Summary Of Beckfor Focusing By William Beckford

Written in 1786, William Beckford`s masterful novel is one of the most enjoyable and fascinating of the eighteenth-century Oriental tales. Throughout the book, the author uses different gothic concerns to shed light on one single fact that is how the pursuit of “forbidden” knowledge is futile. However, while laying full emphasis on this, Beckford skillfully merged his occidental beliefs which the readers can clearly perceive in his conclusion, and the novel as a whole. My point of view on this is that William Beckford used a multivalent tone, allowing his readers to interact with the characters on a specific level. However, his occidental belief as a western style for domination in the novel did not remain hidden.

The major concern explored by

For example, Vathek is perceived as egoistic and the use of Beckford`s dark tone to portray Vathek`s endeavors for knowledge, strengthens the idea of the author focusing himself fully on the gothic writing of his era. Professor John Mullan concludes about Gothic literature in his article ‘The origins of the Gothic’ stating that: “Gothic involves the supernatural (or the promise of the supernatural), it often involves the discovery of mysterious elements of antiquity, and it usually takes its protagonists into strange or frightening old buildings.”(The origins of the Gothic, 2014).This explanation by Professor Mullan enlightens us on Beckford`s conclusion as the latter symbolically uses the Castle built by Vathek as an extremely ominous symbol for his gothic novel, as it is where Carathis and Vathek are linked with the horrific supernatural knowledge. Thus in the extract, different techniques used by Beckford`s to build on fear and terror “became prey to grief”, “and remorse without mitigation “depicts the novel as a purely gothic