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Gothic imagery in literature
Themes in gothic literature
Themes in gothic literature
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Recommended: Gothic imagery in literature
In the Christian tradition, Satan is commonly accepted as a hideous and monstrous being in direct contrast to God’s graceful mercy, often a shadowy figure with little depth. Yet there exists another very gothic view of this figure, as demonstrated by Milton in Paradise Lost, of a long suffering villain who appears more tragic artist than ultimate deceiver. The Monk, by Matthew Lewis, makes use of more tragic and mythical elements to make something altogether different, a Dionysian figure. Lewis uses such descriptive speech, symbols, and themes all connected to Greek myth to present a chaos creating character who transgresses not only God, but societal boundaries. While transgressions have been profusely researched in Gothic literature, the Dionysian myth connected to the Daemon spirit have been overlooked. I will reveal how much the scene of Ambrosio’s first meeting with Satan draws upon myths, symbols, and perceptions of the Greek God, and furthermore why these connections exist and reinforce the gothic genre.
Before unraveling the scene of Ambrosio and the fallen angle it is necessary to give a short general history of Dionysus, as it relates to this passage. Dionysus was born to a human mother Semele, who burns after seeing Zeus in his true form (Hamilton 65). Zeus saves the child and places him to be raised among nymphs, associated with “the stars which bring rain when they near the horizon” (65) and in this way Dionysus was “born of fire and nursed by rain” (65). Imagery of the vine also helps perpetuate the God’s yearly death, causing him to be torn apart every winter, as well as influencing the Maenads, a group of frenzied woman who run tearing apart anything in their path. While wine can bring joy, these sinister aspects ...
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...rprising that queerness exists, showing fears of non-normative sexuality, which like Dionysus is uncivilized. The beauty of gothic literature is that a monster-villain is never just a monster-villain, but something deeper psychologically. In this case, Satan is the queer Greek Dionysus, and in the future this connection between Dionysus and other monsters in Gothic literature should be researched, as the only way to see status and power is to look at who lacks or subverts it.
Works Cited
Abrams, M.H. "Gothic Novel." A Glossary of Literary Terms. 9th ed. Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2009. 137-8. Print.
Aristophanes. The Frogs. Public Domain, 2005. Kindle.
Hamilton, Edith. "The Two Great Gods of Earth: Dionysus or Bacchus." Mythology. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1942. 64-76. Print.
Lewis, Matthew. The Monk: A Romance. London: Penguin, 1998. Print.
Everyone remembers the nasty villains that terrorize the happy people in fairy tales. Indeed, many of these fairy tales are defined by their clearly defined good and bad archetypes, using clichéd physical stereotypes. What is noteworthy is that these fairy tales are predominately either old themselves or based on stories of antiquity. Modern stories and epics do not offer these clear definitions; they force the reader to continually redefine the definitions of morality to the hero that is not fully good and the villain that is not so despicable. From Dante’s Inferno, through the winding mental visions in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, spiraling through the labyrinth in Kafka’s The Trial, and culminating in Joyce’s abstract realization of morality in “The Dead,” authors grapple with this development. In the literary progression to the modern world, the increasing abstraction of evil from its classic archetype to a foreign, supernatural entity without bounds or cure is strongly suggestive of the pugnacious assault on individualism in the face of literature’s dualistic, thematically oligopolistic heritage.
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 rewarded 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 there is no reward, Gogol conveyed the idea that evil is prevalent everywhere and in everyone.
In John Milton’s epic, Paradise Lost, the author establishes Satan as the most complex and thought-provoking character in the tale through his depiction of Satan’s competing desires. Throughout the first four books of Paradise Lost, Satan repeatedly reveals his yearning both for recognition from God and, simultaneously, independence from God. The paradox that prevents Satan from achieving his desires may be interpreted as a suggestion of Milton’s establishment of a sympathetic reading for this character, as he cannot truly find happiness. In actuality, the construction of Satan’s rivaling aspirations evince Satan’s repulsive depravity to Milton’s audience and encourage readers to condemn his character.
Milton’s Satan in Paradise Lost is a complex character meant to be the evil figure in the epic poem. Whenever possible Satan attempts to undermine God and the Son of God who is the true hero of the story. Throughout the story Milton tells the readers that Satan is an evil character, he is meant not to have any redeeming qualities, and to be shown completely as an unsympathetic figure. Satan’s greatest sins are pride and vanity in thinking he can overthrow God, and in the early part of the poem he is portrayed as selfish while in Heaven where all of God’s angels are loved and happy. Satan’s journey starts out as a fallen angel with great stature, has the ability to reason and argue, but by Book X the anguish and pain he goes through is more reason for him to follow an evil path instead. Even so, Milton uses literal and figurative imagery in the description of Satan’s character to manipulate the reader’s response to the possibility that Satan may actually be a heroic figure. As the plot of the story unfolds there are moments where the reader can identify with Satan’s desires and relate to his disappointments.
At the beginning of the poem, Satan is viewed as a very majestic angel of great stature and an even bigger leadership skill. He is pictured as a hero in book one solely because the poem focuses on him and because it shows his pain "Both of lost happiness and lasting pain"(1) [55] "Torments him; round he throws his baleful eyes"(1) [56] "That witness'd huge affliction and dismay"(1) [57] his second transformation is where his evilness shows, Satan, after hearing about the new race and the new land, earth, travels all the way to earth in order to see it and see the new race. He tries to enter heaven, and to do so he transforms into a cherub, to deceive ...
Throughout Donen’s film and Bulgakov’s novel, the two satanic characters, George Spiggott and Professor Woland, humiliate and instill fear in innocent individuals through deceit. Rather than terrorizing others with wrath...
