tomsky goes haywire after finding that the cards told were wrong. He is eventually put into a mental hospital after be thought as crazy. While in all he says is “The tray, seven, ace! The tray, seven, queen!” Conversely, in And Then There Were None Wargrave takes it upon himself to get his way of justice by getting an eye for an eye. He does this by killing each one of guests on the island one by one. Including himself to make everything seem real to the other guest that are still alive. The main character in each story has ulterior motives towards the rest of the characters. In “Queen of Spades” Tomsky decides to take action of getting closer to the secret of the countess by going after Lisaveta. In doing so he using the fact that Lisaveta fancies him to his advantage. Tomsky “falls” in love with Lisaveta to try and get the secret of the countess out of her or get closer to the countess herself. Similarly, in And Then There Were None Wargrave lies about not knowing who invited everyone to the island when in reality it was himself that did so. Wargrave then went on to kill everyone one on the island. When it came time for him to “die.” He gained the trust of Dr. Armstrong to assist him in the plot. After the plan became success Dr. Armstrong and Wargrave talk on a cliff when Wargrave turned on Dr. Armstrong and killed him as well. On the other hand both stories have several differences.
The setting is a big difference between the two. In “Queen of Spades” the story takes place in Russia near a military base in a largely populated area. Meanwhile in And Then There Were None the story took place off the coast of Devon on an island with the only population being those invited to the island which is quickly declining. In addition that fact of supernatural present in “Queen of Spades” is a major difference. This being that a ghost is present in place of the countess after she has passed, and it’s the ghost that told Tomsky of the cards needed to win. As well as the queen winking at Tomsky when it is said he didn’t win with the card he had put down. In And Then There Were None there was no sign of the
supernatural. While both “Queen of Spades” and And Then There Were None share the qualities of the main character having a downfall due to desires, although in different ways, in addition to the main characters having ulterior motives towards other characters in the stories. They differed in several ways, such as setting and the presence of supernatural. In the end each and every gothic story have their differences. Although you can identify the fact that in many stories you can see the presence of irrational desire in the main characters of the stories.
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”.
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.
During the Romantic and Victorian period of British literature, several works were written about desire. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Alfred Lord Tennyson’s “Ulyssess,” and Matthew Arnold’s “Dover Beach” all have characters who desire something grander than they can ever obtain. In Frankenstein, the Monster desires love, but he does not know how to love or even what love is. Úlyssess wants adventure, yet he is old, foolish, and selfish. The speaker in “Dover Beach” longs for the world to turn back to Christianity, but the speaker cannot control what society does.
Gothic Literature was a natural progression from romanticism, which had existed in the 18th Century. Initially, such a ‘unique’ style of literature was met with a somewhat mixed response; although it was greeted with enthusiasm from members of the public, literary critics were much more dubious and sceptical.
Romantic literature, as Kathy Prendergast further claims, highlighted things like splendor, greatness, vividness, expressiveness, intense feelings of passion, and stunning beauty. The Romantic literary genre favored “parts” over “whole” and “content” over “form”. The writer argues that though both the Romantic literary genre and the Gothic art mode were medieval in nature, they came to clash with what was called classical conventions. That’s why, preoccupations with such things as the supernatural, the awful, the dreadful, the repulsive and the grotesque were the exclusive focus of the nineteenth century Gothic novel. While some critics perceived the Gothic as a sub-genre of Romanticism, some others saw it as a genre in its own right (Prendergast).
While literature often follows some pattern and can be predictable, it is often evolving and can change in an instant depending on the author. In most Gothic literature, a derivative of Romanticism, there is a gothic space in the work – a limited space in which anything can happen in contrast to the normal world in the work. In addition, normally, order is restored at the end of Gothic literature – the good is reward and the bad is punished. In his Gothic novella, The Terrible Vengeance (1981), Nicolai Gogol decided to expand the ‘normal’ idea of Gothic literature by, in the work, transforming the traditional Gothic space to encompass anything and everything; in addition to the use of space, through the ending in which these is no reward, Gogol conveyed the idea that evil is prevalent everywhere and in
In many ways the fascination with the gothic style of art, represented by music, literature, film, and others, is nothing more than a way for the observer to escape from real life and its many responsibilities. Gothic art claims to be profound and contain great esoteric meaning with life changing impact, yet the characters and the message are more often weak, unproductive, crippled, or even mad. Examples of this flaw in the argument in favor of the gothic imagination are given in the works by Beethoven, Goethe, Rice, and Gilman. It will be revealed that these authors have been misguided often by their own escapist nature to create a false reality and promote it as meaningful. In truth, the gothic imagination is the imagination of those who are looking for an excuse for their laziness and purpose behind their protective depression.
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 was a genre of writing created in the 1780's in order to give form to the impulses and fears of all mankind. It relied heavily upon the ideas of good and evil, and every emotion was symbolically externalized, either by nature, physical appearance, or crime, in order to establish a physical structure for the term evil. By the 19th century Romanticism began to appear, and slowly but dramatically changed Gothic literature forever.
When a person becomes fascinated with a certain object or thing, their attention is irresistibly drawn towards it. They become enticed and overly interested in the object, trying to study it more, in hopes of learning and gather more information from it. However, when this fascination violently preoccupies every second of our time then it is no longer just a captivating interest but now an obsession. When someone is obsessed with something they are devoted and completely infatuated with the idea of that object, becoming powerless to resist the temptation that the object compels over them. It becomes an aggressive fixation and in some cases they may even lose themselves or their own sanity in the process. This idea that obsession leads to insanity is furthermore explored in Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Tell Tale Heart” in which the narrator becomes so enthralled with the eye of his old neighbor, that when he kills his neighbor in attempts to get rid of the eye, he cannot keep himself together and reveals to the authorities his secret, which in turn can be assumed to result in the narrator’s own death. In “The Tell Tale Heart,” Poe uses great symbolism and a distinct style to reveal that obsession ultimately leads to insanity.
Romanticism played a large role in the creation of gothic literature, and it was considered to be “a lunatic fringe version of romanticism” (Tiffin). Gothic novels often had a powerful unleashing of emotions to very extreme levels “beyond social constraining” (Tiffin). The genre’s character often had an excess of a specific type (Tiffin), and in an analysis of Frankenstein and Northanger Abbey, this excess can be seen in Frankenstein’s ambition and Catherine’s curiosity.
As one of the first gothic novels Frankenstein explores the darker side of human nature, ambitions, and the human mind.
Gothic Literature highlights the contrast of power and it is always
The term ‘Gothic’ is highly amorphous and open to diverse interpretations; it is suggestive of an uncanny atmosphere of wilderness gloom and horror based on the supernatural. The weird and eerie atmosphere of the Gothic fiction was derived from the Gothic architecture: castles, cathedrals, forts and monasteries with labyrinths of dark corridors, cellars and tunnels which evoked the feelings of horror, wildness, suspense and gloom.
In Gothic literature there are few important characteristics that act as the backbone of the plot and many of the circumstances. For example alienation, transgression, and supernatural (symbolism). Alienation can be defined as emotional isolated or dissociation from others. Alienation helps with character development. For example, a character being separated from their loved ones physically and mentally which cause them to feel isolated from the society and develop a new characteristic. Having a new characteristic usually lead to transgression, transgression is the violation of a particular moral or breaking rules in the society. Most of the time it happens to the protagonists of the story, a protagonist is “the main character in a story, novel, drama, or other literary work, the character that the reader or audience empath...