The period typically associated with European Gothic fiction begins with Horace Walpole’s T he Castle of Otranto published in 1764 and ends with Charles Maturin’s Melmoth the Wanderer published in 1820. Thus, it was and continues to be described as a reactionary genre devoted to returning repressed societal fears to our attention so we might expel them. Gothic literature arose at the end of the eighteenth century during a time of social, political, and economic unrest. The crumbling walls of Kenilworth Castle against the backdrop of a stormy sky filled with birds in flight evokes the gloomy aesthetic of early Gothic fiction ( Tillibean). For the next several decades, authors as varied as Ann Radcliffe, Sir Walter Scott, and Jane Austen would utilize various aspects of the genre to different ends, each manipulating Gothic’s stock elements to fit his or her unique aim. Carol Margaret Davison builds on Spector’s theory, pointing out how “as the vast majority of Gothic works illustrate, the component parts of this untidy and undying monster have been variously, regularly and successfully reconfigured to promote vastly different political and aesthetic ends and to speak to a broad cross-section of audiences and eras” (57). Within the first chapter, readers encounter a prophecy, the supernatural, a beautiful virgin, a dutiful, abandoned wife, a persecuted maiden, ridiculous servants, a young, handsome peasant, and a ghost, all set within the labyrinthine corridors of the eponymous castle. In the words of Robert Spector, the ensuing events, “provided all the machinery of the genre its setting, theme, and subversive subject matter remained the stock material of the Gothic whatever changes it underwent” (9). Manfred, having only this one heir and a wife incapable of bearing additional children, immediately sets upon Isabella with the aim of taking her as his own wife. In the opening pages of Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto (1764), Manfred, whom readers will come to recognize as a definitive Gothic villain, sends a servant to fetch his son, Prince Conrad, who is to marry the Lady Isabella however, the servant discovers Conrad crushed to death beneath an impossibly large, black-plumed helmet. This dark past of the setting results in the element of the supernatural through ghosts and eerie presences.1 Gothic Literature in the Eighteenth Century The old castle, mansion, abbey or estate is significant to the plot often, a death or murder has taken place at that location. ![]() In the 19th and 20th centuries, family estates became the more common setting for the Gothic novel. Mansions and Family EstatesĮarly Gothic fiction of the 18th century emphasized Gothic architecture in the castles, mansions and abbeys where the novels' plots usually unfolded. The family unit is a confining structure from which characters must escape. Murders often take place within families, as well. Women are often depicted as damsels in distress at the mercy of these tyrannical men. ![]() Male characters are tyrannical, keeping their wives and children locked away in a family home. ![]() In early Gothic novels, women were often subject to the lustful wrongdoings of family patriarchs, brothers and fathers. Families are often depicted as broken, incestuous or murderous in Gothic fiction.
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