Throughout Paradise Lost Lucifer/Satan is seen as the main character, full of development and subtle changes, and he is easily comparable to any ...
Dintenfass, Mark. "Heart of Darkness: A Lawrence University Freshman Studies Lecture." 14 Mar. 1996. *http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~csicseri/dintenfass.htm* (2 Feb. 2000).
The identity of the true protagonist in Paradise Lost is a mystery. One would gather that Milton, a Puritan, would have no problem casting God as the hero, and Satan as the antagonist. However, looking back in history, Milton saw that most epic heroes had conflicts that prevented them from accomplishing their goals. God and his Son have no conflict, and Adam’s story does not really begin until the Fall of Man. Therefore, Milton was forced to select Satan as the hero of Paradise Lost because he adheres to the guidelines of epic poetry set by Homer, Virgil and others. There are many examples of how Milton uses and edits the tradition of these previous epics in the formation of the Devil as a hero. One of the most basic examples of heroism in epic poetry is the exhortation of the leader to his followers. In The Odyssey, Homer lets Odysseus give a speech that would convince anyone they could survive the journey to the Strait of Messina, "Then we die with our eyes open, if we are going to die, or know what death we baffle if we can. (Ln.1243-1245)" After passing the Sirens, the ship approaches the Strait, and the crew sees the twin terrors of Scylla and Charybdis, they are mortified. Odysseus again lifts their spirits with this speech, "Friends, have we ever been in danger before this? More fearsome, is it now, than when the Cyclops penned us in his cave? What power he had! Did I not keep my nerve, and use my wits to find a way out for us?
Living in a period of important religious and cultural flux, John Milton's poetry reflects the many influences he found both in history and in the contemporary world. With a vast knowledge of literature from the classical world of Greek and Roman culture, Milton often looked back to more ancient times as a means of enriching his works. At other times, however, he relies on his strong Christian beliefs for creating spiritually compelling themes and deeply religious imagery. Despite the seemingly conflicting nature of these two polarized sources of inspiration, Milton somehow found a way of bridging the gap between a pagan and a Christian world, often weaving them together into one overpowering story. The pastoral elegy Lycidas, written after the death of a fellow student at Cambridge, exemplifies this mastery over ancient and contemporary traditions in its transition from a pagan to a Christian context. Opening the poem in a setting rich with mythological figures and scenery, then deliberately moving into a distinctly Christian setting, Milton touches upon two personally relevant issues: poetry and Christian redemption. In this way, Lycidas both addresses the subject of being a poet in a life doomed by death and at the same time shows the triumphant glory of a Christian life, one in which even the demise of the poet himself holds brighter promises of eternal heavenly joy.
John Milton created an epic poem unlike any other. He created the poem while going blind, and recited it in its entirety, after he went completely blind, for his daughters to record. Paradise Lost is arguably the greatest epic poem ever written, though not the most well-known. It is so great because it is so modern. Other epics, such as The Iliad or The Odyssey written by Homer are poems of the past. They incorporate a religion that is no longer followed, and are something of science fiction today. Milton’s Paradise Lost is based on Christian Theology, and contains, what many believe, a hero that should not be considered a hero at all. Milton places Satan as the epic hero in his epic poem. Satan is the main character, and the reader understands most of the story of Paradise Lost through Satan’s eyes. Satan is a peculiar character, as he constantly displays conflicting emotions about being forced into Hell; his motivations throughout the poem give him some qualities, as seen in lines 242-270 of Book 1, that traditional epic heroes have, but there are also characteristics that make Sat...
Samson Agonistes is Milton’s final work, and as such is remarkable for its lack of finality. The poem is maddeningly oblique; Milton gives no answers, and barely poses any questions. However, Milton succeeds in writing Christian tragedy in Samson Agonistes by presenting the ease with which a Christian can be guided away from a real interaction with his own faith. Samson’s blindness is the blindness of all Christians who seek the path of salvation without divine guidance, and his tragedy is the tragedy of all those who convince themselves they have found it on their own. While Milton is very much working under the circumscription of Greek tragedy, his choices of interlocutors for Sampson speak to his fascination with a major paradox of Christianity: that man cannot work out his faith alone, and yet he must. By removing all direct divine presence from the poem, Milton explores the consequences of following Christian law without striving for Christian faith.
Satan was a prominent figure in religious rhetoric as an evil icon taking on the meaning of the worse of creatures. However, Romantic philosophers utilized Satan as means of transferring radical ideas. Percy Shelley “had employed Satan as a symbol of political goodness” in his writing and as a “rebel in a political context” (Faxneld 532). The goal of Romantic authors in using Satan is to directly attack already established norms in society and politics. Satan also allows the authors to express contradictions within political, religious, gender, and social rules since Satan was the symbol for “toppling world power”, hinting at a socialist movement (Faxneld 532). Mary Shelley is using the technique of “startling people by using symbol they instinctively consider evil could be a way to make think more carefully about manners of preconceived notions” (Faxneld 554). Similar to the Romantic technique of responding the the human as a whole, Shelley tries to manipulate something that is common knowledge to most people during the time to persuade the public toward her
In order to attempt to discern if Satan is a tragic hero, his character must fit a certain profile. According to Aristotle's theory, the tragic hero has the potential to be great, but is doomed to fail. The tragic hero, although fallen, still wins a moral victory. The general characteristics follow that the tragic hero is a noble, is responsible for their fate, contains a tragic flaw, and is doomed to make a severe error in judgment. Eventually, the tragic hero falls from a high status, realizes the mistake that was made, faces and accepts their death, and finally ends in a tragic death. It is important to state that, in all tragic heroes, the audience is affected by fear and/or pity. In Paradise Lost, the reader is easily able to relate to Satan, even pity him at some points...